Jon's SCX24 Rock Buggy

[JonHylands]

I'm fairly new to the whole RC world - I've spent many years designing and building autonomous robots, but I want to do something that uses the same sorts of fabrication skills, but had a distinctly more social aspect to it.

I bought an SCX24 Deadbolt, and immediately started modding it. I did a 1/18 scale VW Baja Bug body for a bit, but then I kind of fell in love with tube chassis builds, and decided to try one of those.

I probably should have started this thread a few weeks ago, but here I am.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220101_184906873.jpg



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220101_184823279.jpg

That's a slightly earlier version of the buggy, it has had a few changes since then.

This is what it looks like now:



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220106_143511556.jpg



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220106_143453693.jpg

The chassis is custom designed in CAD by myself. It is printed on a Raise3D N2 printer, in carbon infused ABS. The white panels are just straight ABS. The whole thing is held together with M1.4 machine screws, so I can take it apart easily (which I do, often).

Each half of the chassis is printed separately.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220106_221342693.jpg

It has RC4WD Scramblers mounted on Amazon aluminum beadlocks. The suspension has been converted to 4-link, and the links are all 3D printed ABS.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220106_221704747.jpg

It has Hot Racing 42mm long travel shocks, brass diff covers & knuckles, brass wheel extenders, and an EMAX servo on a custom 3D printed mount. I'm using a Furitek lizard ESC with a MofoRC Nano Beast brushless motor. For a radio I'm using a FlySky GT5, with the 6-channel receiver.

I'm pretty happy with how it came out so far. Future plans include adding a winch (using a very small gearmotor) and some custom lighting.

[redneckwraith]

That's awesome nice work!

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[goldmember]

You're off to a great start, that's for sure! I've been a member for 16 years and can't do this. LOL

[TheBakedBeans]

Looking good! I'd be interested in how long 3D printed links last.

Also, what about that 1/18 Baja Bug?? Make sure you make a thread for that, even it it's not around any more. Love Baja Bugs!

[JonHylands]

Originally Posted by goldmember

You're off to a great start, that's for sure! I've been a member for 16 years and can't do this. LOL

Thanks - I've been building robots for over 20 years, and doing 3D printing for 15.

- Jon

[JonHylands]

Originally Posted by TheBakedBeans

Looking good! I'd be interested in how long 3D printed links last.

Also, what about that 1/18 Baja Bug?? Make sure you make a thread for that, even it it's not around any more. Love Baja Bugs!

Well, I suppose it mostly depends on what material they are printed from. These are ABS, which is very strong and a little flexible, so hopefully a long time.

I'll throw on a few pics of the Baja Bug setup when I get to my computer.

- Jon

[JonHylands]

Here are a few pictures of my SCX24 before it became a tube chassis buggy. I picked up a 1/18 scale MiniT Baja Bug body off ebay, and 3D printed some mounting points for it.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20211127_231906188.jpg



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20211123_183253240.jpg

I had a Komodo (which I really liked, but had to replace with a Nano Beast because the Komodo was just too big for my buggy.

If anyone wants STL files for the battery trays or the bug body mounts, I'm providing them freely.

Here's a couple pictures of it out crawling in the snow with a friend (who has a 1/10 rig):



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20211128_182439016.jpg



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20211128_173926719.jpg

It was a nice little machine, and extremely capable (I could keep up with my 1/10 scale trailing buddies without a huge amount of trouble). I just decided to buy a Capra so I could more easily run with all the people in the group, who all run 1/10 scale, and that made me decide that I really like tube chassis buggies.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20211226_205407062.jpg

I'm planning on building up a 1/10 scale version of the SCX24 buggy, although I have to get a brazing torch, and wait until its a little warmer in the garage.

[islandlife]

Ive got links on my scx24 printed from carbon reinforced petg, havent broken one yet ��

[ChilliBreath]

Very cool! I am getting more and more jealous of people with (access to) a 3D printer...

I'd be interested to see some video!

[JonHylands]

Couple simple videos of it on my YouTube channel:

Video One

Video Two

[smog]

Nice, love how the cage work turned out. I am seeing a 1:24 Wraith.

[JonHylands]

Well, I'm going to try again, hopefully this post won't end up in the moderation queue forever. I got some of my winch parts yesterday, so I did a new version of the front hood, so the winch motor can tuck up between the battery and where the servo ends up one full compression.

You can see the middle fairlead in this picture, just in front of the winch spool, and the front fairlead as well:



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220108_130227969.jpg

You can see it here mounted, peeking out just above the tire.



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220108_130550036.jpg

Here's another pic, showing the winch location from the bottom:



https://jons.page/pics/PXL_20220108_132019025.jpg

Finally, here's a short video, showing the winch motor in action, using my large winch ESC (which will be replaced by a very tiny 1A micro-ESC, which is coming from AliExpress hopefully around the end of the month).

Winch Video

- Jon

[JonHylands]

Got a really nice machined aluminum motor mount for the Nano Beast from Nick Albin (he sells them on Facebook). Its a thing of beauty, and it removes the need for the intermediate (middle) spur gear between the pinion gear and the big spur gear.



Once I tried to install it back in the vehicle though, I realized it turns the motor around, so it would be facing forwards, and thus (in this buggy) wouldn't fit.



So I turned around the bottom plate, the one the transmission and links are connected to (and in my case, the entire cage is also connected to). Now the motor ran into the box where the receiver is, but that I can fix. Out comes the dremel to hack away, and see how things need to be repositioned and cut away to make it fit.





So that looked pretty reasonable. The receiver needed a couple extra mm to fit, but it wasn't hard to stretch things a bit to accomodate for it.







So, all in all, I'm pretty happy with how it fits now.

[AK KRAWLER]

Awesome build man!!!

[JonHylands]

Originally Posted by AK KRAWLER

Awesome build man!!!

Thanks!

Here's a couple new pics, and a short video climbing up over a rock a couple times.





Short Video - Link to YouTube

[AK KRAWLER]

That looks great and makes short work of that rock

[Slambaam]

Was there a need for the “idler” gear on the original nano plate?


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[JonHylands]

Originally Posted by Slambaam

Was there a need for the “idler” gear on the original nano plate?

Yes, the first mount that Mofo came up with had the motor in the normal, rear-facing orientation, and because the transmission is in the way, the motor can't be mounted close enough so the pinion gear interfaces with the spur gear directly. Thus the addition of the idler gear.

Nick Albin (not related to Mofo) came up with a machined aluminum mount, that mounted the motor on the front side of the transmission, where it can be placed close enough so that the pinion can interface directly with the spur gear. The other Nick (from MofoRC) saw this, and made up his own design for a front-facing motor mount that eliminated the idler gear in the same way.

I wanted to use the aluminum mount, but the motor wouldn't fit on the front side in my buggy, so I had to turn around the whole bottom plate, so the front-mounted motor became a rear-mounted motor (see my pictures above).

[distress]

This is excellent!

[JonHylands]

Originally Posted by distress

This is excellent!

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I made a little video last weekend (okay, so its an almost 30 minute video) of me playing around with it on some rocks and concrete chunks under a bridge (it was really cold, but not too much snow because it was under a bridge).

Not much in the way of editing - all the rollovers and wedges you could wish for, but some pretty cool lines and running for a little micro scale buggy like this:

SCX24 Buggy On The Rocks Video (YouTube)