Finally bought another scale crawler

[Neil2704]

Hi. I have a gmade r1 and scx10 both heavily modified and heavily worn out. I retrofitted the scx10 2 speed tranny into the r1 and put a savage flux brushless powertrain in the scx10. Their both bastardized beyond redemption. I eventually retired them a little over a year ago and dropped off the face of the earth in this hobby. I recently got the itch to come back to the hobby and did a lot of research over the last month on what to buy.*

the more I researched the scale crawlers out right now the less sure i was what I wanted. I immediately looked at the scx10-2 and I liked what I saw. I like the after market support of axial and their simple layout. The scx10-2 addresses many of the issues I had with the scx10. But that's boring. I already had an scx10. I want to see what else is out there.*

next I looked at the hpi venture. I love hpi products I've had in the past. It looks great. Got good reviews. My only gripes with it was the weak steering servo and the battery placement is pretty far back for my liking. Also the plastic links were an issue on my scx and that seems cheap to me.

next I looked at the trx4. Well this is a truck I would love to hate, but I dont. I have had terrible luck with every traxxas ive had and ive grown to hate the whole company stemming all the way back to the days of trying to tune my first gen tmaxx and it being a gutless piece of hpi savage food.but the trx4 seems really well built with really good features that set it pretty far ahead of the competition. But alas I still have a sour taste in my mouth from years of disappointment from traxxas.*

next I looked at the redcat racing gen7 pro. I really liked this rig. For the money this thing seems stellar. Id buy one on the spot if I could get one locally. But by the time it's converted to Canadian with shipping from tower hobbies it' the same price as the scx10 and it loses its greatest edge which was it's price point.*

the trail finder 2 was next. I'l keep this one short. The kit is 700 Canadian with no electronics. Nope.*

lastly I looked at the vaterra ascender. It looks great. Got great reviews. And there isn' much I didnt like about this truck. I have heard they have a great after market but I haven' found it. Link please? But I like this truck.*

so with that research done I went to a nice hobby shop a few hours from home(5 times the selection as my home town hobby shop) and I narrowed it down to the ascender almost rtr(everything but the radio with the f100 body) I would have preferred a kit but they were sold out. My other choice is the scx10-2 builders kit. I hummed and hawed over which one I wanted. Then my wife said I don' have all day. Just get both! Haha. So I did.*

so I bought the ascender almost rtr, they were sold out of reasonably priced radios so I will hit another hobby shop in the morning. But I also bought the scx10-2 builders kit with a sidewinder3 esc, a rc4wd 35t motor, a fairly powerful waterproof servo, and rc4wd interco super swamper tires because I like them. As far as the radio goes I'm almost out of spending money. I may get two radios tomorrow morning or if I run out of spending money I'll use one of the flysky radios in my old rc.*

I am looking for links to buy a 2 speed tranny kit for both of these trucks asap as well as any note worthy mods. And some of my lipos went dead and won' charge anymore. So I am looking for battery suggestions as well please as I only have 2 batteries left that came back to life. Id also like to go to a smaller battery than the standard 6 cell c battery sized battery.

[DukeMinnix]

flysky still makes a great radio that is cheap comparitively to everything else and from anything I have seen, is more than adequate for scaling with i believe 8 channel on the hacked version.

As far as batteries go, you just want shorty packs. You'll start a pissing contest over brand if you let yourself, but push comes to shove if you're not racing or anything, most any of them will work just fine if you get the discharge rate you need. Lots of guys are having great luck with the new batteries just hitting the market that are a step above lipos, but i can't for the life of me remember their 4 letter designation. Maybe LIHV, but don't hold me to that. Natedog is always talking about them, so search the Ascender section. For what its worth, the ascender section seems to be the most friendly and is very active, so you made a good choice. I wish I had.

[durok]

The current "hot" Shorty pack is this one:

https://www.amainhobbies.com/protek-...116-17/p662759

ProTek RC 3S 100C Silicon Graphene HV Shorty LiPo Battery (11.4V/3600mAh)

Supposed to have more voltage, more runtime, longer life, lighter weight than equivalent mAh LiPo batteries because they are LiHV cells. Can be charged on a standard LiPo charger.

I gotta get one for my Ascender!

[Neil2704]

Thanks for the tips. I should have waited before buying batteries today. I was ending my vacation today and doubled back to the hobby shop for some batteries and ca glue that I forgot for my tires. I already have 2 6000 2 cell packs from my previous trucks and I bought two 5000 2 cell lipos today but I bought full size batteries not knowing how the battery mounted on the ascender. I was in a hotel so I didn't open up the rcs until I got home. Well it's 3 hours back to the hobby shop so I made them work. I took the battery tray from my retired scx-10 and drilled some holes in it and zip tied it sideways nice and tight behind the shock tower. I'll post some pics tomorrow. Also the factory steering servo in the ascender is pathetic. It stalled out on steering on carpet unless it was moving lol. So I'll be giving that an upgrade tomorrow with one from my retired rigs. Then the ascender should be trail ready. 2

[new2rocks]

Welcome back. Great story...and you made 2 good choices, lol. For the 2 speed conversion, SSD makes a conversion kit for the 10.2, and GCM Racing carries it:
http://gcmracing.ca/viewitem.php?productid=401

For the Ascender, you have two choices. You can buy the necessary components individually, or you can pickup up a complete Twin Hammers 2-speed. If you want DIY, there’s a parts list in Rich Trujillo’s thread:
How to convert Ascender trans to a Two Speed

As far as must-do mods, there really aren’t many. On both trucks, aluminum servo horns are a must with a decent servo. Stock rod ends in the 10.2 are garbage, so you might as well replace those straight away. The kit tranny/t-case gears are metal but not as strong as hardened steel. Hot Racing makes a complete set of tranny and t-case gears, and SSD makes a replacement for the t-case gears. I think the SSD 2-speed kit includes hardened replacements for all but 1 of the tranny gears, so you could pair that with their t-case set and get most of the way there.

For the Ascender, the rest of the stock components are very strong and should hold up fine. Upgrading the knuckles will help, esp with a stronger servo. There are several aluminum replacements available, and we have a printed double shear replacement through our Shapeways store. Hard to go wrong with any of them.

Hope that helps. Enjoy your trucks! “thumbsup”

[Neil2704]

Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it. I will be replacing the steering servo on the ascender this morning and hopefully getting outside to try it out. Although it's minus 40 degrees Celsius here and if you translate that into Fahrenheit it translates into "damn that's cold!" So if I can't stand the cold I'll start putting together my scx

Here's my rc work station


Here's my retired scx10 heavily modified with 2 speed tranny and savage flux brushless. It's uselessly fast. It made short work of several sets of bead lock rims and has torn tires like condoms in the rocks. It also does stand still backflips if you punch it.




AND here's my semi retired r1 with an scx tranny sidewinder 3 and a beefy steering servo I'll probably steal for my new rigs

[DukeMinnix]

holy gigantic pics... anyone who is tech savvy wanna give this guy the how to lesson on resizing his photos?

[Neil2704]

I finished the ascender and it works fine now with the savox servo in it.



now onto bigger and better things. time to put the scx10 together and charge up my new batteries





The ascender is trail ready and i got pretty far building the scx-10 2 today, i have the drive train and axles assembled, mostly just frame and skids and such left now.

I am a little nervous to paint my Cherokee body. I have a 97 Cherokee xj on 33s and and hoping it paint it up just like that. Any tips before I paint it? Also I lost my castle link for my side winder 3. Can you buy just the link?

[DukeMinnix]

Originally Posted by Neil2704

I am a little nervous to paint my Cherokee body. I have a 97 Cherokee xj on 33s and and hoping it paint it up just like that. Any tips before I paint it? Also I lost my castle link for my side winder 3. Can you buy just the link?

I'm the last one to give advice on paint, but the castle link I can advise on. Yes, you can purchase both castle link and the field link directly from castle. You can also post up and we're a pretty good group of guys. Lots of guys have multiple castle products so have the card for a free link they may hook you up with.

[Neil2704]

Originally Posted by DukeMinnix

I'm the last one to give advice on paint, but the castle link I can advise on. Yes, you can purchase both castle link and the field link directly from castle. You can also post up and we're a pretty good group of guys. Lots of guys have multiple castle products so have the card for a free link they may hook you up with.

great thank you. I am having trouble with my scx10 2 kit, but ill post in the proper forum rather than dragging this thread on.

[durok]

Neil - I'm not the best painter by any stretch... but tips include prepping the lexan by washing with dish soap or liquid hand soap, thumbnail the edges of window masks and any paint masking tape you are using to prevent paint seeping under. You can also lightly scuff the are to be painted with a scotchbrite pad to promote adhesion. you can paint the inside of the body one color (black to prevent sun shining though light colors /silver to look like bare metal /copper to resemble rust) and then paint the exterior the desired final color to lessen the "toy" look that the layer of clear lexan will give. Alternatively, a final shot of matte clear can also provide realism and protect decals.

As far as posting pics goes - thanks for the resize (could use rotating now, but I digress...)

We always like seeing pics of members rigs - a thousand words as they say!

I am vested enough in the hobby to find it reasonable to pay the membership fee here - makes for various little helpful benefits, chief among them the ability to post your own pics directly from your own PC. Gotta love it!

Below is a scuffed-up factory-painted K10 Ascender, with the yellow factory paint backed with black, some graphics and decals added and a final overcoat of matte clear. Ideally I would have masked the inside of the windows when I painted the black, but it's a beater body and I just went with the "Limo tint" look... (excuses, excuses)

I greatly prefer it to the "new" look... of course, I'll be buying a new body later to allow a (hopefully!) better job of realism and personal color choice:

[Neil2704]

Thank you for the tips on the paint. I bought tamiya black and the smoke for tint and then forest green for the body. I like the idea of adding a rust effect. I'm going to read more into that. My receiver decided to crap out out of the blue yesterday so that slowed me down in finishing my scx10 2 kit. I went to mock up my electronics and the receiver got super hot and kept unbinding until it burnt up. But alas I picked one up last night so I can finish the kit this morning


It's been a bumpy road and I butchered the body a bit. But oops. What else can I say. Lol. I can't wait to take these toys out and put them head to head. Stock for stock the ascender has more articulation. But that's not everything. We will see how it goes very soon

[mewalsh100]

Looks like ya painted your windows? You could always spray them gloss black or silver from the outside to give them a tint look. I’d recommend a clear decal film over that aftwrward for any sort of longevity. Like the green though!

[Neil2704]

It's a long story why the windows are green lol. I have a thread about it in the scx10-2 forum if you want to check it out

[mewalsh100]

Originally Posted by Neil2704

It's a long story why the windows are green lol. I have a thread about it in the scx10-2 forum if you want to check it out

I'll check it out!