Project: M8 TRX6

[Greatscott]

Finally got the chassis for this build...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

[Greatscott]

If you have ever wondered what an almost naked TRX6 looks like, here it is...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

The last steps in the tear-down will be two replace the wheel well shock towers and replace them with aluminum towers, which are scheduled to arrive sometime next week. I will also get rid of the diff-lock servos, but I think I'll keep the two speed, the DX6e should have an extra channel or two on the chassis side of the house. Unless something changes my mind, I will more than likely use the XL5 in crawler mode. I will be using one of Castle's 20A BECs for power.

After the shock towers go on the wheels will come off and fabrication of parts and pieces will begin. I will build it starting from the cab, and working my way back. I am still undecided on what I am going to do for the back of it, flat bed or semi 5th wheel hitch; might make the system modular so I can go either way fairly easily.

I will certainly need to do some work to the suspension to accommodate the weight. My guess right now is that the whole rig completed with top the scales at around 20 pounds. I'll likely put limiters in the shocks, giving them about 50% movement, and the preload will be all of the way down. When I am putting the limiters in, I'll put 60wt oil in to control sway.

Right now I am not planning on putting outriggers on, because that is a whole new bag of cats to deal with, but I need to see how well the chassis behaves when the crane is operational.

[Greatscott]

My slow motion commotion continues...

Between OT at work, school, other projects and a bevy of family issues, progress on this rig has been slower than what I wanted.

I finally got the frame stripped down to the point that I can start adding parts. I had to buy two sets of this towers to completely remove the wheel wells. From this point I'll start designing the mount for the cab, then I will shift to getting the crane platform mounted. Once those two are done, I'll start in on the engine compartment that goes between the two, then the bed.

Right now my plan is to put the electronics in the engine compartment, and put the battery under the bed. Of course, all of this is subject to change as the spirit moves me.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

[trig n tahoe]

wow... looks like quite project..got me in suspense

[Greatscott]

Originally Posted by trig n tahoe

wow... looks like quite project..got me in suspense

Me too...!!!

Between college and work I have had no time to work on this (or any RC project ). But, I am hoping to have my current class completed by the end of this weekend, an that will give me about a month or so before my next class starts, and will hopefully get some work done on this project.

[Greatscott]

Progress!!!!

I finally got some hardcore time to work on the cab base, and its chassis interface. I printed a test piece in white filament (5% infill) to allow for easy marking for changes and adjustments that need to be made.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

by Scott O, on Flickr

by Scott O, on Flickr

Overall it fits very well. I'll fix and adjust everything that needs tweaking, make a mount for the servo winch, and throw in some more detail before I print it out in olive green.

UPDATE...

I am about done with the lower portion of the cab, and getting ready to send it to the printer (27 hours). I need to figure out what I am missing on the front to make it look "complete".

The big square in the middle is were a grill is going to go. The small square below that is for the winch line, and will have an aluminum fairlead. The two holes closest to the bottom are where the shackle mounts go. The four upper holes are were that portion bolts onto the cab itself.

So, with all of that, what other details should I throw on the front without getting the whole mess overly busy?

Cab_base v24 by Scott O, on Flickr

[Greatscott]

Well, classes started up again this week, which means my build time has gone down significantly. But, I have been able to make a little progress. I got the cable mount done, and I have the mount for the crane unit almost done. Once I made two brackets (aluminum) that holes the front part of the crane on I realized that I need them to be longer than what I made them so they can be part of the subframe for bolting on other items.

But, here is what she looks like currently. After I get the brackets remade I will start work on the motor section above the front wheels. This is the section that will house all of the chassis electronics. The battery will be under the bed, behind the crane.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

[JonnyUK]

Nice work there buddy.

[Greatscott]

A bit more work...

To attach the front part of the crane I made some simple brackets out of aluminum...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

But, after just staring at thing thing for about an hour I realized that I would need a place to mount the details I want to put outboard of the chassis, in particular gas tanks and possum bellies. So, I went back to the drawing board and made longer brackets and giving them threaded 3mm holes.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

The tricky one was the left side with the shift servo.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Some time down the road I will rough up these brackets and throw some flat black on them. If the parts work out right, these brackets should be completely out of sight.

Man, I have forgotten what a pain it is working in aluminum, it would have been SO MUCH easier to design these in Fusion 360 and just print them. But, I wanted something very sturdy without being overly thick, so aluminum got the nod.

[Greatscott]

A little more work...

If you ever wondered what 54 hours of printing looks like... I likely could have cut this time down by a good number of hours, but I wanted it printer in a specific orientation to increase strength. Much of the print time was support material.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

This will be the e-tray, with a motor cowling going over the electronics.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

There will be spare tires mounted over the fenders/wheel wells. The spares will actually be attached to the motor cowling, this will allow clear access to the electronics.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

[Greatscott]

Well, had to play hooky from school a little bit to get some solid progress done. But, still a long way off from being ready to run the electronics, so say nothing about calling this project "finished". The next logical step from here is to build the bed, and that will show me what I need to do for the possum belly area. I pretty muck am thinking that I will have a fuel tank and tool box on each side, but until the bed's front fenders are done, I only have rough measurements for the rest of the stuff.

So, moving right along... I got the engine cowling done, and for now, I am satisfied with it. I can see at least a dozen little things to change on it, but I can go back later and tweak the stuff that really bugs me. The whole unit, cowling and spare tires lift off giving access to the ESC and RX.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

To solve the problem of not knowing what electronics I was going to put in it, and not knowing what I might want to do in the future, I made the whole mess, including the winch area under the cab somewhat modular. This will allow me, if needed, to design and print up another mount, if needed/wanted. I am already not liking the RX mount, so that will likely change.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

[Greatscott]

Thanks to a lot of poking a prodding, I went ahead and threw some of the files up on Thingiverse.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4820831

[durok]

Such a great project, so many cool mods - love the fact that this cab style will be riding on a more rugged chassis than the usual!

I love watching the 1:1 rigs tearing up the terrain, but the available RC versions just seem like they'd be too delicate.

[Greatscott]

More progress...

First, I was amazed by the number of downloads of the cab mount. It certainly didn't break Thingiverse, but it is the most downloads of one of my designs in such a short time.

I have most of the bed built, I need to make one more mount on the far back end of the bed, that will also be the battery mount. The frame is aluminum L-bracket, balsa planks, and a printed base.

Much to my dismay, 24 hours into the base's 30 hour print we lost power. I did get enough of the base printed to be able to mount up the frame and get the base attached to the chassis. But, it is missing the slats that come down the sides to fill in the giant gap between the shock towers. At this point I am not sure if I am going to reprint it, or use the wheels wells to fill in the gap.

The whole mess looks off now, but I am going to stain the planks dark brown, and the aluminum will be painted black. I might actually go for green, if I can find a color that matches one of the two greens on the rest of the rig.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

by Scott O, on Flickr

by Scott O, on Flickr

Here is the base, another six hours of printing and you not have been able to see through the chassis... The screw holes are far enough down, I can likely make it work, I really had wasting filament.

by Scott O, on Flickr

[Greatscott]

Making progress.

I have made progress on my bed. I have incorporated rails underneath the bed frame to put clearance lights in, and it hides the horrible job I did cutting the frame when I made it.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

Here is the sub frame...

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr

I am getting to that magical point where I'll need to pull just about everything apart and start running the electronics. There are a couple of parts I still don't have quite figured out yet, the back bumper being the major one. I am also having one heck of a time getting the right possum belly printed. The left side printed perfectly the first time, but the right side has failed three times. The first time the part came off of the bed after about two hours of printing, the second time it was about 18 hours into its print when something happened with the filament spool, breaking the filament, the this last time it stopped after 30 hours, failing to put the outer layers on. Very annoying.

Progress on this will slow down again, I start my next class on Monday, and that will take most of my free time...

[Benp]

Decking turned out great!

I’ve seen and used old motor on trailer decking to water proof it.

Looks very similar to how your stain job turned out.

You’ve got a ton of time and effort into this project. Gonna be awesome!

[armalite_ar50]

GreatScott

Looks great LOL

Where did you source the cab and boom? not really interested in the boom but I am the cab for my DYNAHEAD build.

I spent a lot of time reviewing the RC4WD BEAST II, Traxxas 6x6, and the Tamiya Dynahead 6x6.

Finally went with the Dynahead over the other two.

I have two trx4's ( one traxx one Bronco) already and some other Traxxas stuff ( MERV, REVO 2.0 )
And a Pile og the Tamiya stuff.

Anyways not to hi jack the thread But I really like the cab and the whole build, was wondering where you sourced it.

Thanks

[Greatscott]

This is actually the cab off of a Banggood 8x8, you can buy it there.

[armalite_ar50]

Thanks.

Just looking but the cab looks great.

Not sure what I'm doing yet still looking.

[Greatscott]

A bit more work done, got the cab lights installed and working. This was actually a lot more work that it looks like it should be. More or less you have to take the entire cab apart, and I had to get creative as to how the wires ran from the headliner to the bottom of the cab without looking like wires.

The light on top is actually a flasher ran off of HeyOK flasher module.

Untitled by Scott O, on Flickr