TH kit acquired...

[timfiredog]

Ok so short story long, I received the Twin Hammers kit from my wife for my 41st bday a couple of weeks ago (and here I thought she was not a fan of the 9 other crawlers lurking around the house). Building this will be fun, but I've come to a crossroads that I hope you guys can lend some assistance with. I've already got all the upgrade do-dads, shock relocation, steering mod, etc. But I'm torn between the electronics. Thus far, all the other rigs are running brushed motors on MiHi batteries (I've just been to lazy to upgrade)malongnwith being single speed transmissions. This brings us to the point, time to step up and go brushless LiPo. Any ideas for ESC, motor, battery and servos word be gladly welcomed, or anything that I should steer clear of.

[Fallen]

For the motor: somewhere around 3000kv seems to be popular. A fairly cheap system that I enjoyed in mine was the Dynamite Tazer 3300kv system for $100. That isn't a sensored system, but in low gear, I crawl with mine and I never found myself wishing for a sensored system.

With that system, I use one of 2 batteries. Either the Dynamite 2S 4000mah shorty pack for high gear bashing, or the Dynamite 2S 2000mah softpack for crawling.

I don't have any good recommendations for servos, but if I did, it'd probably be something made by Horizon...

[Lavaheadache]

I use Castle Sidewinder sct esc/3800 kv combo. Works great, also don't find myself wishing for a sensored system.

[meatmonkey]

Funny, I can't stand trying to crawl with a sensorless brushless. Seems all jittery and tries to run at a minumum speed, wheras I expect to be able to truly creep along at mm by mm.

I'm running an older gen 1 Tekin Redline 17.5 on 2s and 3s geared 24/82 for summer and 27/78 for ultimate snow bashing. It's been great, but I wouldn't run the newer gen 2/3 because the cans are vented, which seems silly for any offroad motor.

IMO any decent 17.5 or 18.5 on 3s is plenty of pep for the TH. If you like overkill check out the Tekin Roc412, or Holmes Hobbies puller lineup if you want to ensure CVD failures.

The Castle 4 poles are hard to beat as far as raw power to dollar ratio. My brother has the 5700 in a TH on 2s geared 21/82. On 2s only its as fast as my 17.5 on 3s geared 24/82. But it doesn't crawl. We'll play on stonewalls and he'll keep falling off because of small throttle control issues inherant to the startup of a sensorless motor under load. I tried it and got frustrated quickly because even geared low it wants to go 1mph minimum. Fine for driving on most trails and through the woods, but it just doesn't cut it when the rocks get technical.

Its more initial investment to go sensored, but if you actually crawl it's completely worth it.

The servo is a bit of a pain to replace since you must mockup install it with the mounting brackets just ever so slightly snugged up against the servo. Then install the servo onto the chassis so the brackets get pulled snug against chassis by the 2 chassis bolts before fully tightening the 3 accessible bolts, powering everything up to set your servo horn position, so you can remove it to tighten last bolt, and horn bolt. Then reinstall. In order to not play that game often, you really want to get a really good servo from the start.

I'm running a Hitec 7950, my brothers got a Promodeler 420. Their both great, only complaint with the Hitec is the price. If you think you'll get away with a $30 servo, then you'll end up buying multiple underperforming servos. Take your newfound slop-free steering and Al servo horn, add a little brushless speed, and you have a recipe for stripped servo gears.

You can get away with almost any mini servo for shifting though.

I'm running 2200 40c Turnigy 2s and 3s in most of my fleet and can't complain. The stock battery location rewards running a smaller battery in the form of lower cog, which means better everything.

[rcbasser]

Mamba Max Pro ( or new MambaX ), Tekin Roc412 - 3100 kv with Spectrum 6230 servo. Crawls perfect but will still go faster than the rig can be driven.

[timfiredog]

Thanks guys! I actually picked up all 3 options figuring I'll try them all out. I can always find uses for the other 2 at some point.

[timfiredog]

OK, so one more question.

What pinion/gear combo do you find works best on the 3800kV set up. I know the stock is 28/48. Looking for a decent all around set up.

[meatmonkey]

The 3800 is a slightly longer can with much more torque than the 4600/5700. You can get away with almost whatever you want. Try the stock pinion, and if you'd like more speed gear up a couple teeth on the pinion.

[SkiSteve]

Originally Posted by rcbasser

Mamba Max Pro ( or new MambaX ), Tekin Roc412 - 3100 kv with Spectrum 6230 servo. Crawls perfect but will still go faster than the rig can be driven.

What speed do you max out at, what pinion / spur and what battery are you using?

[timfiredog]

TH is fully assembled, minus the electronics right now.

I need some battery choices now. Castle Sidewinder sct esc/3800 kv combo is the ESC/motor combo.

What batteries do you guys think would give me max run time and power output. (Sorry for this question, I'm still on NMiH on my other crawlers).

[Sr.Irie]

Castle speed control pick your amprage, hobby king motor tell you find what kv you want. Then upgrade when the motor fails.