CrippleCreek's Cat Story

[CrippleCreekCrawler]

Well i've had a bunch of crap come up, and progress on the new rig has slowed to a crawl (it is a crawler though right :lmao But at the moment i have some work that i will pretty much do anything to put off doing, so i thought i'd share how i got into the RC trucks, since its only been a hobby of mine for about 2 months now. Yes there is RS10 content coming up, but I'm prone to internet forum verbosity, so feel free to just scroll down to the pics.
So i've always been a bit of a gearhead. First job in an engine shop when i was 12, continued along those lines all through highschool, electric motor shop in college, now i'm a mechanical engineer and design airplane related stuff. I've always had a collection of projects, since the first go-cart to fourwheelers, muscle cars, mud trucks and crawlers, whatever i could get my hands on/still had room to park somewhere :roll: But after spending last year building, tracking, breaking and rebuilding my latest toy, the cold weather and price of german car parts made me start looking for a cheap way to entertain myself in the (heated) attached shop.
So rewind to last June, when i got married. I had (big surprise) a car themed wedding reception, and got to design my own grooms cake, so this was the result:

When i was searching for the truck to put on my cake i picked up several different sizes, and one that was too big ended up on a shelf in my office. It happened to be a Target special, the $25 maisto rock crawler. I came across this thing a couple months ago and thought it looked fun so i threw some batteries in it and took it for a spin. Wow! Seriously, the last RC truck i had came with a 2ft cord attached to the remote and only turned when you backed up (remember those?) so this little maisto blew me away! Being a tinkerer, i immediately decided that i could make it better somehow, so it got a fresh coat of paint, NiMH battery conversion, dual rate spring setup and the pitiful 130 motors replaced with esky 180's:

Now the truck kicked some serious ass. for several minutes... then the feeble toy grade electronics caught fire, and brought my fun to an abrupt and smelly end. I decided that there had to be a way to bring this thing back to life, so i started doing a little reading to find out what was actually inside these trucks. Really i had never even heard of tx/rx, esc, any of that junk. so i started getting an idea of what i'd need. Full set of hobby grade electronics, servo steer conversion, etc. Started to look like it may not be worth it for a $25 toy. BUT, while i was browsing around the hobby sites looking for parts, and seeing all these $300-$500 axials and other comp rigs, i happened across an RS-10.
"$150?" i thought "thats a completely justifiable amount to spend on a toy truck!"
I did some extensive research (aka watched a bunch of rs10 videos on youtube) and ordered one the next day. Soon as i put batteries in this sucker i was hooked. I picked up a second one on the cheap cause it had a fried ESC and bad servos, so that one is getting the 540 conversion and all new chassis/suspension/electronics, but the first one is kept in one piece so i have something to play with in the mean time.

So finally, here's the Cat. Bent links, HB Rovers, i had 8 ounces in the front tires, but i took it out, gonna figure an axle mount of some sort. These are a few of the rocks in my yard, we're slowly setting up a good crawl course.

Hope to get the new build going soon though! Thanks to everyone who contributes here, gotten lots of good info. Happy Crawlin'! "thumbsup"

 

[shaggy2112]

Get to reading some of the many build threads here...Id start with the tips and tricks thread jsowens put together then get to work. Lookin forward to what u have in mind. Check my inner axle weight howto writeup for axle weight.

 

[CrippleCreekCrawler]

Thanks Shaggy, love your Gmade setup btw, very nice touch with the weights!

 

[CrippleCreekCrawler]

Just a little teaser pic of some lower links that are sitting on my desk. Axles and links are done, shock mounts done although i may make some adjustments on the geometry. Now i just have to transfer the chassis design from the side of a beer case to an actual drawing and i can start cutting.
So on these links, since the shocks wont be mounted on them anymore, it doesn't seem like it matters if they are the same, as long as the distance from end to end is identical. So i did one S-shaped to fit nice and snug around the 540 can and one traditional high clearance style for the opposite side. This way, if i do get hung up on the motor side link, the 4-wheel steering will let me get around to an angle where i have tons of clearance. Plus,making the double bend links is more work, so this way i only needed 2 :roll:

 

[Docwolf]

my brain is now arguing with itself on this logic........i agree.........but then i question myself....... i will go with, yes, as long as the center to center is the same distance and the rod ends are on the same plain, you should be fine. but my brain still dose not like that answer...

 

[rlockwood]

bent links just have more of a tendency to flop over on themselves..

 

[The Jackalope]

Re; different shaped links.

No reason that shouldn't work. Not a bad idea either. Why didn't I think of that? Symetry is nice, but we allready $hit the bed on that one.

 

[ovcrwlr]

let us know how it works. it looks like a good way to get around those 540 motors with the conversion.

 

[Haverchad]

The thought of multi shaped links on each end crossed my mind, but I was just sure there was a rule (of thumb) against it... Need to see 'er all put together!!