CoolRunning
Rock Crawler
I ordered an SSD 2 speed a while ago and it finally arrived.
I opened it up and had a good look inside and firstly I have to say this: Axial charge (in AUD) about $75 for their 'locked up' SCX10.1 gearbox with plastic gears and plastic housing and another $75 for their steel gears; add another $50 for an aftermarket CNC housing plus shipping fees. This gearbox has a CNC case, all steel gears, two speed and servo mount for about $140AUD delivered to my door. It is an fantastic product and amazing for the money. High quality machining and snug bearing fit. Excellent build quality. For reference I bought a Yeti 2 speed 'upgrade' on sale for $135 down from $170 (shipping on top)...now consider what I got from SSD for $140 delivered...
It's big compared to the stock trans (a lot longer) so getting it to fit in an SCX10 involves a bit of work.
I have a set of LWB MIPs and the front MIP had zero hope of fitting (rear fits perfectly). I could shorten it but to compound the problem, the angle for the driveshaft is just too severe so I'm falling back on the stock WB8 driveshaft for the moment for testing.
The WB8 comes with a short length piece so I screwed on the smallest I had (or you could cut the existing one) and whilst it fits fine, the pinion angle is even too tight for the WB8 which I have found is more tolerant than the MIPs.
I need to add longer top links to angle the front diff housing forwards to get a better pinion angle else it judders and clicks and jumps around binding.
Once I get it all 'perfectly' setup, I'll cut the front MIP and hopefully see it fits with the new diff pinion angle as they are very smooth and should last a LOAD longer than a WB8.
You 'could' move the gearbox 3/4 of an inch backwards on the skid mount to help though then I'll may have to muck around with two driveshafts rather than just one but I'll see. I did not need to spin the skid 180 degrees but if you did, you would have more room for the RX box which doesn't fit with the long servo mount. I didn't want this though as I would have had a lot of extra weight hanging rearward which isn't the best for a crawler.
So, I moved the RX box to the side of the frame (drilled and screwed into the frame rail) where the rock slider is (between the slider rails) and also moved the lipo plate to the other rock slider.
I know guys mount it at the front over the servo but with my 4 link and extended wheelbase my servo comes up quite high through the frame rails and it will mean limited suspension travel as it really quickly bottoms out (I had to remove the chassis brace that severely limited servo travel as the horn hit it and it had terrible suspension travel this way - I used addition rubber bump stops for the shocks to limit it eventually).
So not being able to mount the battery between the front tower, I didn't wish to mount in where the RX box went either as it would be very very close to the 2 speed servo mount which could puncture the lipo in a bad prang (if it came loose or simply moved).
So there was a fair bit of work to get it all setup before I was even able get to setting end points and testing it.
I used an affordable full sized waterproof savox (about 208oz/inch) and didn't use a servo saver as I didn't need it on my Bomber 2 speed. You have to listen carefully for any buzzing when setting end points which takes a few goes but once set, it seemed happy. I've shifted it a couple of hundred times back and forth and it should free up nicely soon. It seems pretty smooth though does catch on occasion but it's new and the gearbox seemed to have nice tight tolerances.
I'm intrigued to get it all finalised and see what the end gearing is. Slow seems nice and slow now (like a super low geared rock crawler even on 3S) but it still seems to have good wheel speed in the top gear.
Anyway, it wasn't in any way hard to install but it's clearly far more involved than the Bomber or Yeti 2 speed setup.
Looking forward to running it!
Kudos to SSD for such a high quality yet affordable part!
I opened it up and had a good look inside and firstly I have to say this: Axial charge (in AUD) about $75 for their 'locked up' SCX10.1 gearbox with plastic gears and plastic housing and another $75 for their steel gears; add another $50 for an aftermarket CNC housing plus shipping fees. This gearbox has a CNC case, all steel gears, two speed and servo mount for about $140AUD delivered to my door. It is an fantastic product and amazing for the money. High quality machining and snug bearing fit. Excellent build quality. For reference I bought a Yeti 2 speed 'upgrade' on sale for $135 down from $170 (shipping on top)...now consider what I got from SSD for $140 delivered...
It's big compared to the stock trans (a lot longer) so getting it to fit in an SCX10 involves a bit of work.
I have a set of LWB MIPs and the front MIP had zero hope of fitting (rear fits perfectly). I could shorten it but to compound the problem, the angle for the driveshaft is just too severe so I'm falling back on the stock WB8 driveshaft for the moment for testing.
The WB8 comes with a short length piece so I screwed on the smallest I had (or you could cut the existing one) and whilst it fits fine, the pinion angle is even too tight for the WB8 which I have found is more tolerant than the MIPs.
I need to add longer top links to angle the front diff housing forwards to get a better pinion angle else it judders and clicks and jumps around binding.
Once I get it all 'perfectly' setup, I'll cut the front MIP and hopefully see it fits with the new diff pinion angle as they are very smooth and should last a LOAD longer than a WB8.
You 'could' move the gearbox 3/4 of an inch backwards on the skid mount to help though then I'll may have to muck around with two driveshafts rather than just one but I'll see. I did not need to spin the skid 180 degrees but if you did, you would have more room for the RX box which doesn't fit with the long servo mount. I didn't want this though as I would have had a lot of extra weight hanging rearward which isn't the best for a crawler.
So, I moved the RX box to the side of the frame (drilled and screwed into the frame rail) where the rock slider is (between the slider rails) and also moved the lipo plate to the other rock slider.
I know guys mount it at the front over the servo but with my 4 link and extended wheelbase my servo comes up quite high through the frame rails and it will mean limited suspension travel as it really quickly bottoms out (I had to remove the chassis brace that severely limited servo travel as the horn hit it and it had terrible suspension travel this way - I used addition rubber bump stops for the shocks to limit it eventually).
So not being able to mount the battery between the front tower, I didn't wish to mount in where the RX box went either as it would be very very close to the 2 speed servo mount which could puncture the lipo in a bad prang (if it came loose or simply moved).
So there was a fair bit of work to get it all setup before I was even able get to setting end points and testing it.
I used an affordable full sized waterproof savox (about 208oz/inch) and didn't use a servo saver as I didn't need it on my Bomber 2 speed. You have to listen carefully for any buzzing when setting end points which takes a few goes but once set, it seemed happy. I've shifted it a couple of hundred times back and forth and it should free up nicely soon. It seems pretty smooth though does catch on occasion but it's new and the gearbox seemed to have nice tight tolerances.
I'm intrigued to get it all finalised and see what the end gearing is. Slow seems nice and slow now (like a super low geared rock crawler even on 3S) but it still seems to have good wheel speed in the top gear.
Anyway, it wasn't in any way hard to install but it's clearly far more involved than the Bomber or Yeti 2 speed setup.
Looking forward to running it!
Kudos to SSD for such a high quality yet affordable part!
