32 replies to this topic

[Daves956]

Well here's the questions.
Can you do twin steering servos on a clod and are they paired or seperate?
I've been looking into a Futaba 3PL to maybe control it, any input would be great.
How robust are Clod axles?
Is it possible to switch back and forth from 2 to 4 wheel steering?
Droop vs sprung suspension?

I have a few ideas but not enough information to know what I'm getting into, so every little bit helps.

[TWINSET]

Twin servos can be paired or seperate, it's up to you.
The rear one needs to be reversed somehow otherwise the rear wheels will steer in the same direction as the front (crabbing) unless you control each servo with it's own RC channel.

Switching from 2 to 4 wheel steering isn't that easy as unless you leave the rear servo switched on it'll keep getting 'deflected' whenever a rear tyre hits something
You could put some sort of mechanical lock in place for extended 2WS sessions I guess
You're better off with 4WS and just not steering the rear when you don't have to - that way the rear servo keeps the rear end running straight.

Never tried a 3 channel set, only 4ch+ sticks (Spek DX6i is great for Clods)


Clod axles are pretty tough although they're still only plastic - most common failure is where the axle tube meets the gearbox - they're braced at the top but not at the bottom, so if they do snap, it's usually at the bottom.
Usually it's the axle tube that fails - where the flange and the tube meet. Because the fixing screws are inside the gearbox, replacing an axle tube is a royal pain, although some run larger screws from the outside, threaded into the gearbox.
Crawford Performance used to make a fixing ring that went inside the gearbox, then the screws went into that - far stronger than the 'screws into plastic' option but not sure if it's still available
Final solution is epoxy the screws in place inside the gearbox so they're like wheel studs on a 1:1 car - that works fine as long as the epoxy holds - you won't be changing the tubes weekly unless you're smashing the truck into every immoveable object on the planet, so it's not that big an issue anyway.

Droop susp keeps everything low, but does leave the belly low too, so snagging is more likely, although you soon get an eye for what lines to take.
The lowered centre of gravity is definitely a bonus although a lot of a Clod's weight is already low, especially if you use a lexan shell.

[Daves956]

I appreciate the input, it helped with a bunch of decisions. I went ahead and picked it up, it's kind of a in process crawler that's never been driven or even had any electronics. The axles seem stout enough and I've been playing with the seperate steering and throttles on a 4 channel stick. I'm not sure how it will end up since I'm still sorting out the steering but it's pretty different from everything else here. It takes a hard look to tell which end is the front. I picked up a body with it but it won't be used on it, it was too cool to pass on. Here's a picture of a distant cousin to a clod, it shares a few parts. Nothing is permanent yet so forgive the look of it puking up all it's electronics.

[Percymon]

I was going to add that alloy axle tubes are still available although not so easy to find these days, but looks like you already have them. Only issues I had were one broken tube and a shattered diff gear but that was probably down to a combination of age and running twin Titan 550 motors.
Andy is absolutely right about repairs, it's almost a complete strip down to change a tube or gearset. There are loads of modded clods over on clodtalk forum, albeit most owners seem to go for speed than crawling. My modded Clod uses a gmade spider chassis, has locked rear steer and is set for bashing duties. Turning circle is pretty poor but at least it's stable!

[TWINSET]

What is it, a Hustler?

It might be worth seeing if the steel axle-tube braces can be refitted - they give you an extra 'out of the way' servo mounting point but also stop the now-invulnerable axle tubes from tearing a chunk out of the gearbox when they don't snap!

[Daves956]

Just a few observations on it so far. The independent throttles front and back is cool but a beast to control. I'll be going to single on it. The turning circle was huge and I've been getting it smaller with a few adjustments and it's livable now. The motors that came with it act like maybe 25 turn and need to be switched out but not to 550s just a good pair in the 40 or 50 turn range.

I did some digging on radios and pistol type with a true third channel looked to hard to run so stick type was a must

[TWINSET]

The separate ESCs are good for getting rid of Clod-stall - where the rear motor stalls when it's doing all the work - although they're best when used with a 4ch radio with each ESC having it's own channel

Turning circle is pretty dire, but if you use a micro-switch to disconnect and short (and effectively brake) the rear motor, you can really get the circle down -this is what's referred to as dig.
If you're building a crawler, dig is great for descending over drops as you can brake the rear axle so the momentum of the front end going over a ledge doesn't carry the rear over with it.

[Daves956]

I'll play with it more before I go single esc. It's twin on seperate channels and messing with it earlier I had all 4 wheels spinning on the carpet and it wasn't moving. Two were going forward and two back, it was interesting to say the least. The diffs are locked front and rear on it. I saw ali gearboxes on Ebay that would be cool if this one gets run a lot. I could be wrong but it seems the chassis maker was RPI or something similar. I've looked at this one a few times in the past and it always struck me as pretty seriously built. I think it just needs a better 4 channel with centering on both throttles not just one. I'll also go with a smaller pin style tire but keep the chrome wheels. I'll probably look into a more neutral shock as well.

As far as the dig is concerned, couldn't you go to a crab steering maneuver and reverse the rears and forward the fronts to sorta spin it?

One good thing is the guy I got this from has several other clods and is a huge source of parts and info. He wants to drive it when it gets finished and I'm sure that will happen. He was giving me a hard time today, telling me I'd be bringing rocks home for it to climb. I don't see that happening...I'll just take it over to his house and climb his rock collection.

[TWINSET]

RCP make the Hustler; http://www.rcpcrawle...home.php?cat=26 - it's the only tuber I know of that was 'droop'
If you can get 'fuzzy' pins they work real well on a lot of rock, just depends what wheels you're running - there aren't many options now for stock Clod wheels
There's a bit of Hustler here, at around 4:32


For crabbing and spinning you'd need the wheels on each axle to go in different directions too - Jeep tried it;

[Daves956]

Again, thanks for the help. It's definately a hustler with their rods to the clod axles. I've identified all of the parts on it and it looks like a pretty good buy. Hopefully I'll do it justice while finishing it up. I'll have a look later today for a better radio and motors for it. As far as any bracing of the axles, I think I can handle that part.

[Daves956]

I stopped at 2 hobby stores trying to buy a radio for this one but had no luck. At best was helicopter 6 channel or better for anywhere between 230 and 315. I didn't care for the price and they still didn't auto center both sticks. I called Spectrums 800 number and got the same answer. I also called Tower and they told me the same thing. I took the Tactic TTX404 I have here apart again and decided on a plan. I went back and purchased another one just like it and pulled the right stick out of it. I pulled the left out of the one I had and swapped them. I now have a perfect control for dual steering and throttles that centers and doesn't overheat one ESC. I paid 140 for the two radios and now have a spare reciever and a transmitter that may work for something or one to mess with to see what can be done. It took 20 minutes and 10 screws each were involved. This has a mixing function for a Vtail that could be used on the steering if I choose. Picture of the 2 modified transmitters.

[TWINSET]

Horizon Hobby used to be pretty switched on with regard to making their transmitters 'crawler friendly' - the return-spring setup kit had it's own part number for the DX6i.
Now their 3ch sets are used more for crawling it might be that no-one's asked for one for a while
Having said that, my DX6i never had a sprung throttle and it worked just fine for me
The mixed steering could be handy though

[Daves956]

I just couldn't justify the price tag on the heli radios. If I were really into crawlers and knew it would work I'd have done it but this is my first crawler and I needed to at least try it to have an opinion. Without a neutral point of reference I wound up with a forward or reverse kind of dig function active and it was overheating the ESC and making it a pain to run. It is my own fault for going for an all out crawler to start with. I don't think most people start with twin ESCs and seperate steering.

With it now under control and the 55 turn motors I switched to it's easy to maneuver and seems to be able to climb anything. For me and what I was willing to spend it couldn't have worked out better. A good 2.4 crawler radio set for around 140 is a good deal in my opinion.

[Daves956]

I had it out and it's great fun. Climbs about anything and with a bit of dig it goes down steps real well. It has a top speed around 10 MPH and the turning radius is about 4 feet. I'll make a cover for the second battery or find one with enough amps.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, I'd have given up something I'd later have wanted otherwise.

At some point I may go with the new Tazer brushless for this. I looked at them and their low KV like 2000 to 4000 and 125 dollars for the combo. The kicker is that they went waterproof and I've never had anything but great luck with them in the past.

Anyway, here's a picture as it sits ready to run.

[TWINSET]

Looks even better from that angle - the chassis looks in great shape
So how did it go?
I far prefer watching droop rigs as they just sorta 'slither' over stuff - far more elegant than regular suspension.

Good score on the radio too, it's a shame the manufacturers don't got behind crawling more - the only stick set I've ever had with springs all round was a cheap Acoms one which was 'big rig' compatible.

For batteries, have a think about LiPo - a couple of smaller backs dotted around the chassis would work great - another good reason to get some axle braces - bit of alu sheet too and you got an axle-mounted battery plate!
You should see what sort of run time you get with one pack too, I used to get 20 mins out of a 3000mah pack no problem.

[Daves956]

It went really well, I was thoroughly impressed with it. You can hear if you have a load imbalance with the motors and after a half hour nothing was even warm. I did the twin batteries kinda just to see what it was going to do. I think a single 4500 or 5000 would suit it pretty good. I drove it over everything in a 2 block radius and It was a lot of fun. I think with a different tire it would be great in the snow and ice this winter too. The droop doesn't have the shock rebound and it does kinda look smooth as it goes.

The chassis was never run, it was just on a shelf and partially finished for years. The guy I got it from doesn't steer me wrong.

The radio was the one for the Rothmans semi and I hated it for the same reasons, at least I can fix it now.

I've thought about Lipo but to justify it I'd want to do all the cars so they'd be the same battery type. Ballpark price per battery is around 75 dollars X 30+ cars without chargers or any other stuff has kinda kept me with NIMH. I'm switching over to all Deans plugs and that's not a small undertaking either.

[billg4]

for great lipo prices check http://www.hobbyking.com as I have had great luck there. The thunder AC6 or similar charger is also a great buy and will charge almost anything out there

[Daves956]

Ok so switching to Lipos and the chargers and cutoffs and everything would only be around 2000, give or take a few hundred. Then a 5000 MAH NIMH for around 35. It's a tough choice.

The manager of the local Hobby Town offered to do the soldering to switch to Deans plugs for me. When I told him how many were left he just walked away. Kinda the same deal, thinking about it is all good. It's the doing it part that gums up the works.

[Daves956]

On the tactic 404 transmitter there is a round serrated piece with a metal spring bar that has a slight point that makes the stick ratchet and stick in place.
If you cut the round notched part flat 90 degrees to the stick and turn the metal bar over so it's basicly flat you now have a have a cam and a spring bar to make it return to center at the flat. There is a fixed and adjustably mount end for the spring bar that needs to be trimmed down about 1.5mm on the fixed end to make it even with the flat for the cam height. It's not rocket science so you can adjust the spring to make the flat line up to center really easy if your not dead on 90 degrees.

I used a cut off wheel in a dremel and a flat file but you could easily skip one or the other to do this. It's not that much that gets removed. It took maybe 5 minutes to do both of them and hours to think of.

This makes an excellent 2.4 crawler transmitter for 70 dollars. It also makes a perfect semi truck transmitter that can easily be fitted with the shift pattern gate for a 3 speed transmission. A note on the semi side, the 606 transmitter is almost certainly constructed the same but it's a dual rate compatable with a MFU. The 606 sells for around 120.

This fixed a problem I had with 3 builds so I'm more than a little happy about it.

[Daves956]

On a 5000 MAH battery it's run time is around 35 minutes. Most of that was still learning to drive it so it might be more. With the dual motors it died in a hurry too, no noticable slowing down first. The ESCs and motors weren't even warm, so that's a good sign. It's still fun

[atf300]

soldering battery connectors is not that hard , just practice a bit .

[Daves956]

I've still got seven cars on Traxxas plugs, there were 15, I'm down to 8 still with the Molex/ Tamiya. I'm just over half way on the switch to all Deans plugs.
Before I took this one back out I set up the ESC switches to a single switch with mini Deans to be able to seperate them if needed and did both ESCs and made the Y connector for the now single battery. I did all the Traxxas ones originally but I don't care for their size. What I could use is a little less practice and a few more bags of Deans plugs...I'm out of them again. I'm working toward eliminating any charging adapters and going to a more stable charging plug setup. That seems to be the weakest link in the battery department.

[billg4]

just wait till you start with lipo packs, though MUCH better now that most popular ''surface'' brands use a jst based balance plug
at one time it was anyones guess when you bought a lipo what the balance connector would be

[Daves956]

I guess I just don't get the Lipo thing. This crawler is just another example. Weight wouldn't have been a big difference but mounting a hard cased battery would have been tough. The price was more than double for a Lipo plus the charging, cut off and voltage issues it would have added. So far nobody has made a good argument for me to even try them.

[TWINSET]

When you were talking about a second battery, then it made sense to consider LiPo - soft-packs are generally smaller than a 6-cell pack, so fitting them around the truck is easier.
If owning a couple of Lipo makes it necessary to convert every other vehicle you own, then it wouldn't make much sense
For a one-off application though, it'd be a neat/tidy solution.