MST CFX-W J45C

[Mad Ax]

Hacked into it with a needle file

et voila

et fin

I haven't got the wiring in yet since I have some more work to do in that respect.  This rig is getting a lot of use as my substitute hillwalking truck, because it's easy to change the battery and the receiver isn't tucked away in a waterproof box, so I can easily pull all the connectors out to plug in the Arduino prototype.  It would be nice to set up a board that makes it very easy to plug the hillwalking controller in, or patch it into the standard receiver, depending on if I'm doing proper crawling or walking in the hills.

Also I can mount some additional rear lights into that big metal bar, so it doesn't look like just an ugly metal bar.

[Badcrumble]

Big fan of this truck, looks so purposeful.

[Mad Ax]

It's been nearly a year since I last worked on this truck.  It had a few outings in 2024 in hillwalking duties, although by the end of the year the Scania had taken over in prototype form, and it only had one proper excursion as a crawler when I took it with me to the UK Scaler Nationals in October.  That should have been a 2-day event, but unfortunately I was in heaps of pain having got an infection after an operation 10 days earlier, I managed to hobble around the woods on Day 1 but I left early to dose up on weapons-grade codeine at the hotel, and didn't even bother doing day 2.  I can't even remember if the CFX-W got a run at the event - I think I only ran 2 trucks all day, Big 6 being one and the BOM being the other.

However, the May round of the UK Scaler Nationals is next weekend, so I figured it was time to give this truck a check-over and make sure it's ready for the big day.

Here's how it looked when I grabbed it down off the rack last Sunday.  Still covered in dirt - that's about 4 years worth of dirt on there.

Everything on the truck is good to go - all electrics and mechanicals are OK, no screws need tightening up.  The main problem is the roof rack, which has 4 lights installed but no LEDs in them.  Ultimately I want to make a switch board for the lights - actually, no, ultimately I want to make an Arduino to control them - but this day I just wanted to get it all hooked up and working.

I normally wire all my LEDs in parallel with one resistor per LED, but I decided to try being more economical this time around.  With 2 LEDs installed in series, I only need one small resistor to limit the current from the 7.4V BEC on the Hobbywing 1080 ESC.  Not only does this mean less resistors, it also means less wires to route.

First set installed and tested.

All 4 LEDs installed.

Working.  I used Warm White LEDs from Bright Components - these give a more natural colour on a vintage truck like the FJ45.

[Mad Ax]

Keeping all the wires tidy is a challenge, but this time I decided to experiment with heatshrink.

The wires need to go inside the cab.  I decided it wouldn't look very scale to have them bundled back over the rollcage, so I drilled a hole in the roof.  This looks like a big hole, but that's because I installed a grommet to avoid chaffing the wires.

[Mad Ax]

Inside, it's all heatshrinked up with the existing wires for the rear lights.

Snipped everything down

And resoldered

Done

[Mad Ax]

I put the roof net back on, but the little rubber rings that held it in shape had all perished (after less than a year installed, I think) so I had to make do with cable ties.  I haven't got any scale stuff in here yet, but it should look better when I do.

And finished - ready for the Scaler Nationals!  This time next week I'll be in the restaurant feeding myself up ready for a weekend of slogging around the woods 

[Tamiyastef]

On 4/25/2025 at 9:43 PM, Mad Ax said:

Still covered in dirt

how they should look IMO. 

This is such a good looking truck. I now have two CMX's and always wanted a CFX-W but the kits (and the RTR's as well) are not easy to find anymore and finding spares and/or hop-up's is even harder, so that put me off. 

[Mad Ax]

13 minutes ago, Tamiyastef said:

This is such a good looking truck.

Thanks    I fell in love with the looks of the body as soon as I saw the kit photos online.  With a good set of wheels and tyres, it looks awesome.