Thunderchild progress

AX10 in the snow

I built my rock crawler about six to eight months ago, and have had great fun with it so far. For a while it didn’t get used too much due to not really having much to crawl over in my garden, but now we’re going down to Bournemouth regularly, that’s changed.

I kinda stumbled into rock crawling – I saw a Tamiya CR01 kit in a shop, wondered why it was so expensive, and whilst looking up more info on it I came across the Axial AX10 Scorpion. After a lot  more research, I decided it sounded like a lot of fun and bought myself the AX10 kit to build. A mate of mine has bought the Tamiya CR01, but so far we haven’t managed to pit them against each other!

As expected, the AX10 is incredibly slow using stock parts, but that’s the point – it’s not built for speed; it’s built for climbing. And it’s very impressive at it – as long as you’re not too optimistic, there’s not much it can’t get over. For a while I did try it out with different gearing; I put a larger pinion and smaller spur gear in, and whilst it did make it go bit faster, it had lost some of the get-over-anything ability.

Current upgrades

Motor: I’ve replaced the Novak Fifty-Five with a Forty-Five. It should give it a little bit more speed but still keep the crawling ability.

Motor plate: So far my only cosmetic upgrade is the green anodised motor plate from Venom.
Slipper clutch: I bought this but haven’t fitted it yet.
High clearance links: I’ve fitted the bent links to the rear, and I’ll get a set for the front as well.
Steering servo: I’ve been through a few of these now – I drowned the first one; the second one just stopped working; and the third one got stripped barrel-rolling down a steep slope! The fourth one is a cheapo one whilst I’m still pratting about with the truck, once my E-revo arrives I’ll be using that for bashing and the crawler will be used more seriously.

Next steps:

For now I think I just need to get more practice, and the rocks down at Bournemouth should be perfect for that, before I go doing lots of more advanced stuff to it. Certainly the next major thing to do is to get myself a battery pack I can mount on the front, and possibly a steering servo with more robust gearing. I’ll need some hi-torque servos for Voyager so may see if I can get a discount for three.