Losing grip – Akela: a brand new daybreak for my SCX10
If you’re on this passion you most likely have the identical sort of bug I’ve, all the time itching behind your head: issues might be improved. And once they lastly can not, up pops concepts for the following challenge, which might be both simply barely higher than the final one, or one thing solely totally different.
My SCX10 is a working example, and I’m comfortable to report that it has now matured to its third a closing iteration. Some time in the past, longer than I wish to admit, Club5Racing have been form sufficient to ship me a bunch of upgrades for the crawler previously generally known as Viper. Things have been wanting good, excellent. Then Amain chipped in, and I knew that with a view to make all of it justice, a brand new paintwork was wanted.
First Viper Blue. Good. Then Viper Yellow. Better. Akela: third time fortunate?
Yes, I feel so. The new paint job is well the most effective of the three (and essentially the most troublesome to drag off!), and the equipment take it to a stage it simply wasn’t on earlier than.
I do know that there are higher wanting vans on the market, however I’m very pleased with this one! It was loads of work, however a labour of affection. Thinking of it – is “work” actually an apt time period once we’re speaking passion?
Now, admittedly there’s an absolute s**tload of upgrades on this truck, I don’t dare estimate how a lot all of it prices. But thoughts that among the issues that I feel actually make a distinction, are available low-cost. Two of my favourites are the hinges and the headlight guards. The hinges add a vital bit of additional element, and the headlight guards is an easy method to give it a bit extra persona. If I have been to spend solely ten bucks on beauty upgrades, I’d go for the hinges. They look so significantly better than stickers!
The equipment from club5racing are of wonderful high quality and a pleasure to work with. Fit has all the time been glorious, in addition to the extent of element. The screws are miniscule although, a set of tweezers and a portion of endurance helps quite a bit. And thoughts {that a} 3D-printed bumper won’t ever be as sturdy as one in stainless-steel, so it’s most likely a nasty thought to drop your automotive on the winch guard. When driving scale although, that’s not a lot of an issue actually.
There’s a few upgrades that may’t be seen on the images beneath which are price mentioning. One is the servo relocation equipment, a redesign of the entrance steering geometry which makes use of a winch servo mount for the steering servo. This strikes the servo ahead a good bit – for a extra ahead weight bias – and toughens up the lanyard mount quite a bit. It appeared as if it improved steering angle barely as effectively, however since I didn’t correctly measure I can’t inform for certain. There’s an image of it among the many thumbnails, neat factor.
Second, the “Ezon” light kit, a plug and play mild unit that works very very similar to the Traxxas Pro scale LED mild set for the TRX-4. Just as with the Traxxas set, there’s two circuits: one which attaches to the physique for all of the LED mild connections, and a management unit on the chassis, wired into the receiver. Between the 2 there’s only a single servo cable, making it very simple to attach and disconnect as soon as arrange. Below is an image of the unit that goes on the physique, in my case taped to the underside of the inside. Mind that the wiring remains to be a piece in progress, it should get cleaned up.
It’s a good way so as to add purposeful break lights, flip lights, reverse lights – the lot. In my thoughts, one thing that Axial themselves must make – if Traxxas can, why not Axial? But with Axial falling quick on this, good job Club5Racing for sorting us out. My solely gripe with this set is that it doesn’t include a wiring diagram, clearly outlining which leds ought to go to which port. That implies that it takes a short time to get all of it right. I used to be in a little bit of a rush – assembling in between packing shades and such for a transfer to Australia – and clearly didn’t get all of it proper: the bumper lights aren’t turned on within the photos. In the top although, it’s presents all of the performance you could possibly ever need.
Enough speak, now take a look on the photos as an alternative.
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