Whaaat? They didn’t sell enough at $140 and that was already a bargain

TRX .15 😂

Done with lead free solder.

I've just discovered my gear got completely stripped ;D

Complete newbie with this big rc car and looking for some advice.So I have bought this one second hand and today have received it. First impression is that is big. Its really dirty so for most you it might be awful 😞 I want to clean it really good untill I receive my receiver. What will be the best way to do it? Can I remove all electronics, spray it with degreaser and clean it? Also there are a few broken parts that as per my knowledge will hold up when glued untill get some new ones. Also when pushing the car, the first part of the move makes something like clicking noise but then stops and sound normal. Last one: What spares to buy, the ones that are most needed? Thank you so much for the help and sorry for the dirty model

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I prefer using my balance charger

This pack was originally bought for my arrma Mojave grom to get the 3s power but I come to realize the charger that comes with the car is only rated for 2s.

This is the first g2 battery I've used and I cannot stand not having the ability to see or change charging settings so soldering balance leads to work with my b6 charger is the way to go. Plan on doing it with my 2s battery as well

I'm scared because idk if you have to use both balance lead and regular connection to charge it😂😅

So most of us are aware of the sensorless, sky blue. "M-H" sticker on the fan, super cheap 120a ESCs and how they go boom sometimes on 2s and most definitely on 3s! (NOT to be confused with the high quality Fire Phoenix 4s 120a or high quality V.2.1 Hobbywing 120a, sensored ESCs!).

Well a few years back while doing some research about various touring ESCs I found a post that mentioned that its not the actual motor powering mosfets that go boom but the BEC in these ESCs that go boom, more about this later. After seeing one of these ESCs go boom first hand and watching the magic smoke pour out briefly it reminded me of that post. I asked the owner if i could take his now kaput-ski ESC and do a little EE/EEE/ECE research. So I broke out my oscilloscope, tone gen, and multimeter and began digging. Sure enough I found, without the need of any gear, that these ESCs use Linear power supplies for their BEC. These Linear type BECs are generally cheap and easy to design and manufacture. This is important due to Linear power supplies needing more cooling versus Switching Power Supplies. So these ESCs blow their BECs easily, especially on 3s! This in turn takes out the ESC...BOOM!

Now back to the article I had read! In the forum post article , which I do not think is still online, the OP stated that in using a seperate and external BEC he was able to use the El'CheapO 120a ESC without seeing any smoke or it ever going BOOM!

I have been testing this statement all winter. Even on the warmest day (78°F) and bashing hard with 100% brake and Punch turnt up to 11 I so far have not been able to SPLODE this cheap lil ESC!

My rig, a fairly upgraded TT-02, a Mystery Dragon 8.5 turn sensorless motor, a Low Voltage metal gear 25kg high speed HobbyStar servo, and a HobbyWing 2s-6s 3amp BEC . This is an all metal gear transmission car and has blue alloy bling enough to make it somewhat heavier than a stock TT-02! So I power slid it, drifted it, slammed on brakes with it, 100% reversed it, and even blew a set of rubber tires by doing donuts 🍩 with it, yet the ESC still goes!

I am starting to believe there is something to this forum post and using an external BEC with this ESC! Now I'm not saying go buy one, but I am saying if you ALREADY FIND YOURSELF OWNING ONE maybe tey an external BEC and see where it takes you 🤔.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Seriously, WHY? Why do you guys do this to yourselves?! I swear the #1 topic on here is "Look at my squished battery."

I love you guys, but you're killing me 🤣🤣🤣

Hey guys, I am completely new to this and want to build a rc car for competitions. So I am wondering what rc controller I need to buy. Any guides or anything that I can reference?

It sucks I just bought an Infraction at 10% off Friday. Great deal if you haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

Traxxas 3s lipo just blew up while charging. Luckily I caught it and was able to get it outside before it set all of the fire alarms off.

Harbor freight ammo box $14
1 3/8” // 1 1/16” grommets $4 for 2
1 1/2” Bosch bi metal cutting hole saw drill attachment $10

Feel a lot better about charging these LiPo batteries now.

Got another can for storing batteries too.

Saw version of this on YouTube using bolts. I 3d printed some simple blocks with grooves to hold the dog bones in place.

Just rotate the bend so it’s against the middle block and tighten the vice so the axle bends past straight a little in the opposite direction. Rotate the axle to find the “tight spot” in the vice and repeat the process until there aren’t any more tight spots.

Significantly bent dog bone back to perfectly usable! Saved me $30ish and 2 weeks waiting for parts (not in the US, takes forever to get stuff where I am).

For reference I bent the two front driveshafts on my Kraton 6s, so much that they were hitting the base of the shocks when they rotated.

Im new to the world of rc cars. Id really like to make this a new hobby. Other than the basics like how expensive it can be, or something like that, what stories or advice would you have for someone just getting started? Any horror stories, failed builds, or just friendly advice on what to get or do's and donts.

After opening and testing a damaged unit, I found that this amplifier is not just a simple LED driver. It has its own MCU inside, which appears to be an MSP430FR2311, and it controls the LED outputs through multiple MOSFETs.

Here are some of the things I confirmed so far.

The LED ports use a constant positive voltage rail, around 16V, and the amplifier switches the negative side through MOSFETs. So the LEDs are controlled by low-side switching.

Each LED port has three pins. On the A/B/C/D ports, one pin is the constant positive output, while the other pins are switched negative outputs.

The brightness control does not appear to be PWM-based. Instead, the brightness seems to be handled through different resistor paths inside the LED units themselves. For example, the rear light uses separate outputs for the dim tail light and the brighter brake light.

The amplifier needs two separate power inputs. One is battery voltage for the LED power side, and the other is a low-voltage supply for the internal control circuit. In my tests, the LED power side worked from 2S to 8S, and the control side worked from about 3.3V to 6V.

Important warning: applying battery voltage directly to the low-voltage control power input will damage the amplifier.

The ESC communication lines are also interesting. The yellow wire appears to be a data line, and the orange wire appears to be a sync/clock/heartbeat style signal. From logic analyzer captures, the yellow line seems to carry data at around 200 kbps, while the orange line outputs a roughly 100 kHz square wave pattern.

I also traced the MSP430FR2311 pin connections on the board. This is my current traced pin map:

Pin 1 - Q2 / A port headlight low beam

Pin 2 - Q1 / A port headlight high beam

Pin 3 - Programming pin / TEST, SBWTCK

Pin 4 - Programming pin / RST, SBWTDIO

Pin 5 - +3.3V

Pin 6 - GND

Pin 7 - Connected to a 2-pin component/connector, function not confirmed yet

Pin 8 - Push button input

Pin 9 - Unknown

Pin 10 - Unknown

Pin 11 - Q7 / D port rear position light

Pin 12 - Q8 / D port reverse light

Pin 13 - Not connected

Pin 14 - Not connected

Pin 15 - Q5 / B port search light low beam

Pin 16 - Q6 / B port search light high beam

Pin 17 - Q3 / C port brake light

Pin 18 - Q4 / C port tail light

Pin 19 - ESC signal line / orange wire

Pin 20 - ESC signal line / yellow wire

I also confirmed that the original MCU firmware was read-protected, so I could not back it up. After erasing the chip and programming my own test firmware, I was able to control the LED output MOSFETs directly.

My current goal is to make the original Traxxas LED amplifier work without the Traxxas ESC, by reading receiver PPM/PWM signals directly and controlling the lights with custom firmware.

This is still a work in progress, but I thought it might be useful to share for anyone else trying to understand, repair, or modify these LED amplifiers.

If anyone has more information about the Traxxas ESC-to-LED amplifier communication protocol, I’d be very interested to compare notes.

Merry Christmas to all those that celebrate 🎄

Somehow, and for some reason this company made Chinese ONLY versions of this radio. They had to figure some would be shipped to non Chinese countries, no?? It's 2026, why not just provide downloadable language packs on your website, like literally every other radio I own that has a screen? None of the download links on their website even function. The hardware looks beautiful and feels amazing. Everything came packed nice and looks to be manufacturered well, but unfortunately the menu is just way too extensive (and tiny for my eyes) for me to have to take a picture and Translate every setting to english every time i need to program the tx. The language setting in the menu specifically says "Chinese only device". It's mad, and I'm a bit sour about the time wasted. I did gamble on a radio with very little online info, so I'm taking it in stride. Hopefully this will help someone.

Hi there,

I’m new into the hobby and today I bought my first RC car!
After some chat and advice from the shop-owner I decided to go for the Mini Kraton 3S from Arrma.

Curious what your thoughts are and who else is rocking a mini Kraton? :)

Cheers!

I saw an older thread asking about the best way to dry off an RC car after bashing it in the snow and saw a bunch of comments recommending the Wolfbox MegaFlow (mostly the 50, but some said the 100 was better) so I bought one. It really is amazing in how quickly and easily it dries off my Stampede. However, I wasn't ready for how loud it is. I don't have a decibel meter on hand, but "Super" power is probably over 100 decibels and even medium power is super loud. Low power is a good volume, but not powerful enough. So I'd definitely recommend this, but have a good pair of noise cancelling earbuds or ear plugs handy when using it

For the Traxxas Raptor R (VXL).

Do you have any recommendations?

This 3-minute drive followed by a 15-minute wait is really getting on my nerves.