Servo So Good

Man, I can't even tell you how lucky I feel to have gotten this crawler before the Corona lockdown started. And that it was a crawler, and not my near second choice, a Slash 4x4. I probably still would have run the Slash in the backyard, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun as the Blazer has been.

Tip: have the Blazer and still running the stock servo? Order a replacement today and love the results. There's better steering to be had out there than what's provided stock.

I've been working on my backyard track. There are some things about it, though. It has to be out of the way enough so my wife doesn't get mad, and strong enough so my 3 year-old daughter can climb on all of it. The latter one makes it a bit tricky, since she'll climb over rockpiles and rearrange the rocks every time. I'm always looking for a new line through things with that going on.

I wanted to make a cool two meter climb out of some wood planks, but I can't guarantee my daughter won't try to climb them, so I won't. Keeping it all low and a bit spread out through the backyard keeps everyone happy.

The track is starting to wear in. There are seven obstacles dotted around a track that runs the perimeter of the backyard. It also goes under the trampoline, behind a few different sets of bushes and through a particularly nasty set of ivy. There's a stump, a wood stack, three brick piles, a tricky tree root challenge, and some precision driving that has to happen throughout the course.

Replacing the Servo

I thought after replacing the servo horn that I had possibly permanently damaged the servo itself through over-flexing[?] it. It made weird sounds, wiggled without any help, occasionally dropped out.

It all started early on, probably the second or third session. I noticed that the truck would turn left fine, but when I turned right it only went part way, then there was a whirring sound. A mechanical wheezing, if you will. I remember thinking early on "I should look into that", but then focused on the servo arm when it stripped instead. I always knew in the back of my mind that I would be having actual servo issues later on, though. In fact, I was so prepared that I already had bookmarked the servo I wanted were I to need a replacement. It has been ordered as of today.

Cruising the vistas....

It's Day 26 of the Coronavirus lockdown. I've been running the truck every good day that we've had, and we've had a few of them lately. This past week has been spent in the garden, building my RC course and running the truck. With this servo exception it has been running perfectly.

How To Tell When Your RC Servo Is Dying

All servos are different. Mine in particular is the Tactic TSX45. It's the stock servo that comes with the Axial Blazer, as well as other models I believe.

Totally seized up. Will not function.

I first noticed that the truck was having trouble sometimes getting back to going straight. Sometimes it would lull to the left, then after a quick flip of the wheel, it would straighten back out again. Over time this got to be more noticeable.

What would also occur was usually on startup, and sometimes at random times throughout a session: the front wheels would quiver side-to-side. It would stop after a bit, then later require a quick flip of the wheel, and then it just did it on its own. It got to be so bad that my 3 year-old daughter pointed it out to me once. She's 3.

The last symptom was sudden loss of response. It happened at random times, and usually would be unresponsive when I was trying to turn. I would jiggle it, then it would come back. But that didn't last long. With the other things going on as well, I got about a half a session out of it before the steering croaked altogether.


I'm not surprised this happened. In fact, I was expecting it. Everything I read and saw said that the servo was the weak link on the truck, as it is with most RTR crawlers. But after spending time with this thing, with all the various parts involved to make it run, to have one thing be a weak link..that's pretty good. It's about par with what I was expecting regarding the upgrade path of this machine. Next up would be shocks unless something else craps out.
But I admit that I helped accelerate its demise early on. I was excited, and I wanted to play with my new RC car. So I may have cranked it a little too hard and not paid attention to the servo arm catching on the truck frame. But it didn't matter. The servo and arm were bound to fail. But that's okay.

Today I had a new servo delivered: Savox SC-254MG. It cost me 25 euro. I had read good things about Savox in many places being a reliable, sturdy servo. I got a bit anxious when I ordered it, thinking it might not be the right size or something, but it's almost identical to the Tactic servo.

I bought an RTR because I wanted to play NOW and not have to risk not being able to build the thing from scratch. Looking back I probably could have done it, but I still think this RTR truck was a better decision for me. I knew I would have to get to wrenching eventually, and here we are.

I removed both front wheels for easier access. Then I detached the suspension parts near or connecting to the servo arm. Once that was done I flipped the car back over and disconnected the servo from the frame. I figured I would put it back together in reverse order I dismantled everything. Once I had the servo out, I took the wiring out, which meant I had to get to the receiver to disconnect the old one and wire in the new. After having the new servo connected, I started up the truck and tested it. It was working [whew]. I took the care to tuck the wiring back into the channels so it wasn't all over the place.
I should have mounted the servo arm onto the servo at that point, but instead I waited until after I installed the servo and was ready to remount parts. Had I gone the easier route and did it earlier I would have saved 15 minutes of annoying work. But here we are.

I took it out and ran it around for awhile. I not only did great, but it's clearly a better servo than the Tactic. Much more responsive, tighter, quicker, and stronger when climbing. It didn't get mushy like the Tactic, or turn a softer corner than you wanted. All-in-all a great little unit. It's nice to know I can replace stuff on this truck with affordable parts.

Quarantine Day 16

Getting out of the house has been a requirement for all of us nowadays. We try to get into the garden at least once a day unless the weather isn't cooperating. We're only going out for groceries now, and we're trying to make that once every two weeks.

So it goes without saying that I've been running the truck quite a bit. It's performed wonderfully. Since the initial servo horn issue, there have been no other problems with the Blazer. It's been a fantastic getaway for me, and my 3 year old loves playing with it. She likes to take it exploring in the backyard. We have large bushes running along the perimeter of the backyard, and she likes to climb around in them. I follow along in the truck as best as I can, although she's had me on more than one occasion dropping everything to pry her and the Blazer out of a jam. So we mostly stick to playing in the grass and along the track I've made up.

The Blazer can approach a brick face-on and climb over it. The angle of approach is just that good. Knowing that, I can use bricks as my measurement on other parts of the track to give the truck a handleable challenge.
I also want to keep as much of the course as natural as I can, so I'm not cluttering it up with a bunch of scrap wood. We have a wild side to our garden that has various natural weeds and things growing in it, and I've been driving a desire path through it. It's starting to look pretty good, and feels like a good challenge. It's very unstable terrain with an ivy bed and thick weed stalks sprouting up. It runs about three meters along the garden edge.

There's also a great stump in the ground, which I've now managed to clear at every approach angle I've tried. It just barely makes it, though. Super easy to get hung up. My wife keeps putting this clay pitcher on top of the stump, but my daughter takes it off every time we go in the garden. She knows we need to use it.

I'm so glad I got this truck. It's been a great inspiration to get me to go outside in these stressful times. It's making me have fun. It's working.

[Sorry, I don't have any pictures of recent fun. I took some video that I hope to have up on YouTube soon.]

A Week Later - Quarantine

I hadn't thought about writing anything about this, since I'm not a professional or anything. The Corona virus is upon us, and as of this writing we are on our 6th day of quarantine. We're locked up at home, with only grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations available to us. It's a weird and tense time, so say the least. On top of that I just had my second root canal procedure in a month, and the left side of my face feels like it was hit by a truck.

Speaking of trucks, with exception of yesterday and today I've been out with the truck every day this week. I've gotten to the point where I'll take any weather except rain. But it's been great. Since we're staying home, we've got the backyard to play in, and my wife is cool with me building an RC course, as long as it isn't an eyesore.
So I've been working on some ideas. I've gathered scraps, strips, rocks, branches, bricks, stones...just about everything you can think of, and have started playing build-it. At first I made a small brick practice bump. That grew into a larger, more challenging surface. Then it got taller, and longer. It's looking pretty majestic.
I've been working out a lap of the circuit. I'm trying to keep it mostly out of the way of regular traffic, but still able to be seen. The lap works its way around the perimeter of the backyard, going around and through the back of things. Under the trampoline. Through the planter and right up against the neighbors fence. All-in-all a good few minutes run for a beginner. My plan is to keep it easy yet challenging, so anybody could come over, grab the controller and go. As I get better, I'll make tougher challenges.

What about the virus?

Well, thankfully RC car driving is one of those things you can do alone, in your yard, or even in an enclosed area. In a time like this, where people are being forced to stay home and have no experience how to do it, it's an absolute plus to have plenty of hobbies and things to do. It doesn't have to be RC cars, either. I'm just lucky to have one.
My family is here, my wife getting slowly used to the situation and accepting the predicament. My 3 year-old not knowing what's going on except lots of playing and mama and dada are both home all day. And the 18 year-old being terminally bored, so basically nothing new there.

I just thought of something, I haven't taken any pictures of what I've been doing lately. I took some video, and have been slowly assembling it, and we're going to have a nice couple days coming up. So maybe I'll set up a massive 3-camera shoot and see if we can get some quality action footage.

I've also decided that I'm going to turn my table back into a slot car table full time. The RC car can go practically anywhere, but the slot cars need to be on that table to operate. And if they're not up there, they're not operating. So I'll be taking a lot of the scrap wood I used to build my indoor course outside for the backyard course. If figure if I make that course look good, and not look like a bunch of scrap wood...spruce it up a little...maybe my wife will be okay with me leaving it up.

Truck's running great, by the way. No complaints. I noticed that Axial is just announcing the SCX10 III, which kind of explains why mine had a sale price. That's cool.

So if you have the stuff laying around that you always wanted to get out and play with, build, run or construct, now's the time. Don't just sit around on the internet stressing out. Make a puzzle. Paint a picture. Learn to cook. Climb with your RC car. Whatever will help you get through it.

But stay home. Be safe.

Lipo Cutoff for Axial SCX10 2

I had been a bit skittish waiting for the lipo cutoff to switch on on the Blazer. The first time I didn't wait for it to kick on, chickened-out and recharged it, but this time it happened. It kicked in as I was driving it this afternoon. This was the end of the 2nd complete battery charge since I bought the truck.
What happened was the truck started running at what felt like half power. I noticed it right away, gave a couple of throttle punches, then took it inside and charged the battery. I figured it would take about an hour and fifteen minutes to fully charge, and I was almost exactly right.

The truck also has acquired a name, coming from my 3 year-old. "Dadacar." So there you go. She loves it, by the way. She likes me to chase her around the backyard with it, and it's the perfect kind of thing to do that. Not too fast, not too spry. Tough enough for a kid to handle [within reason].

Here's Dadacar, ripping a mean line over the bricks.

It's also weird the things you'll get used to. It's been raining a lot, and I've been getting out whenever it hasn't been raining, which means lots of pretty wet conditions. Mostly surface stuff, but there's some mud, too. The truck surprisingly doesn't kick up that much mud into or on itself. I'm a bit surprised by that. The Pro Line tires G8 tires don't pick up that much mud either.

I've been looking at shocks, and it looks like I could outfit the truck with a pretty decent set for around 50 bucks or so. I think I want to get good ones, and not just mediocre replacements that aren't any better than the stock shocks. A nice set of aluminum shocks that won't leak.

No other breakages or weird anomalies to report. Dadacar has been running great.

Getting Some Backyard Time

Got some not rain today, so I went out in the backyard and tore it up a little bit. I notice I'm starting to carve out a natural path through the edges of the yard. I should probably knock that off, because if permanent tracks get carved into the grass my wife won't be too happy about it. So I'll have to vary my layout each lap a bit.

The other day I mentioned practicing driving at a high rate of speed. That was fun and all, but not long after I decided to do that at a low rate of speed, and have been practicing that ever since. I set up a small, ever-growing brick mountain to crawl over, and have been practicing doing it with no errant wheel spin or erratic movements.

Okay, more like Brick Hill, or Brick Berm, but you get the idea. A guy's gotta start somewhere.

It seems to me there's a way this thing likes to go up obstacles. It prefers you don't approach something with both wheels at the same time, but stagger them so the suspension has more to do. If you attack something straight on you risk tire spin, or at least that's something I noticed. I found it also easy to get an itchy trigger finger and punch-bloop it over stuff sometimes. Once I noticed myself doing that, it stopped.
So I think the key to driving one of these things is to be consistent, use care with the throttle, and be thoughtful in your approach and path you take over the obstacle.

My truck has way more capability than I give it credit for. It's breezing through everything.

Early on I mentioned that I would need to eventually find a throttle that I can use left-handed, but I don't think that's so important anymore. I've had enough time now that it feels pretty natural doing it this way, so I'm going to stick to it.
I also wanted to comment on the amazing battery life I've gotten so far. Being able to go a week on a charge with a 5000mAh 3S Lipo is really impressive. I absolutely expected 30 minute run times and 24 hour charge times before I bought the truck. But picking it up today knowing I had more than enough charge was a great feeling. But a week? That's averaging hour and-a-half long sessions just about every day. And the 4 AA's I put in my controller? Still working.

One Week Later - Was It Worth It?

So I've had the Axial SCX10 II Blazer for about a week or so now, and I've been picking at things here and there, but I haven't given my summary of how I feel about having purchased the truck now and what I found good/bad about it.

The Good

Everything I read about, everything I saw on YouTube, all said pretty much the same thing, and they all were right: this is a great RTR truck. Great looks, quality workmanship, everything about it has been top notch. I feel like I'm getting into the hobby on a good foot, and I'm glad I bought it.
I love being able to crawl over rocks and obstacles and look good doing it. And that I found this truck on sale, at a price significantly lower than other trucks in its range was a good thing. It made me feel much better about getting those immediate upgrades I wanted.

But out of the box the truck is great. You could take that sucker out on trails all day and have a great time with it. I'd love to do all the lights up with the light kit, and maybe I'll do that some day. Nice option to have, and it looks great from the ones I've seen.

There's lots of room for upgrading, but the stuff it comes with is pretty damn good on its own. I can see blowing loads of money to make this a sick crawler [not that it's not pretty sick already], or even just replacing failed parts with upgrades. Either way it's going to remain a great truck.


The Bad

Blazer with ProLine tires.

The first one I don't want to call truly bad, because I don't think that's fair. The Falken tires aren't bad, there's just better out there. I think the Falkens would be great tires to take out on a long trail run, going over everything and anything. They're perfectly capable of doing something like that. But they run into problems on the rocks. I think they're a bit too lively for the demands of rock crawling. They don't grab on like a tire should, and spin helplessly. I think if I was grading these tires in two categories, I'd say: trails, 8 - rocks, 4. I wish that wasn't the case with rocks, but I had a feeling it was going to be, and I'm really happy I went with the upgrade ProLine Hyrax G8 tires right away. So it's not all bad.

But this I don't understand, and maybe it's because I'm a noob at all this, or maybe not. Hopefully someone with knowledge will come by and read this some day and comment on why it is what it is. But it seems to me that the RC hobby has a thing where, no matter what vehicle you buy, there will always be that one weak spot. The one part that will break to end the first session. In the case of the Axial Blazer, it's the servo horn.
And this is going to be the last time I mention the servo horn here. But maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I should be, and I'll probably look back at this and laugh in a couple years.
But I think the placement of the servo wasn't very well though out. It seems almost like an afterthought. I think they should have made it so the servo could be lowered if needed by maybe 5mm max. Something enough so that the servo horn can clear the frame rail. I mean, how do you set up such a sweet truck, then go and make a bonehead move like that? It's almost like two departments didn't talk to each other, the thing went to production and they discovered the problem there. I'm curious what other owners of this particular truck are doing about it. It's just weird that, sitting in all this sweet tech is just the dumbest thing. Makes me sad. Doesn't look like Axial has come up with a solution for replacement, either.

Summary

Servo horn issues aside, I think this was a great purchase. I'd do it all over again the same way I did before [although this time get tools]. I've been very impressed with how the truck has operated, and it's much more durable than I was expecting it to be. 3S Lipo capable, which gave me a much longer charge than I was expecting. If you're considering purchasing one, I would suggest ordering a 25T short servo horn. Install it while you're charging your first battery. Set the steering trim and you're good to go.

I wish I could take this everywhere.