Making a Venom Mini-Giant into a CrAWLeR

Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: North Sydney, Australia

Hey guys,

I was looking at my Venom Mini Giant the other day, and was thinking
I could make it into a bit of a crawler??
Has anyone tried this with theirs?? Got pics of what you did??

If I rip some of the crap off it, and replace the weak as piss gear-box/transfer With something A LOT lower geared, then that’d be a
good start.

Beats having it sit here gathering dust with a stuffed gearbox/transfer unit.

The gearbox needs replacing anyway, its well and truly stripped
If you accelerate it just makes a grinding plastic noise..

So, I have been doing some research,
And have found a place that sells Tamiya gearbox units,

First question is, what gearbox ratio is good for an RC crawler??
What should I be looking at aiming for? 400:1? Or would it be more like 100:1??
Is there a dedicated gearbox/tranny that is used industry wide in the
RC rock crawling game??

Where do you guys buy suspension links and driveshafts,etc from??

Cheers,
Bart

Joined: 28 Feb 2006

Mate for all the info you could need head over to

www.thecrawlpit.com

have a bit of a search and you should be right.

Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: North Sydney, Australia

Thanks dude.

Is everyone off here on there now when it comes to RC crawling??
I was wondering where Dan (AKA the original Shorty40) was with his
crawler wisdom.

I went and bought a heap of stuff last night to make up ext links
and do a 4-link setup on it!!
I bought a "mini" servo for front steering
and I bought this little gearbox that has a piss-small toy motor on it,
but its got 700:1 reduction ratio LOL so it should be able to pull
the little mini-giant OK??

Will let you know how it all goes.

Cheers,
Bart

Joined: 16 Jun 2004 Location: Victoria, Australia

got some pics !!!!

Joined: 22 Oct 2002

Toyo Truck wrote:

I was wondering where Dan (AKA the original Shorty40) was with his
crawler wisdom

BWAHAHAHAHAHA... whoops sorry Dan... Very Happy

Yeah, um, we tend to post the tech over on TCP now.

Joined: 27 Oct 2002 Location: Sydney

You are mean JK Crying or Very sad

Joined: 22 Oct 2002

Shorty40 wrote:

You are mean JK Crying or Very sad

he he... just checking if you are paying attention Very Happy

Joined: 27 Oct 2002 Location: Sydney

JK wrote:

Shorty40 wrote:

You are mean JK Crying or Very sad

he he... just checking if you are paying attention Very Happy

My ears were burning so I had to come see what was happening Laughing

Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Location: North Sydney, Australia

I've done all the suspension links now, just gotta mount the steering
servo and hook up some sort of receiver to get it all moving so I can
test this tiny-ass gearbox out to the max!!

I made the links out of threaded rod and ball joints,
I made the driveshaft out of copper pipe and axle stubs and dogbones.
A bit bodgy, but this is my first attempt at this sorta thing, plus I had
VERY limited access to materials.

But let me just say my little Mini Giant has got flex like a BASTARD!!!
The suspension travel has gone from about 30deg to about 80deg!!
Its gone from nothing to CRAZY just by changing 6 links!!!!
These things have got potential.
Plus its so damn light that no angle really affects its stability.

I just need a better way to put power down.
Was looking at the GWS-300 spinner which is a 6:1 reduction and then
feed that into the stock mini-giant tranny??
is there a way I can replace the whole gearbox with something
bigger/stronger, like a wheely king tranny or an F150 or something??

Here are some pics...
Mini Giant 1

Mini Giant 2

Mini Giant 3

Mini Giant 4

Cheers.
Bart

Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Location: Bendigo - Australia

go and check out the forum on www.one18th.com... look for venom mini giant or Atech LeoX... both the same car.
There are plenty of crawler builds there, and i believe they use the standard gearbox, and a GD600 or similar as well.
If you have stripped the gears, try rc-mart.com for parts.... or use the replacement gear that came with the car Wink

Me.. I'm just gonna stick a 1000kv brushless outrunner in mine and see if thats slow enough... then i might go the gearbox.