Army truck gets a winter makeover

The Army TL01 truck has had something of a makeover to make it a bit better for off road running, which is really its natural environment. Previously it all too often lost traction as soon as it suffered any amount of wheelspin, so now I've locked both of its gearbox differentials using the normal hot glue method. The truck is now powered by an Integy 35 turn motor for increased torque, and it also now wears my old glued F-350 wheels and tyres (which were left over from the original 'Blue truck' project, now itself in its second - going on third - guise).

I've trimmed the body down by about 12mm along the bottom edges, partly to allow for easier battery changes, but also because it had cracked on one side here anyway.

I think it definitely looks better like this.

Run times have increased by about 20% with the swap from the 27 to the 35 turn motors, although it is still somewhat overgeared, even with the smallest possible (19 tooth) pinion fitted. The wheel and tyre change hasn't helped this any, being as the F-350 tyres have an outside diameter of about 93mm, against around 87mm for the earlier Pajero ones. The grip is much better though, and it'll just about pull away from rest up a 30 degree slope. It does though still have reasonable wheelspeed for everyday running, it isn't really a crawler, but then again it doesn't have the suspension travel for this anyway.

We're now using an iWaver 27Mhz transmitter to drive the truck with, replacing the previous HPI TF-3 handset (the RX hasn't needed to be changed). This unit, found on eBay for a tenner, has a case that is externally absolutely identical to a Futaba 3PM (FM or FS - although the FS, being synthesized, doesn't have a crystal slot), of which I have one of each for my other trucks. I don't know whether the iWaver is simply a lesser-specification clone of the Futaba TX, or whether it is actually produced for iWaver by Futaba, but A FEW WORDS OF WARNING ARE NECESSARY in case anyone reading this comes here by way of a Google (etc) search looking for info about these iWaver units.


THE BATTERY TRAYS, ALTHOUGH IDENTICAL AND INTERCHANGEABLE, ARE BOTH FITTED WITH FUTABA J TYPE PLUG-IN CONNECTORS. THESE ARE WIRED UP DIFFERENTLY, POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ARE REVERSED BETWEEN THE TWO TYPES, iWAVER and FUTABA. I very nearly made the mistake of swapping a full tray because I charge my trays as a complete unit and had flat batteries in one and charged ones in the other. IF YOU SWAP BETWEEN THESE TWO TYPES WITHOUT REVERSING THE PINS IN THE PLUG (or putting the batteries in the wrong way around i.e. battery + end to spring) YOU MAY WELL END UP DESTROYING YOUR TRANSMITTER. EQUALLY, FITTING A RECHARGEABLE PACK INTENDED FOR A FUTABA TX INTO A iWAVER UNIT MAY CAUSE THE SAME PROBLEM. I'm (obviously) not going to carry out an experiment to see if this actually happens, although I've seen this happen with other RC equipment. IF YOU READ THIS AND OWN BOTH TYPES OF TX, PLEASE CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED ABOUT THIS POTENTIALLY DESTRUCTIVE ISSUE!