Lets talk Light Kits

Welcome to RCTalk

Come join other RC enthusiasts! You'll be able to discuss, share and private message with other members of our community.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ABabyEater

RCTalk Racer
Build Thread Contributor
Messages
90
Reaction score
151
Location
Bozeman, MT
RC Driving Style
  1. Bashing
  2. Racing
  3. Crawling
  4. Flying
  5. Boating
I have been looking around quite a bit, and have been having trouble finding what I am looking for in a light controller/lighting kit. In the most boiled down sense of it, I am looking for headlights, taillights, brake lights, with the expandibility for rock lights and a light bar, that can all be toggled on/off on a single channel. Has anyone run any of the listed kits, or found a different solution, including homemade that has worked similarly?

Taking a look at the Traxxas kits, the propriatary nature, and the "pro scale" option being the only one with brake lights, and for brushed only, it crosses itsself of the list.

MyTrickRC had some cool options, but having ordered one recently that the lighting controller literally fell apart in the packaging (insulation on main wire cracked and fell off, light connector fell off the board, missing the top of the programming switch) in addition to support being near non-existant and taking over a week to reply, if there was any reply at all, I would rather support a different company, if the option is there.

RC4WD makes some cool lights, but their controller lacks a brake function, and I am not a fan of having to carry and use a totally separate remote.

Vanquish Products has the Incision Stage 1 light kit, which I really like the slimness of, but it doesn't seem very expandable to me. I would be willing to sacrifice the brake lights for this kit, if I could also add rock lights, and a light bar. Possible 2 of these on 2 channels, one for standard (front/rear), and one for extra (light bar/rock lights)?

Admittedly, I am a bit hesitant for some of the more ""basic"" kits like the Redcat, Axial, or even the Yeah Racing controllers due to the lack of documentation on light bar/rock light compatibility.
 
Diving deeper, it looks like the MyTrickRC kit is going to be my best option. In my research it seems my first experience is not the usual for them, and their products seem to be very popular. Besides, why not give a small company a second chance?

I also ordered the incision vanquish makes. We will see if the headlight buckets are interchangeable, since I like the vanquish ones much better.
 
Diving deeper, it looks like the MyTrickRC kit is going to be my best option. In my research it seems my first experience is not the usual for them, and their products seem to be very popular. Besides, why not give a small company a second chance?

I also ordered the incision vanquish makes. We will see if the headlight buckets are interchangeable, since I like the vanquish ones much better.
MyTrick RC lights has all the functions for my SCX 10iii . Great function and BLINDING...Careful with you eyeballs. There can always be that one unit that can give us a bad name but glad you gave them a second chance. You wont be disappointed. Good Luck. Let me know how it goes. My profile pic is the vehicle i mentioned.
 
MyTrick RC lights has all the functions for my SCX 10iii . Great function and BLINDING...Careful with you eyeballs. There can always be that one unit that can give us a bad name but glad you gave them a second chance. You wont be disappointed. Good Luck. Let me know how it goes. My profile pic is the vehicle i mentioned.
I ended up going with a MTRC Dragon kit/controller, and trying out the Incision headlights from Vanquish. The Incision headlights are WAY brighter than the MTRC ones. The controller seems to work, except one of the channels that is supposed to be off except on brightest function turns on on the lowest setting as well. Additionally, there seems to be no straightforward way to do crawler drag brake with separate reverse LEDs. Overall it works OK, and the kit had rock lights and whatnot, which I like, but it hasn't been worth the ridiculous cost.
 
I ended up going with a MTRC Dragon kit/controller, and trying out the Incision headlights from Vanquish. The Incision headlights are WAY brighter than the MTRC ones. The controller seems to work, except one of the channels that is supposed to be off except on brightest function turns on on the lowest setting as well. Additionally, there seems to be no straightforward way to do crawler drag brake with separate reverse LEDs. Overall it works OK, and the kit had rock lights and whatnot, which I like, but it hasn't been worth the ridiculous cost.

For reverse leds, if your brushed, hook the positive led to the negative on the motor, and negative led to positive motor. Use a quality wire with proper gauge, and the led will light up in reverse.

I havemt tried brushless yet, but am planning to this weekend.


For brake lights, I use the mechanical way of a rocker switch. When pressed, the leds lught up from a servo pushing. Works great until reverse is used.
 
I ended up going with a MTRC Dragon kit/controller, and trying out the Incision headlights from Vanquish. The Incision headlights are WAY brighter than the MTRC ones. The controller seems to work, except one of the channels that is supposed to be off except on brightest function turns on on the lowest setting as well. Additionally, there seems to be no straightforward way to do crawler drag brake with separate reverse LEDs. Overall it works OK, and the kit had rock lights and whatnot, which I like, but it hasn't been worth the ridiculous cost.
Does the light Bar at the top (If you have one) get hot with the extra brightness?
 
Does the light Bar at the top (If you have one) get hot with the extra brightness?
I haven't been using a light bar, but the Incision headlights use 1 port each instead of both on a single port like the MTRC headlights. The Incision lights are WAY brighter and do get a bit warm, but the buckets have large heat sinks on the back that seem to help quite a bit
 
Just getting started, not necessarily new to RC but definitely new to the RC crawling world. Started with planes back in '82 when everything was nitro fuel powered. Flew for about 15 years consistently until marriage and kids came then on and off over the years while raising kids. Now it seems everything has gone electric. Dabbled a bit in some of that just not the same. Nothing like the smell of nitro and a motor revving to 15,000 rpm. Haven't done much with the planes for the last 15 years, really miss miss it. But to do something rc related, decided to try a crawler. I know it's probably not the best one out there, but decided to go with the TRX4 Defender, I'm not going to get to crazy but really like the looks of this platform.

My desire is to get some lights for it, something very simple, doesn't necessarily even need to hook into the radio system. Just want headlights and tail lights maybe a light bar for the top rack. Can have a separate switch and power source even. I'm not the most knowhow knowledgeable guy when it comes to electronics so the simpler the better. If the there's anything out there that would tie into the stock radio system that would be fine but it doesn't need to. Any suggestions?

20221119_010841.jpg


20221119_010850.jpg


20221119_010857.jpg


20221119_010908.jpg
 
My desire is to get some lights for it, something very simple, doesn't necessarily even need to hook into the radio system. Just want headlights and tail lights maybe a light bar for the top rack. Can have a separate switch and power source even.

Traxxas has kits for it if you don't want to figure everything out yourself.

TRX4 Defender Lighting kit
 
MyTrickRC has nice kits that are pretty easy to install. I'm running the Traxxas headlight and taillight housings on my Sport with the MyTrickRc controller and lights.
 
Back
Top