- Messages
- 535
- Reaction score
- 1,692
- Points
- 200
- Location
- Northeastern NY
- RC Driving Style
- Bashing
- Crawling
- Scale Builder
- Flying
- Boating
My Hobby Plus Terranaut showed up today. It was delivered undamaged by UPS and the truck looked perfect.
After watching some videos and hearing the horrendous whine coming from some of the Terranauts, I decided to take off the portal covers and grease them all thoroughly before running it. They were fairly well lubed from the factory with what looked like thin silicone (or maybe lithium) white grease. One of the eight was a little light on lube but all were OK out of the box. I added some thicker dark grease in hopes of squelching some of the gear whine, which I think it did as it seemed to be quieter than some in the videos.
Everything was set up nicely from the factory and it required just a bit of steering trim to be running right. End points were good as received. I was happy with the gearing. Low seemed low enough and it moved out plenty fast enough on high, without being ridiculously fast. I ran it for a while outside where my driveway had a thin layer of hard-packed snow and some loose snow around the edges. I then ran it indoors on carpet and hardwood floors and set up some obstacles for it to crawl over. It's impressive. All good. All fun!
It takes a little while to get used to the rear wheel steering, mostly because the lever for it on the transmitter is quite small and short. I plan to add an extension so the lever falls naturally under my thumb. This will hopefully make it much easer to use and also reduce the chance of accidentally hitting the winch button while using the rear steering lever. Many reviewers complained that the winch button was too easy to hit by mistake while using the rear wheel steering. I didn't have this issue but I didn't run it very long. I think if it does become an issue, I'll add a ridge around the button on the transmitter with a bead of J.B. Weld or by glueing something on it.
Battery life was great... I had barely run it down to storage charge when I put it away. A cell check showed the battery's two cells had exactly the same remaining voltage. A good sign for the battery.
Now, the long wait until Spring when I can get the Terranaut outside on some crawling territory! It's in the teens here now, with tonight's low being forecasted to be at zero. High of 17˚ tomorrow. Ugh!
After watching some videos and hearing the horrendous whine coming from some of the Terranauts, I decided to take off the portal covers and grease them all thoroughly before running it. They were fairly well lubed from the factory with what looked like thin silicone (or maybe lithium) white grease. One of the eight was a little light on lube but all were OK out of the box. I added some thicker dark grease in hopes of squelching some of the gear whine, which I think it did as it seemed to be quieter than some in the videos.
Everything was set up nicely from the factory and it required just a bit of steering trim to be running right. End points were good as received. I was happy with the gearing. Low seemed low enough and it moved out plenty fast enough on high, without being ridiculously fast. I ran it for a while outside where my driveway had a thin layer of hard-packed snow and some loose snow around the edges. I then ran it indoors on carpet and hardwood floors and set up some obstacles for it to crawl over. It's impressive. All good. All fun!
It takes a little while to get used to the rear wheel steering, mostly because the lever for it on the transmitter is quite small and short. I plan to add an extension so the lever falls naturally under my thumb. This will hopefully make it much easer to use and also reduce the chance of accidentally hitting the winch button while using the rear steering lever. Many reviewers complained that the winch button was too easy to hit by mistake while using the rear wheel steering. I didn't have this issue but I didn't run it very long. I think if it does become an issue, I'll add a ridge around the button on the transmitter with a bead of J.B. Weld or by glueing something on it.
Battery life was great... I had barely run it down to storage charge when I put it away. A cell check showed the battery's two cells had exactly the same remaining voltage. A good sign for the battery.
Now, the long wait until Spring when I can get the Terranaut outside on some crawling territory! It's in the teens here now, with tonight's low being forecasted to be at zero. High of 17˚ tomorrow. Ugh!
