Big Rock Big Rock Custom Body, LEDs & more

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I like lifted trucks. I am well aware of the trade offs I have made by raising this truck. Both in the extra stress that I am putting on the drive train and the fact that the truck started with a high center of gravity and I have now made it even higher. I do still plan on getting larger tires on this truck also. Which again will probably raise it up another .5-1.5 inches maybe more depending on what wheels and tires I go with. The new tires will also be wider than the stock tires which should help some, but will never change the fact that my truck will always have a high center of gravity. As for the T-Bone bumper that is the look they make. I didn't have a choice on how wide it was. Take a look at all their bumpers it's the way they design there products. From what I can tell they do it mostly to give you as much protection as possible. All posts I have read about the T-Bone racing bumpers and skit plates say they work great and keep your cars and trucks safe. Even though it would fit I didn't buy the T-Bone version 1 Nero bumper because I personally didn't like the look of it. The Big Rock has a more scale look and I think this version 2 "Big Rock" bumper, that I have, fits the look of this truck much better. They also have an option to install a light bar on it which is cool. Unfortunately I had already gone to the trouble of mounting a 2" light bar to the grill of my custom body before I found out that T-Bone had released this bumper. So now I have to decide if I want to leave the light bar mounted to the body or if I want to move it down onto the bumper and have a couple of holes in the front of my body.
 
You´re job is well done. I agree with you concerning the shape of the TB-Nero Bumper. But I think in case of that shape form follows function. It´s designed for bashing and not for scale. The BR Bumper looks more scale and keeps the look of the car more than the "bashing bumper"!
But I mean that the two transversely (is that the right word?) are a little to big. Not in the length but in diameter.
I just mounted two small lamps onto the original bumper, but the bumper had a little damaging, so it dosen´t matter if there are 2 additional holes in it. I think later I change the bumper in case of my skills! ;)

You´re light buckets are impressive, but I have not the possibility to use an 3-D printer. On the other hand.... If I would mount such light show into a body, I fear that I just drive very slow afterwards. :)
Maybe if I buy an clear body, I will think about.. but thats the future.

One point more.. Please think about that if you change the wheel outer diameter to bigger, you have to check the transmission.
Normally you have to use an smaller pinion gear after putting bigger wheels on the car, because you increase the needed force and the drivetrain have to cover more power. Also the power of the motor (amps) will increase if you don't put an smaller pinion on it..
So watch up to the ESC and LiPo´s..

Regards,
lonee
 
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Update #6: LED Kit Installed and Running (finally)

First and most importantly a huge Thank You to Dan over at MyTrickRC for all the work he did designing and printing the light buckets and 3rd brake light housing for this project.

I have finally finished installing all the LEDs on my custom Big Rock body and more importantly taken pictures of it all. It took a bit longer than I thought it would, but I am pretty happy with the final result. I know have Running Lights, adjustable Headlights, 2 LED light bars, working Tail/Brake lights, and Reverse lights. Because I only have still pictures so far I don't have a shot with the reverse lights on or showing the brightness difference between the tail and brake lights.

First off a couple pictures of the installation.
  • Picture 1 show the entire body, the light buckets, LED controllers and how I ran all the wiring.
  • Picture 2 is a close up of the front Headlight and running light buckets.
  • Picture 3 is a close up of the rear Tail light buckets and 3rd brake light housing
  • Picture 4 is a close up of the 2 LED controllers
  • Picture 5 is a close up look from the outside of the Headlights and buckets
  • Picture 6 is a close up look from the outside of the Tail lights and buckets
  • Picture 7 shows the front lights in 3 different modes.
    • Mode 1 - Running Lights only. I chose not to make the amber lights turn signals so they are just on constant light a marker light would be.
    • Mode 2 - Running Lights and Headlights on. The controller I have actually allows me to have the Headlights on either 1/2 intensity or full intensity which is pretty cool, but I am only showing 1/2 intensity in this picture.
    • Mode 3 - All front light on 100%. Headlights are at full intensity and both light bars are on 100% also.
  • Picture 8 shows the taillights. This was the hardest picture to get. The 3rd brake light has 3 LEDs and trying to take a picture of them makes it look like there are 3 hot spots in the 3rd brake light. Seeing it in person the light is actually distributed through the whole fixture much more evenly than the picture looks. This 3rd brake light figure is actually what took the longest to finish. Dan and I went through at least 6-8 different designs before we finally settled on this one. The fixture was printed with a 3D printer.
  • Picture 9, I was trying to show how much light each of the modes puts out. The truck is sitting about 8 feet from the wall in front of it. While the first 2 settings don't look like all that much light, the All On mode really shows just how much light these LEDs are putting out.
1. BigRockLED_Install_01.JPG 2.BigRockLED_Install_02.JPG 3.BigRockLED_Install_03.JPG 4.BigRockLED_Install_04.JPG
5.BigRockLED_Install_05.JPG 6.BigRockLED_Install_06.JPG 7.BigRockLED_Install_07.jpg 8.BigRockLED_Install_08.JPG
9.BigRockLED_Install_09.jpg
 
Update #7 - Workbench Stand

This update isn't really about anything I did to my truck and I am only posting it because it took me a lot of searching to find a workbench stand that was big enough to hold my Big Rock up and have the tires completely off the workbench. A big part of my problem is that I have modified my truck to allow more suspension travel. I originally bought a Pro-Line 1/8 Car Stand which worked well before I modified the suspension on my truck. After the work I did the Pro-Line stand was just barley tall enough to hold the truck off the workbench, but I could not run the truck on the stand without at least one of the tires catching and sending the truck across my workbench. So after much Google searching I finally found an adjustable stand made by Overdose Racing and I am very happy with my purchase which is why I am adding this post. This stand is great and would work very well for any 1/8 scale RC. Here are a couple picture so of my truck on the Pro-Line stand and on the Overdose stand. The Overdose stand is on the middle height setting in all of these pictures. The lowest setting is actually about the same height as the Pro-Line stand. Don't get me wrong the Pro-Line stand is a great stand, it's just not big enough for my Big Rock Monster truck.

Workbench_Stand_01.JPG Workbench_Stand_02.JPG Workbench_Stand_03.JPG Workbench_Stand_04.JPG
 
NO NOT BASH THAT BODY!!! great job though the lights look so great and really futuristic too
 
When I started building this body my plan was not to make a shelf queen, but it kind of turned out that way. My original plan for the LEDs really snow balled after I found out what was really available and Dan offered to build me the fancy light buckets. I was originally going to make light buckets out of modeling resin myself, put Angel-Eye head lights in them and use an LED strip for the 3rd brake light. Then Dan offered to 3D print everything for me and was able to make those killer halo's for the head lights. So I think the plan now is to do "light" bashing with this body and if I want to go big or do any jumping, put my stock body back on the truck.
 
Update #8 - Wheelie Bar Mod

Since I raised my truck the stock wheelie bar has not really been very useful. Even when it is extended to the very lowest setting the truck still ends up flipping over more often than not. So I decided to see if I could some how design some modified parts that would allow me to extend the wheelie bar even lower. After looking at some custom built wheelie bars online and seeing @lonee's custom Big Rock Wheelie bar. I decided that I would try to design an upper and lower mount that would allow me to replace the center "S" shaped adjustment piece from the Arrma wheelie bar with 2 shocks. In order to make this all work I decided that a set of 72mm internal spring shocks would work best. I found the shock I bought on ebay, although I have since discovered that RC4WD has similar shocks also. I will put links to all the parts I bought at the bottom of this post. When the shocks arrived I discovered that the springs in them were very soft so back to google I went and found that RC4WD also has assorted spring sets for these internal spring shocks. So I bought a set of 60mm internal springs and replace the springs that came in the shocks with the RC4WD 60mm 2.0 Spring Rate Black springs and added a little bit of 70w shock oil. This stiffened up the shocks very nicely which is very important when you conciser the overall weight of this truck. At the same time as I was figuring out the shocks I also started using Autodesk 123D Design to design an upper an lower mount that I could have 3D printed and use to attach the shocks to the wheelie bar. I used ShapeWays.com to print these parts. It took 3 different design versions, but I now have a working wheelie bar that can be adjusted from 1.75" - 3" off the ground. The stock wheelie bar sits 3.75" - 5" off the ground. I can still use the stock configuration if I want the wheelie bar up higher, but I am very happy with the lower options that I know have also with my new custom setup. I decided to take some pictures now before I paint the new parts so that it is easy to see the 3D printed parts are in (dirty) white. There is something about this white plastic that if you have even a speck of dirt on your hands it will end up stuck to this stuff. Anyway, I am very happy with the way this modification has worked out. Now I just need to paint these and get some longer screws to mount the shocks properly to them. I will post more pictures once I have finished the last few steps.

  • Picture 1 - Design version 1, this was very simple. I thought I would be able to rely more on the adjustment in the stock wheelie bar, but one I installed everything I realized that I had not built in enough support to keep these mounts fixed in place.
  • Picture 2 - Design version 2, I added additional support and adjustment options to my custom mounts, because now the lower mount piece can not be adjusted when it is installed in the stock wheelie bar.
  • No Picture for design version 3, v3 is basically the same as v2, except that I had a few measurements that were off. I had to correct the distance between the 2 larger wholes in the lower mount so that it would line up properly with the holes in the stock wheelie bar. Because they are already installed on the truck I don't have a picture of just the v3 mounts.
  • Picture 3 - Stock Wheelie Bar at it's highest adjustment
  • Picture 4 - Stock Wheelie Bar at it's lowest adjustment
  • Picture 5 - Custom Wheelie Bar at it's highest adjustment
  • Picture 6 - Custom Wheelie Bar at it's lowest adjustment
  • Picture 7 - Close-up Custom Wheelie Bar lower shock mount
  • Picture 8 - Custom Wheelie Bar side view
  • Picture 9 - Close-up Custom Wheelie Bar upper shock mount
  • Picture 10 - Everything all together with the body on. Looking good!

v1 Custom Wheelie Bar Mount.jpg v2 Custom Wheelie Bar Mount.jpg Stock Wheelie Bar Highest.jpg Stock Wheelie Bar Lowest.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar Highest.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar Lowest.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar Mount Lower.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar Mount Side View.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar Mount Upper.jpg Custom Wheelie Bar All Together.jpg

Links to the parts I bought
Shocks: 2 Pieces Black Aluminum Alloy Shock Absorber
Springs: 60mm Ultimate Scale Shocks Internal Spring Assortment (Part #Z-S1343)
 
Update #4: Hobao Spring Retainers & Shock Shaft Ends
This is going to be a short update, but my Hobao shock kit arrived in the mail the other day and I was able to get the spring retainers and the shock shaft ends installed today. These have definitely resolved the issue of the the spring retainers hitting the rocker arms. These along with the Hot Racing Rocker Arms and I am pretty sure I have completely maximized my suspension travel as much as possible at this point. The only thing that might raise the truck a little more would be to find longer push rods, but doing that would also probably require modifying the upper arms so that the push rods don't rub on anything. At this point I like where my truck is at so I don't think I will be looking to do all that extra work. Here are a couple pictures of the new spring retainers and shock shaft ends. In the first picture the two shocks on the left have the new Hobao parts installed and the two shocks on the right are stock. The 2nd & 3rd pictures are of the front shocks installed on the truck.

View attachment 8455 View attachment 8456 View attachment 8457
do I have to get new ends for shocks with the Big Rock, its the newer one, black esc.....
 
Update #5: T-Bone Racing & Skid Plate Mod Closeup pictures
Got my T-Bone Racing Big Rock TBR XV4 Front Bumper in the mail yesterday and was able to get it installed on my truck today. Unfortunately, I only have my stick body right now for the pictures. My custom body is over getting a 3rd brake light fit. Anyway a couple of notes on the T-Bone front bumper. It looks awesome and is pretty easy to install. In the 4th picture below you can see that the support piece that gets attached to the stock bumper is a bit tight between the bumper and the front skid plate. Also because of the way it is designed when you tighten down the screws it pushes up on the very front of the stock bumper. This in-turn causes the body to sit higher. I ended up having to raise the front body mounts one hole each to fit the body on the truck after everything was installed. In picture #3 you can see what I mean about the bumper being pushed up in front. The picture clearly shows that the stock bumper is no longer level. I may just end up taking the stock bumper off. I am a bit concerned that if I hit the T-Bone bumper on anything it might force the stock bumper up and rip the body right off the body posts. The body and the bumpers on this truck fit so tightly together that and little movement would affect all of them at the same time. I guess my other option would be to raise the body posts another notch and allow the body to have more room to move between the mounts and the stock bumper.

View attachment 8490 View attachment 8491 View attachment 8492 View attachment 8494

It seems like there are some other people out there who are actually interested in also making their Big Rocks taller like I did with mine. I still would recommend take a look at the video that I posted in update #3, but I figured I would take a couple pictures of my skid plates and post them as well. To kind of show what the difference is. First 3 pictures of the front skid plates. The first picture shows my modified skit plates on the right and a stock front skit plate on the left. The second picture is the same image, but I have put red lines that show where I cut material away from my skid plate one the right and highlight over the same area on the left. Because of the angle I took these pictures it looks like the cut lines are not straight, but they really are. I guess I should have taken these from directly over top rather than off to the side. The 3rd picture is a close up of just the very front skid plate. Stock untouched on the left and my modified plate on the right.
View attachment 8495 View attachment 8496 View attachment 8497

The next 3 pictures are the same thing, but of the rear skid plates.
View attachment 8498 View attachment 8499 View attachment 8500



cutting those out extending the travel, did you find that shock shafts broke, driveshafts, etc, being as I looked at mu big rocks, seems they could of done that, but didn't so the suspension is not so STRETCHED OUT????

also whats a good weight for shocks oil, and f/c/r/ diffs, removing all the brains, and module from start, also steering servo and radio, so if you or anyone knows anyone, and you want diff lock heres your chance brand new arm big rock, newer style....

Do you know what our esc put out power to servo? 6 volts/ 7.2 etc? thanks
 
any
Update #1: LED Kit
I have only been a member of the forum here for a little while, but figured I would start this thread since I am working on a custom painted body, LED package, and a few other modifications to my Big Rock. A while back now I started fallowing a few different YouTube channels that focus on the RC Hobby. Not long after I purchased my Arrma Nero Big Rock and pretty much immediately decided that I needed to customize it to make it mine and to be at least a little bit different. After searching for RC LED kits online I ended up in contact with Dan over at http://mytrickrc.com/. After talking with him a couple of time we put together an LED light package for my Big Rock that I really think is going to make my truck very different. The biggest issue with putting LEDs on a Big Rock body is that no one has light buckets that fit. Fortunately for me while talking to him about the LED's, Dan told me that he has a 3D printer and that he could print me some light buckets if I had a body that he could use to make the models from. So I gave him my unpainted clear body and he was able to make me some really great light buckets that even include a halo light bar under the head lights. As of now I have fully tested the LED setup on the truck, but have not yet installed them my newly painted body. I will be doing that soon and posting more about this installation once I do. For now I figured I would get started by listing what all the LED package is made up of. There is also a picture below of all the parts I have listed here.

LEDs:
  • 4x Super Bright White LEDs (Head Lights)
  • 8x 3mm White LEDs (6 are for the front halo's & 2 are reverse lights)
  • 3x 5mm Amber LEDs (front marker lights)
  • 7x 3mm Red LEDs (Tail/Brake lights)
Light Bars:
  • 1x 6 inch Attack Series Light Bar
  • 1x 2 inch Attack Series Light Bar
LED Controllers:
  • 1x Dragon LED Controller
  • 1x UF-7 LED Controller
Light Buckets:
  • 2x Head light and running light buckets
  • 2x Halo light inserts (printed from a translucent media)
  • 2x Read Tail/Brake/Reverse light buckets
  • 1x Tail/Brake light bar
I know this light package is probably a little bit of over kill, but oh well at least I am having fun putting it all together.

Also anyone looking to put LEDs on their Nero, Big Rock, or Fazon with a Diff Brain... I have found that the reverse light work, but not all the time. Dan and I spent over an hour trying to figure out why the reverse light don't turn on some of the time. All we could come up with is that the signal that Arrma installed receiver is sending to tell the truck to go in reverse is slightly different than the signal that most other receivers send. I know that Arrma has put a lot of work into the electronics of this truck to make Diff Brain work and if you have looked at the way it's wired for some reason the motor channel is actually wired through the Diff Brain. I have chosen not use any of these LEDs as turn signals so I do not know if the LED controllers are working with the steering channel correctly or not, but I am guessing that they should work. That is the one channel that does not go through the Diff Brain. All the other features of both my LED controllers are working great. The Dragon controller even piggy backs on channel 3 and allows me to change modes by rotating the diff control switch on the transmitter from all unlocked to all locked and back to all unlocked. However if I move the diff control switch one notch at a time the Dragon controller does nothing and Diff Brain does it's work. I will try and show how this works once I get everything fully installed on the body.

Here are some pictures of the LEDs and the light buckets. Once I get them installed on my newly painted body I will post more pictures and updates of how it goes.

chance you could build a set up for me, or trade, I have all 3 NEW DIFF BRAINS SERVOS/.MODULE/RECEIVER/TRANSMITTER/ALSO STOCK STEERING SERVO, EITHER WAY YOU ROCK MAN!! I LOVE SEEING WHAT YOU DID SUCH A INSPIRATION

ILL GLADLY PAY AS WELL, JUST TRYING AS IM TAKING THEM OUT BY WEEKEND ALL WILL BE OUT IF I CANT FIND WHAT DIFF OIL TO USE FIRST F/C/R...HAVING A HARD TIME WITH THAT, ALSO IF ANY BUGGY PINS FIT, don't LIKE USUING DRILL BIT DEAL!!!
 
So what you see here in this thread is everything I have done to my truck. I have not tuned my diffs, I still have the diff brain and all 3 diff servos. As for the shock ends, from my experience and talking to a few other people here on the forums you can replace the spring retainers without replacing the shaft ends. As for breaking anything since lifting my truck, no I have not had anything break after I cut out the skid plates. However I will also say that I have not jumped my truck since lifting it either. I have run it on 6S and had a lot of fun, but if you want to go big on the jumps then I would probably suggest not lifting your truck. As for the ESC, it is locked in at 6.0v, take a look at the manual. Big Rock manual page 23 BEC voltage. For some reason Arrma locked the ESC on 6.0v. A lot of people are not so happy with that, but it is what it is. I have been looking to replace my steering servo, but I have not yet made up my mind what servo to go with. The biggest issue on the servo is I can't decide how much money I want to spend. There are plenty of great servo's that will get the job done, but for now I am just running the stock servo. The one other thing that I really do need to get is some hub extensions to widen the stance of my truck. A stock Big Rock is a bit top heavy, when you lift it even more that does not change. Some hub extensions and maybe some bigger/wider wheels would make my truck more stable and easier to control.
 
So what you see here in this thread is everything I have done to my truck. I have not tuned my diffs, I still have the diff brain and all 3 diff servos. As for the shock ends, from my experience and talking to a few other people here on the forums you can replace the spring retainers without replacing the shaft ends. As for breaking anything since lifting my truck, no I have not had anything break after I cut out the skid plates. However I will also say that I have not jumped my truck since lifting it either. I have run it on 6S and had a lot of fun, but if you want to go big on the jumps then I would probably suggest not lifting your truck. As for the ESC, it is locked in at 6.0v, take a look at the manual. Big Rock manual page 23 BEC voltage. For some reason Arrma locked the ESC on 6.0v. A lot of people are not so happy with that, but it is what it is. I have been looking to replace my steering servo, but I have not yet made up my mind what servo to go with. The biggest issue on the servo is I can't decide how much money I want to spend. There are plenty of great servo's that will get the job done, but for now I am just running the stock servo. The one other thing that I really do need to get is some hub extensions to widen the stance of my truck. A stock Big Rock is a bit top heavy, when you lift it even more that does not change. Some hub extensions and maybe some bigger/wider wheels would make my truck more stable and easier to control.

I saw that, I ordered the wifi tuner last night, hobby wings max 6 I think, not the big boy 5, that will go in after a few weeks, I don't like the clutter when trucks driven slow, so I want a censored esc, if I have to go Tekkie Gen 2 I will, or any recommendations here, also I want my son to start with high man<for runtime> 60-100c 2c packs, total 4, I have now these onyx 5400 11.1 50c 60wh whatever wh means! lipos, and I have a set of venom lipos as well, there not 50 c, there 35c, but it will be his first time on 6c, I have it all mapped out for him, lol

until he learns I ordered 4 packs of these, hope there good Enuff?
I might sell off 2 of the 3c combinations, as last night I realize I have a tank load of lipos

https://www.rcpapa.com/collections/...-6500mah-7-4v-50c-2s1p-hard-case-lipo-battery
 
Update #8 - Wheelie Bar Mod

Since I raised my truck the stock wheelie bar has not really been very useful. Even when it is extended to the very lowest setting the truck still ends up flipping over more often than not. So I decided to see if I could some how design some modified parts that would allow me to extend the wheelie bar even lower. After looking at some custom built wheelie bars online and seeing @lonee's custom Big Rock Wheelie bar. I decided that I would try to design an upper and lower mount that would allow me to replace the center "S" shaped adjustment piece from the Arrma wheelie bar with 2 shocks. In order to make this all work I decided that a set of 72mm internal spring shocks would work best. I found the shock I bought on ebay, although I have since discovered that RC4WD has similar shocks also. I will put links to all the parts I bought at the bottom of this post. When the shocks arrived I discovered that the springs in them were very soft so back to google I went and found that RC4WD also has assorted spring sets for these internal spring shocks. So I bought a set of 60mm internal springs and replace the springs that came in the shocks with the RC4WD 60mm 2.0 Spring Rate Black springs and added a little bit of 70w shock oil. This stiffened up the shocks very nicely which is very important when you conciser the overall weight of this truck. At the same time as I was figuring out the shocks I also started using Autodesk 123D Design to design an upper an lower mount that I could have 3D printed and use to attach the shocks to the wheelie bar. I used ShapeWays.com to print these parts. It took 3 different design versions, but I now have a working wheelie bar that can be adjusted from 1.75" - 3" off the ground. The stock wheelie bar sits 3.75" - 5" off the ground. I can still use the stock configuration if I want the wheelie bar up higher, but I am very happy with the lower options that I know have also with my new custom setup. I decided to take some pictures now before I paint the new parts so that it is easy to see the 3D printed parts are in (dirty) white. There is something about this white plastic that if you have even a speck of dirt on your hands it will end up stuck to this stuff. Anyway, I am very happy with the way this modification has worked out. Now I just need to paint these and get some longer screws to mount the shocks properly to them. I will post more pictures once I have finished the last few steps.

  • Picture 1 - Design version 1, this was very simple. I thought I would be able to rely more on the adjustment in the stock wheelie bar, but one I installed everything I realized that I had not built in enough support to keep these mounts fixed in place.
  • Picture 2 - Design version 2, I added additional support and adjustment options to my custom mounts, because now the lower mount piece can not be adjusted when it is installed in the stock wheelie bar.
  • No Picture for design version 3, v3 is basically the same as v2, except that I had a few measurements that were off. I had to correct the distance between the 2 larger wholes in the lower mount so that it would line up properly with the holes in the stock wheelie bar. Because they are already installed on the truck I don't have a picture of just the v3 mounts.
  • Picture 3 - Stock Wheelie Bar at it's highest adjustment
  • Picture 4 - Stock Wheelie Bar at it's lowest adjustment
  • Picture 5 - Custom Wheelie Bar at it's highest adjustment
  • Picture 6 - Custom Wheelie Bar at it's lowest adjustment
  • Picture 7 - Close-up Custom Wheelie Bar lower shock mount
  • Picture 8 - Custom Wheelie Bar side view
  • Picture 9 - Close-up Custom Wheelie Bar upper shock mount
  • Picture 10 - Everything all together with the body on. Looking good!

View attachment 10801View attachment 10802 View attachment 10793View attachment 10794View attachment 10795View attachment 10796View attachment 10797View attachment 10798View attachment 10799View attachment 10800

Links to the parts I bought
Shocks: 2 Pieces Black Aluminum Alloy Shock Absorber
Springs: 60mm Ultimate Scale Shocks Internal Spring Assortment (Part #Z-S1343)

Any chance you can share the 3d files you used to print the v3 of your wheelie bar mounts? Many thanks!
 
Update #5: T-Bone Racing & Skid Plate Mod Closeup pictures
Update #2: Body Paint
Well after more time that it probably should have taken the paint on my custom Big Rock body is finally done. And I need to start off with a couple of shout outs because the idea for this body came from by love of old TV shows an X-Maxx body that PitDawg Hydro did for DJ Medic over at RCSparks Studio. PitDawg and Medic thank you for the idea and I hope you don't mind, but I just had to do one of my own. For anyone who doesn't know these guys PitDawg Hydro is painter the does incredible custom paint work on RC's. DJ Medic is a vlogger who runs the RCSparks YouTube channel and posts all kind of really great video's about the RC hobby. I will put links to both websites at the bottom of this post. If you search his channel for XMaxx you will be able to see the body that inspired me to do this one for my Big Rock.

A couple of notes first, I am pretty new to the RC hobby, and this is the first RC body I have ever painted. I did spray paint about 90% of this body. In fact that is part of why it took so long to finish. I used custom vinyl stickers as paint masks and came to find out that getting the fine details of this paint job to come out were a lot harder than I thought they would be. The grill is a sticker that I designed and had printed specifically to fit the front of this body. It was reverse printed and is actually stuck on the inside of the body so that any external damage will not scratch or mark the sticker. The lettering on the roof is also two stickers, the flag is painted. On my first attempt I tried to use paint masks and paint the lettering on, but the masks for the white outline were so small that when I went to take them off it was also pealing off the darker paint I had already put on. I ended up having to completely remove all the paint from around the lettering and start over. After that I designed another custom sticker with the white outline and the blue lettering and had it printed like I did for the grill. All of the orange is paint. The lettering like the grill is reverse printed and is stuck to to the inside of the body and then I painted the orange over it. The flag on the roof and the numbers on the doors are all painted. The vinyl mask stickers for those worked pretty well. You can't really see it in these pictures, but the stars on the roof are not very clean. As long as you stand a couple feet away from it this body looks great, but if you get up close to it you can see that it was painted by an amateur. At least it was a good learning experience and now I know what to differently for my next one. Also how much time do you really spend right up close with your RCs. Most of the time they are 10-100 feet away from you cause you are having a good time with them.

The light bars are the first part of my LED kit to be installed. I would have installed more, but I am waiting on some mirror chrome paint to paint the light buckets. In the pictures above you can see that I have painted them with a semi-gloss sliver, but the paint I used didn't really give me the finish I was looking for. So I am going to try some chrome paint I found online. Once that come in and I get a coat or two on the light buckets I will post another update with the new custom body fully complete and the lights all working on the truck.

Here are the links:
PitDawg Hydro: http://www.pitdawghydro.com
RCSparks Studio: http://www.rcadventures.com/

And here is what you really want to see, pics of the body....
View attachment 6710 View attachment 6711 View attachment 6712 View attachment 6713 View attachment 6714 View attachment 6715 View attachment 6716
Hello. Could you please post link to the mounts for lights?
 
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