It's been a week I've got Kraton v3 - got some initial thoughts on this truck I want to share - hopefully it will help others as I've encountered some 'unexpected' things.
I'm not a new in RC, got Traxxas Erevo and as I'm mostly into speed monster trucks - and not really interested in a differnt kind of vehicles - I had to try out Kraton
So:
1)
My 4y old kid helped me to unpack and set-up the truck (preety excited) - we've connected battery quickly and slowly run across the room to check if it works. Indeed the sound of metal gears was beautiful - but then wanted to properly wire the battery cables so turned off the radio - and truck (as it was still on) with max acceleration went backwards! Smashed into a door - hopefylly kid was not harmed but come on it was close!
You need to reprogram failsave for idle throttle settings (manual is murky about - only procedure depicted) - I have no idea why factory setting was max backwards but it's a very serious flaw in my opinion and ARRMA really should take care about this.
Of course it was not smart turning radio off first (manual says turn off car first) but it still might happen as batteries could be almost dead or radio just can fail - as every other electronic component. Or signal might be lost for some other reasons. And then you have 5kg car running into somebody in worst case, unstoppable. Very dangerous!!!!
2)
Funny thing - in contrary what manual says default settings for battery is NiMh! Good I've lost confidence into any factory settings after encountering failsave issue - thus my Lipos are still alive. Better run first few rides with buzzer to be sure what your settings really are.
3)
Gear meash - was definitely too loose out of factory, had to set it right. Then noticed pinion is not centered horizontally - wanted to move it a little bit, but hey! it's glued on RED loctite Devastated aluminum motor mount with pliers but it still got stuck at some point, then in desperation got idea of using soldering iron to heat it up - and finally it worked out.
All that with unmounting and remounting motor took me few hours so be aware!
4)
Reverse problem - see on this forum others were confused as well, going backwards not always works. In case truck stops without braking you need to double tap reverse to let it go backwards. It's expected for FWD/BRK/REAR setting however other trucks might go in reverse a bit different way (directly without additional tap) - the cause is Kraton do not have stability control system like Traxxas TSM or Losi AVC - the systems are based on a gyroscope - so ESC electronics know if truck is stopped at given moment.
Kraton ESC doesn't know that - and assumes maybe truck is rolling down from a hill or still runs with its momentum - so in any case you have to brake first, then you're allowed to go backwards
Now time to bash
I'm not a new in RC, got Traxxas Erevo and as I'm mostly into speed monster trucks - and not really interested in a differnt kind of vehicles - I had to try out Kraton
So:
1)
My 4y old kid helped me to unpack and set-up the truck (preety excited
) - we've connected battery quickly and slowly run across the room to check if it works. Indeed the sound of metal gears was beautiful - but then wanted to properly wire the battery cables so turned off the radio - and truck (as it was still on) with max acceleration went backwards! Smashed into a door - hopefylly kid was not harmed but come on it was close! You need to reprogram failsave for idle throttle settings (manual is murky about - only procedure depicted) - I have no idea why factory setting was max backwards but it's a very serious flaw in my opinion and ARRMA really should take care about this.
Of course it was not smart turning radio off first (manual says turn off car first) but it still might happen as batteries could be almost dead or radio just can fail - as every other electronic component. Or signal might be lost for some other reasons. And then you have 5kg car running into somebody in worst case, unstoppable. Very dangerous!!!!
2)
Funny thing - in contrary what manual says default settings for battery is NiMh! Good I've lost confidence into any factory settings after encountering failsave issue - thus my Lipos are still alive. Better run first few rides with buzzer to be sure what your settings really are.
3)
Gear meash - was definitely too loose out of factory, had to set it right. Then noticed pinion is not centered horizontally - wanted to move it a little bit, but hey! it's glued on RED loctite
Devastated aluminum motor mount with pliers but it still got stuck at some point, then in desperation got idea of using soldering iron to heat it up - and finally it worked out.All that with unmounting and remounting motor took me few hours so be aware!
4)
Reverse problem - see on this forum others were confused as well, going backwards not always works. In case truck stops without braking you need to double tap reverse to let it go backwards. It's expected for FWD/BRK/REAR setting however other trucks might go in reverse a bit different way (directly without additional tap) - the cause is Kraton do not have stability control system like Traxxas TSM or Losi AVC - the systems are based on a gyroscope - so ESC electronics know if truck is stopped at given moment.
Kraton ESC doesn't know that - and assumes maybe truck is rolling down from a hill or still runs with its momentum - so in any case you have to brake first, then you're allowed to go backwards
Now time to bash
