Kraton RC-Dad's Kraton EXB Build

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RC-Dad

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Location
Washington
Arrma RC's
  1. Kraton EXB
  2. Outcast 6s
A little bit about my Kraton EXB and gear.

Motor
Castle 1717 1650Kv (running sensored)
ESC
Castle Mamba Monster X 8s
Servo
DS3235 35KG
Receiver
Futaba R304SB
Transmitter
Futaba 3PV
Batteries
Zee 5500Mah 80C 3s Lipo (x2)
Charger
EV-Peak CQ3


Running Stock Pinion for now and am just getting used to the platform. I know everyone likes pictures so here we go...


Opening Day right out of the box
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Go big or go home they say
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Electronics fitted roughly. Still waiting on a longer sensor wire and a practical proto plate for the ESC switch.
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Curious kitty
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Cheap amazon servo seems ok so far.
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For an amazon special this charger seems like a tank.
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batteries with XT90 connectors
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Got some snow and so I snuck out for a quick snow bash. Still getting used to this much power, since my last RC prior to this was a 2s Stampede. That is now my daughters rig and I made a small upgrade. :)

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First snow bash led to my first broken part also. Like I said I'm still getting used to all this power. ;) Anyone know of a replacement for just the inside buffer for the front bumper?
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nice rig! nice choice for motor and esc, I have one as well and they are tanks.

Unfortunately you gotta buy the bumper buffer piece with the bumper... it’s pretty inexpensive tho! Not bad at $15 and I really think it’s beefier than rpm. I haven’t seen that piece break a whole lot, it may have been due to how cold it was outside... any plastic doesn’t like the cold 🤷🏻‍♂️😂
 
I fill in those openings with permatex rtv and let it set a couple days. Has some shock absorbing properties and keeps the brace from flexing so far it breaks. Started doing this on my sons granite bumper mounts after breaking them every single run. Haven’t broken any since!!

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Great thinking on the rtv silicone, I was trying to think what to fill that void space in with.


Bottom rear of chassis was already starting to show some damage so it was time to put the rear skid on.
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Also decided to try out the 20T pinion. So much larger than the stock 12T that comes with the EXB. Will wait till AM so loctite has time to set.
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Great thinking on the rtv silicone, I was trying to think what to fill that void space in with.


Bottom rear of chassis was already starting to show some damage so it was time to put the rear skid on.
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Also decided to try out the 20T pinion. So much larger than the stock 12T that comes with the EXB. Will wait till AM so loctite has time to set.
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There ya go, 20t will be a whole lot better for everything!
 
I have the same setup in my K6S with an 18T and it rips on 6S. Insanity on 8S. I am going to fill my bumper springs now too. Great idea.
 
ESC fits on the stock plate but I had to dremel down the ridge on the side of it so it had room to sit flush.
I found the stock plate to be very soft, just used a utility blade to flush cut it, seemed much faster and cleaner than breaking out the Dremel, but either works.
 
So I am looking at some solutions to my ESC to battery connection problem. Currently the ESC leads are too short to make a connection to my batteries without having to put the batteries into the tray backwards and then doing some advanced gymnastics to feed them through the end of the battery tray. Seems like I need to make an extender to alleviate this problem. Right now I have (2) XT90 connectors soldered onto the ESC as shown in option A. Would it be better to solder on (1) XT90 as shown in option B and then build a splitter/extender to serve both purposes for me? Or does it even really make a difference between these two options?


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I just went for option B but but replacing the single connector with proper soldered connection.
Worked out just fine...

You should definitely go for option b as you can easily swap between 6s or 2x3s lipos, you just two adaptors, a Y and a straight one
 
hmm, still going to have to think about this problem a bit more before I decide what I'll do. You just made a splice connection and extended the wires I'm assuming then? I've seen a few guys using bullet connectors and heat shrinking them, would this be better than just a soldered splice connection?


Onto another small upgrade for my EXB is the tall side guards. As many others have noted previously these Outcast side guards will fit the Kraton. The 1717 motor can will require the guard to be trimmed ever so slightly to fit, and there are (2) posts on the inside that need to be cut out also.
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Well I pulled the dual connection off the ESC and extended the wires by soldering on some additional 10g wire using a butt joint solder splice and then heat shrinking it. After that I covered with the braided sleeve and shrinked the ends with proper colors. Then went ahead and made myself a little y splitter with a spark arrestor on the one side. This should give me more options and allow me to run just 1 battery in the future if I get any 6s batteries later.
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I also got my PPS switchplate delivered on friday but when I tried to install I noticed that the supplied hardware was the wrong size and the new screws diameter was to large. I'm a bit confused by that since I am still using the stock ESC fan that came with the castle ESC. So now I need to source some proper screws to mount to the ESC. I may go ahead and upgrade the fans now since I'm looking to add a few to the motor right now also.
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and of course one of the main reasons we get into this hobby... for all the smiles. The Cousins got out this weekend enjoying some awesome bash weather.
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As for the PPS screws, at first I thought same thing you did, but when I screwed them into fan cover all the way they easily spun so I could tighten them down, think they are intentionally a little larger diameter.
 
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