Meatball Racing

Radio Control Blog

PandaHobby Tetra X3 V2

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It’s been a minute! Actually it’s been almost a year 😓 Remember how I said I saved $300 on a G500? I’ve reduced that savings by half by purchasing another 1/24 scale Tetra X3. Am I a glutton for punishment? Probably. I really wanted to love this rig, but there were some disappointments I couldn’t get past.

PandaHobby did listen to all of the feedback and shortly after the X3 was released they acknowledged the problems with the suspension and ESC and shipped a fix to anyone that requested it.

However, the suspension components they sent to me didn’t completely fix the issues of the shocks binding up. Then the stock servo broke and it sat on a shelf for the better part of a year 😥

Version 2

I hadn’t been paying much attention during that time and recently noticed there’s now a V2 of the same model. I thought that I already had all of the things that brought it to Version 2 spec, but there’s actually a lot more.

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PandaHobby Tetra X3 1/24 scale crawler

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I saved $300 on a portal-axle G500 crawler!

Or did I?

I was at Hub Hobby, my local hobby shop, getting some body posts for the LaTrax Prerunner after they busted out on the ice.

I wandered into the RC section and noticed they had a few of the new PandaHobby Tetra 1/24 scale portal-axle rigs. I asked the sales guy if they had blue. He said they did in the back and went to go get it.

I didn’t expect to buy anything besides LaTrax parts, but I guess I’m doing this! I already knew of some of the 1/24 Tetra’s shortcomings – having subscribed to a Tetra Facebook group a while ago.

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1/24 Scale Christmas

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Every year, we put some sort of motorized conveyance under the tree. In the past it’s been an HO scale train or slot cars from my childhood. While I like the nostalgia of them, let’s face it – I’m old which means they’re old. So they’re a little finicky to get working well. Still fun, but this year I wanted to try something new.

I’ve always wanted to have an indoor model train layout, but since we don’t have room I turned my thoughts to doing an outdoor layout 🤔 But that always seemed extremely expensive. Then a couple ideas came together for me: 1) my #1 Christmas gift item is a 1/24 scale crawler – Axial’s SCX24 and 2) I found a G-scale train set for less than $50.

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Slash 4×4 Crawler (Part 5) Fenders and Bumpers

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With the Jeep body painted, I just needed to add a couple more details…

Fenders

With the tires slightly wider than the TRX-4 249mm width, I wanted to make sure the Jeep body didn’t look too skinny. I found these rubber fender flares on eBay which were originally designed for a Cherokee XJ body, but would likely fit the JK Rubicon Unlimited just as well.

I left some of the lexan overhang on the fenders purposefully to attach these fenders.

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Slash 4×4 Crawler (Part 3) Powertrain & Tires

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With the width of the vehicle worked out, it is time to make it drive like a crawler.

To slow the Slash down to believable crawler speed I actually kept the stock gearing in place (19.23 Final Drive Ratio for the brushed 4×4). Then I added a RC4WD 1:3 Gear Reducer, which would change the final drive ratio to almost 60:1 – a popular ratio amongst crawlers and close to the TRX-4 low-speed setting.

The gear reducer is normally a bolt on part, but there were some tweaks I had to do to get it to fit the Titan 550 motor. First the receiver hole in the gear reducer is too small fo the 550’s standard 13mm bearing enclosure (the part that sticks out right before the motor shaft). Which is strange because the age-old Tamiya 540 motor also specifies 13mm for this part of the motor.

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