Front Axle Battery Pack

One of the other changes that I recently made is moving my battery from the center of my crawler to the front axle. This is one of those "hard" decisions to make and to stick with. As you all know weight to the front end is a MUST for climbing rocks that are at a significant slope. When you are operating on a track or a flatter drive terrain, the weight in the front is not as important.

I pondered over this decision for a long time. I did not mind the battery in the center at all, however when I started getting ready for some local competition I found it necessary to lighten up the center and add some more weight to the front end. I had maxed out the amount of weight I could but in my front tires and on my front wheels and still needed more weight in the front. This is why I decided to go with the front axle battery mount.

By doing this I cut down my runtime drastically and even lost a little "torque" power. I am currently troubleshooting why I lost some torque as I should not have lost any. I think I have it narrowed down to some of the wire I used for the battery setup. Because my Tekin ESC is in the rear of my Proline tuber chassis and the battery is on the front axle it was necessary for me to "rig" an extension. The extension that I made so that the ESC connection would reach the battery connection is using a smaller gauge wire (its all I had on a Sunday). I think the power distribution is being "cut" down because of this. *shrug* who knows... Any Ideas? If this does not work I will go through and check all my solder points. I put Dean Plug’s ends on all the way through, so I had done a lot of soldering that day:(

The downfall to switching - I lost a tremendous amount of runtime. The front axle mount is made for competition, However if you can get two battery back the charge time is faster then the end of the "run" time so you will always have a battery ready. But who like to go out playing and have to babysit a battery all day? To resolve this I made a simple connection that I can use to run my regular "bar" style battery. It was as simple as making a connection that went from Dean (esc connection type) to the stock battery type connection (I think this is called Tamaya or something).

The good thing - This added the weight I needed to the front end and took the weight I needed away from the center (top, side, etc). This allows me now to stand straighter up while crawling, allows me to make full use of my front tires while at an angle (very beneficial), keeps from rolling sideways and end for end as easy.

My opinion sums up to - setup for both type batteries as I did. Or:

Competition - front axle mounted battery
Play time only - Anywhere you can fit a good long lasting "bar" style battery.

Thanks,
Bish