Battery Tray Question

[Shark413]

Hi, I am using your battery tray and I am very pleased with your products. I was wondering if anyone has reported any issues with it bending the attachment points. I am mostly concerned by the long piece of the chassis that attaches in the middle, I heard people were breaking this piece off of the Vantage carbon fiber chassis with just the standard nitro tank and Vantage went out a redesigned the chassis with a brace for that area. I have been thinking about bracing that area as well, with a piece of aluminum running across the chassis attaching to the two holes that the handle uses and extending it out under the battery tray for added support.

[Matthew_Armeni]

Haven't had any reports of bending, even with larger 4s 8000 packs or 2 2s2p A123 cells, I think you'll be fine.

[jnev]

Mine didn't bend at all, and I ran a 4s 8000 pack for about half a year. Worked perfect for me.

[Shark413]

I am running the Tekno battery tray/straps and it is top notch. But may be it's just me. But I ran my brushless Slayer twice on the local track and I noticed some bend in the center support (it's pretty thin and designed to hold a relatively light fuel tank). See the first set of pictures, you can see how there is a gap between the tray and the middle brace, this is because the middle brace has bent downward slightly. Now I figured if you run a brace across the chassis using the carry handle holes (which are in the right place already) you could add a substantial brace with little effort. I took a 6061 bar of aluminum put a double bend in it, drilled a few holes, made a small spacer and then using the carry handle holes put in two M4 button head screws to hold it to the chassis. I just need to just add a heavy rubber pad under the tray area, clean up the ends and I am done. Actually you could retain the handle by threading the screws into the handle or for a super strong setup just use M4 nuts and discard the handle. Hey Tekno how about making a cool milled anodized brace, and I volunteer to test it for you.


This is the part that appears to be bending


With the tray bolted down front and rear, there is a small gap between the tray and the support on the middle brace.


Now using holes that are already in the chassis, marked by the arrows.


Take a bar of aluminum and put a double bend in it (one to clear the chassis and one to clear the motor brace)


Drill two holes that line up with the carry handle holes, make a small spacer.


Then bolt it down to the chassis, the piece that extends out under the tray can now be padded and will add extra support to the tray.

[Shark413]

The thing is I didn't even notice the bend in the chassis support until I unbolted the battery tray. Having the tray bolted down at all three attachment points kind masks the bent support.

[BrianG]

I wasn't running a Tekno tray in my Revo, but I too noticed bending on that support arm. I was running 14xGP3300 cells in brick form and that is quite a bit heavier than a fuel tank, as Shark pointed out. I did something similar to what he did, but added an extra L bracket brace to support the tray instead. One part of the L was the tray support, the other side of the L was attached to the inside of the chassis with bolts.

[Shark413]

BrianG, on one of my earlier Revo conversions I did something similar to what you described. I actually ran "L" plates on both sides to run dual packs. I then removed the motor side tray to better balance the Truck. As you said I drilled a couple of holes in the chassis, bolted on some blocks to give me a flat mounting area, then bolted onto that a plate that had a lip on the bottom to support the battery. It worked great and in my case sat about 30mm lower than the Tekno tray (which required me to remove the middle chassis support) which lowered the CG. With my current project, I wanted to keep the truck as stock as possible with no drilling of the chassis. Also the Tekno tray is really nice and I wanted to use it as is. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Shark413]

Ok, here is the battery tray brace a little more finished and bolted to the chassis. I added a hard rubber pad that when bolted down gives extra support to the middle portion of the battery tray. Also, the stock center skid bolts on with no problem.


Hard rubber pad on end of brace to support battery tray.


Brace bolted to chassis.

[Shark413]

Some updated pictures of my E-Revo battery tray brace. Had to modify it a little to clear the MC2 motor brace and I had to bend the stock center skid to clear the modded brace.