Traxxas Waterproof XL-5 ESC (Land Version)

For any crawlers devoted to being unconventional without compromising their promise to build a crawler on a shoestring budget...

An updated review for those who love to tinker and don't want every advantage stacked in their favor. This ESC has become pretty expensive. Picked mine up new from E-Bay for $15 so the idea of putting this thing on a crawler might not be so frugal anymore. But for someone who might have one sitting around...

I pried the heat sinks off, popped the case apart, clipped off the plastic parts that stick up on the top portion of case, clipped off the screw ears, cut the metal heat sinks off with a hacksaw just above where they are bonded to the ESC (I know, they say this will ruin the ESC, but not so), glued a piece of polycarbonate over the now-exposed area where the (former) heat sinks are bonded to the esc. With the new compact size, it tucks very neatly onto an upper link plate on an AX10 and stays completely out of the way.

And yes, it works just fine. Crawling (not racing) doesn't even get the ESC warm, so the heat sinks were unnecessary bulk. I've been using this esc to run the cheap AX10 55T motor on my AX10 for 10 months now, about 20 hours a month, and not a single glitch. That's $28 for the ESC/motor combo, at least when I bought it.

This ESC will handle an 8-cell pack, which can't be said of most crawler ESCs, which is nice because you can slap a 4x4 saddle pack on the axles and get even weight distribution over the axle.

This has proven to be a bullet-proof ESC. I'd recommend an external BEC, like the Castle Creations 10 BEC for powering your servo. The 1 amp of this ESC is less than half of what a decent servo needs to reach max torque. -//- I use this to control my AX10 and it works fantastically. Doesn't take a degree in computer programming to use all of its functions. The BEC voltage is 6v so it'll provide the voltage you need to get the torque you need from your servo. All changes can be made in a few seconds and don't require anything to make them. I wasn't sure it was going to handle the 55T motor, but it handles it like it was made for it. It's waterproof. It has proven itself incredibly durable over many years. In my opinion, this is one of the most overlooked ESCs by people putting together crawlers.

would this work with the vxl brushless motor or not i would like to use it for my slash