Traxxas Aton belly pan battery tray and landing gear Skid

thingiverse

I love my Traxxas Aton, but I adore my Traxxas Summit even more! Kudos to Traxxas for making such an awesome rc toy! The proprietary battery and battery connector are a major letdown - it's a real shame, Traxxas! When I get a new rc 'thing', the first thing I like to do is solder on a Dean's T-plug or an xt60 connector. That way, all my toys can share all my batteries - makes total sense! But with the Aton, that wasn't possible because the belly pan / battery tray was designed to lock consumers into proprietary batteries. We can buy one Traxxas 5000mah pack for $65, or two standard sized packs for $75 anywhere. This project involves reusing the Traxxas battery connector for an adaptor plug and figuring out the balance plug. Then you'll need to dremmel out the belly pan. The balance plug needs to be big black, little black, little red, big red. To remove the belly pan, trace a standard sized 3s battery and then dremmel it out - leave as much of the pan intact as possible, it will act as a shelf for the original Traxxas batt. Soldering is crucial - if you can't solder battery connectors, please don't attempt this project! The factory landing gear screws are good to use. They need to be partly threaded into the vertical mounts and won't over-tighten. If you do, it will strip out the holes. Optional skids barely fit on my print bed - I have to wiggle them about to get them to fit (one at a time). Little hobby screws worked well for me. Can't print the skids? No problem, they're not essential! The belly pan has a little chunk removed from the corner to make it easier to peel off the bed. If you cut the belly pan too loose, you'll need something to hold your batteries in place - otherwise, they'll jump out during crashes. I use a rubber band to secure the pack in its place. 2018-06-21 UPDATE: I shortened the Skids to make them easier to print and can now (barely) print 2 at a time! I also added some gusset supports to address a weakness a crash found for me.