i was thinking of getting the traxxas on board temp gauge for my t-maxx. that way i can just look at the screen to get my temps. no more checking it all the time by hand. but, are they pretty accurate? and how exactly does it hook up?

Its not a bad gauge - seems accurate - I put one in my 1st Tmaxx - it has a wire loop that has the temp sensor (thermistor) located in the loop. You locate the cooling fin thats closest to the shoulder of the glow plug height wise and push the sensor all the way in next to the inside where the fins join the head. This was where mine gave the closest readings to my Raytech temp gun.

Only downside - mine was tough on batts. Seems like the batt was always dead when I went to use it, so keep a spare on hand.

If you're going to have another nitro RC, get a gun that will work on both, this onboard one is not intended for moving.

ok, thanks for the info. right now im using the little blue duratrax temp gauge. it works just fine. i might look into one in the future. i mean its not that big of a deal to take your engine temp with a hand held gauge. i just thought it would be cool to just have the truck pull up to you and i could just look at the screen for the temp.

It made it super convienent, but the gauge requires batteries and the gauge is apparently draining the battery as long as the battery is in the gauge. I learned to remove the battery at the end of a run.

This Tmaxx had a Nova RC head installed on it and that bright shiny head mucked with any IR gun giving wrong temps, the onboard was great in this case, but was a battery eater.

dont the temp gauge have a on/off switch?

Well, that made me get up and go find it and look. I realized as soon as I saw it, I have the Venom guage, not the Traxxas one and yes, it does have an on/off button. But it's still a battery eater.

oh ok, yea i seen the venom one too. i think i'll stick with my duratrax hand-held.

hey ck, duster is exactly correct. they are fairly accurate for what they are. and convinient too, but man i hated changing batteries all the time. i use to swear that it was somehow draining the battery even when turned off.

yea, i mean i thought it would be cool and convinient like you said to. but if the batteries need changed every other run, thats annoying.

It gets expensive too, those little disk batts aren't exactly cheap!

yea your right. now if the temp gauge ran off my servo battery that would be different. or if it took rechargeable batteries.

On one extreme, you could always upgrade your radio to a Spektrum DX3S that has telemetry that tells you engine temperature, battery voltage, and speed right on the screen of your radio. I know that there are a few other telemetry radios out there, but it seems this one is the cheapest. Not a bad radio either.

yea, that sounds pretty cool! i'll check it out online.