howdy....I have an Axial crawler which has a 55T Novak brushed motor, HI-Tec high torque steering servo and a Rooster Crawler ESC. This is set up is great BUT until I buy another controller I am stuck with my Traxxas 3-channel TQ radio. Does anyone have any advice on using this controller with the ESC? Also, any recommendations on a new contoller? I'm looking at the Spektrum DX's.

cheers!

That radio will work with that ESC. But it doesn't have steering end-point adjustments so be mindful of your steering and don't turn the wheel full lock. Doing so will cause the servo to try to run the wheels further than mechanically possible and this can cause the servo to burn out.

For a new radio, if you plan on installing dig and such, get the DX3R. It's expensive compared to other radios, but you'll never have to upgrade. And it's still cheaper than the Futaba 4PK which is another popular radio for serious crawling.

Thanks! I have looked at the Futaba's, both the 3PK and 4PK. I haven't decided yet and a lot depends on what kind of money I want to spend! Thanks for the tip on the controller. I did notice that about the steering....I appreciate the feedback. New controller is the way to go which will also allow me to retire some of the other controllers I have. Do I have to 'program' the ESC to work with the Traxxas controller?

Yeah. There's a calibration procedure that's outlined in the manual.

Downloaded that yesterday. Funny thing is, once I hooked up the Traxxas radio and receiver, it worked without calibration. I wonder if that will damage it at all? I can't really tell on the performance front since it's my first crawler.

It won't damage anything. The calibration just gets the ESC to "learn" where full-throttle, full-reverse and neutral are. So the worst that could happen is that you're not getting full power.