THE ARRMA TYPHON 3S
Review by Evo RC
The Arrma Typhon 3S comes ready out of the box to bash on any terrain. It’s tough, easy to maintain and super durable. It has a low center of gravity, wide arms and narrow tires which makes for great handling.
The Typhon comes with a Spektrum SLT3 transmitter, the Spektrum 3200KV brushless motor, features the Arrma BLX100 ESC and a waterproof Spektrum SPMS651 metal geared l servo. This combination provides incredible torque, acceleration and speed.
All 3S models including the Typhon come with an ingenious modular design where the power module can be detached from the chassis as a complete unit by removing just one screw.
The Typhon comes brushless ready with 37T 1.35 mod diffs. The large gears can withstand huge torque, and internal metal gears have been chosen for reliability during extreme bashing.
Its full-time 4WD transmission uses strong front, rear, and centerline telescopic driveshafts that can’t be lost during heavy impacts, unlike dog bones.
The shocks are tried and tested, simple maintenance and amazing handling. The dBoots 2HO tires give the Typhon effective traction for bashing on almost any terrain.
New bashers will be able to set throttle limits at 50% or 75% until they are ready to use the full speed potential.
The Typhon was one of the first RCs I got after switching from nitro. I went for the Typhon as it’s an all rounder. It performs well offroad and onroad. It’s also surprisingly a really good basher and a ton of fun at skateparks.
I have always admired the Typhon’s durability even with low maintenance. I mean really durable, it’s been based on mud, on sand and at the skate park. It also completely submersed a couple of times. Well, no accident really, I tried to aqua plan it but was a bit of a fail. It just keeps going and going.
I will probably never part ways with the Typhon, it’s been like a trusted friend right from the start.
recommend UPGRADES
I had my turn to experiment a bit with the Typhon and customized it in many ways, like tried two different higher powered ESCs, tried a 3900KV motor with high speed gearing, tried different alloy shocks, different shock oils and so much more. What I can tell after all this, and it’s difficult to explain… It’s like the Typhon holds together in a sort of perfect balance. Anything you try to change seems to upset that balance and you start having trouble in places that were never an issue. It’s one of those RCs that is perfect just the way it is. I don’t recommend upgrading much if you want it to be reliable, apart from maybe the ESC and motor cooling fans, those always seem to fail after some use. The Typhon is meant to be light, fast and reliable. It achieves this by being light.
Let me just run down a few issues you’ll encounter when upgrading it. For starters, the ESC is good, not great. For some reason, if you use cheap batteries or a C rating of less than 80, the ESC tends to cut off at high speeds. By cutting off I mean it switches to limp home mode like it does when your battery runs out. It seems to do this not to damage the battery. What I can say is that it’s quite annoying! If you want to avoid this then go for better quality batteries with a high C rating.
The 3200KV motor is just perfect. I did try and swap it out with a 3900KV motor that comes with the Arrma Vendetta and the increase in power at the high end of the throttle is more than noticeable. This comes at a price, the composite drive shafts are not designed for that sort of usage, hence these come off from the crosses or just plainly come right off. This is what I meant earlier, with the 3200KV stock motor I literally never had drive shaft problems for over a year of usage. Well I replaced them with Arrma’s own steel composite drive shafts which don’t come cheap and don’t fit exactly. You have to modify the hubs to fit them but anyway, in they went. Next drive and full throttle again. This time I shredded the spur, I never had issues with the spurs before. Replaced that with a tougher brand. Next drive, the rear differentials… Anyway, you see where I’m going with this… Fast forward a year later and here I am changing everything back to stock. I mean, if you want a faster buggy, get a faster buggy! Lesson learnt and I just hope to spare you some frustration.
Well since we mentioned faster buggies, The Typhon comes as well in 6S. But think wisely here, both the 3S and the 6S buggies are the same in size, actually the 3S is slightly larger. They roughly run at the same speed as well, the 3S is light and the 6S is heavy, they make for roughly the same performance. The 6S Typhon is heavier with the aluminum chassis, shocks, shock towers and double the battery weight. My recommendation is, if you are looking to have fun then get the 3S, with two batteries you’ll have double the run time. If you’re looking at the 6S version, then just don’t get the Typhon, go for a truggy like the Kraton, Outcast and Notorious 6S range which are much better in general.
Other options to consider are the Arrma 4S TLR (Team Losi Racing) versions which is lightweight and track ready, if you’re after a sort of track buggy. Then there’s the Arrma TLR 6S version. Both recently released and can’t tell you much about them as I haven’t had one myself. All in all, whatever your choice of Typhon you’re thinking of, go for it, it’s an absolute blast.
