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bisticles posted:If anyone's thinking of getting into RC, one big piece of advice: BUY A FAILSAFE UNIT. These things You can buy it now, or you can buy it after your vehicle goes out of radio range or otherwise glitches out and slams into a tree at full throttle. I haven't been in for a long time but don't a lot of receivers include this type of functionality? Also, when I was last in R/C, the radios that let you choose a channel with a dial were just coming out. I looked a few months ago when I had a kick to get back in and found out the new hotness is radios that don't even need you to set channels. :aaafap: Simkin posted:Probably a On-road has skewed pretty heavily towards 4WD touring cars, because they work so well on a wide variety of surfaces - they can race on a parking lot with relatively little prep, or a fully maintained carpet track, and anything in between. Pan cars are exclusively 2WD, because the whole point of a pan car is to make the car as simple and ultralight as possible - they're so named because the entire chassis is one flat piece of carbon fiber that everything bolts to, as opposed to the fiberglass and/or carbon fiber tubs used on touring cars. Front suspension is minimal and the rear on a pan car is actually a live-axle setup, with the motor mounted as part of the whole rear assembly. They only work well on extremely well-prepped asphalt (i.e. dedicated paved tracks) or carpet, but they are the fastest things on four foam tires. 1/10 pan car used to be a decent-sized class but it looks like the only use for that these days is for oval racing and even that is falling by the wayside - Associated was on the RC10L4-Oval when I was last in the sport. 1/12 pan car has held on a bit better, though it's moved pretty heavily towards four-cell racing. At this point, my stash of R/C cars (spread across both of my parents' houses) includes: *Original RC10 buggy - gold anodized aluminum tub. My dad raced it off-road pretty heavily back in the '80s. *At least enough parts to build two RC12i's - my dad used to race them and then eventually put two of his older cars back together for my brother and I. *RC12LW with the carbon-fiber chassis *Two Losi XX buggies *Two RC10TC3s Bonus picture probably from around 1993 of the two RC12i's (left and right) and the RC12LW (center). Probably no more than three race nights later did my dad realize those bright pink Panasonic 1700 mAh cells he'd spent a pretty penny on were, in fact, garbage. Of course, it was that or 1500 mAh NiCds. Batteries loving sucked until Sanyo finally came out with some cells aimed at RC, the 1700 SCRC - which by today's standards are woefully outdated but it made a hell of a difference at the time, before the RC2000/RC2400s came out and before NiMH cells existed for RC.
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Apr 27, 2009 14:51
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question, but are there separate classes for 2WD/4WD, or are they all 2WD (tarmac racing, not offroad)?
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kuffs posted:I just bought a Futaba 3PM 2.4GHz and it is everything I would have dreamed of back in the day. Hell, back in the day you could have a good chunk of that...my dad was rocking a Futaba 3PG for years. That thing was absolutely goddamn ridiculous, and wasn't helped by the fact that it went through batteries like a whore goes through coke. I started on a 2PBKA and picked up a 2PEKA after getting into touring cars. I love Futaba radios. Edit: Goddamnit. Now I'm looking for local tracks again. IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Apr 27, 2009 |
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Apr 27, 2009 18:14
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kuffs posted:Well, perhaps I should have clarified. I was 14 when I got my first car, so my 2PBK is what I stuck with in lieu of saving up $300 for a serious radio that I wouldn't really have known how to use. Oh I know, to this day I still think the 3PG was hilariously overkill. Look at the switches. LOOK AT THEM. He had to run a rechargable pack he made out of used-up sub-C's that he pocketed and ran a cable up from there to the radio. The 2PBKA my dad bought me to start was probably more adjustment than I needed at the time. If I ever get back in, the 2PEKA I have is more than enough until they come out with an equivalent model with the 2.4GHz spread-spectrum radio. I like my controls relatively simple, though the multi-model memory is a nice touch if I wanted to run two classes (say, 1/10 TC and 1/12 pan). It is a good thing for my time and my budget that all of the onroad racing in Phoenix happens on Fridays...with my commute there's no way in hell I'd be able to get home and back to a track.
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Apr 27, 2009 20:34
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No kidding, it feels like the TA-02 has been around as long as 4WD TC has been a class. I came across some of the stuff people are doing with the Associated RC18s. Holy crap the RC18B looks like a lot of fun, especially if I swap it out to a brushless / lipo setup. Maybe build a few ramps and run it in the greenbelt across from my house...just to bash around...yeah, just to bash around...
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Apr 28, 2009 22:21
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kuffs posted:Does anyone else dig the angle that some manufacturers are taking to bring them back into scale replicas? I love the look of the HPI club racers. And I think all the short course trucks are loving awesome, especially the SC8. God I want an SC8 bad, it will be over when they release a kit version and I won't have to buy their stock radio. I've never raced nitro or 1/8 scale and yet I want that SO loving MUCH. There's even apparently quite the 1/8 Nitro offroad scene going on locally, with tracks like The Nitro Pit apparently having some pretty drat nice turnouts. Mcqueen posted:Don't forget the TC3 Rally kit. I bought it because it made the track width 200mm, and all the cool bodies are 200mm. I remember that! Yeah, you could just run the long arms and not worry about most of the rest of the kit. Kuffs is absolutely right, though - it's a great concept in theory but few places exist to run it. All but the nastiest parking lot tracks can be prepped well enough that you can still take them better with a paved setup than anything set up for big bumps. Almost all offroad tracks have been built with the suspension travel of proper offroad cars in mind. Even if you have a dedicated facility, you probably have more people who want to run onroad than rally, and even if you ran a mixed-surface track (which would be so loving cool, half dirt, half tarmac) you'd have to clean it off again for your onroad racers, so you probably wouldn't want to run them the same night.
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Apr 28, 2009 23:24
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kuffs posted:I used to own an RC10 back in the day. I remember how ridiculous the original transmission was. The differential was external to the plastic housing and sat next to the slipper clutch. I forget how the shafts transferred to the inside. But It had six gears in it, 3 for the left side and 3 for the right side. The chassis was pre-drilled for the stealth tranny, so I just picked up one of those to end the retardery. Ugh, I've only been in the gearbox on my dad's old RC10 once and I remember it being hellishly stupid compared to the simple setup in the Losi XX. I think the AE RTR craze started up around the end of the TC3's run. Part of it is that in bulk, I'm sure it's much cheaper today than it was 15-20 years ago to put together an RTR that actually has a decent radio and a decent ESC. I still prefer kits, though, and I find it slightly annoying that they don't offer the base-level cars in kit form...I've never been one to spend too much money on OMG BLUE ANODIZED ALUMINUM parts.
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Apr 30, 2009 21:13
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kuffs posted:So, I'm not up to date on battery technology, but there's nothing about those that would make them unusable for rc car stuff right? If so, I'll be picking one up for whatever electric car I end up getting. (I know I'll have one eventually) Good lord, chargers have come a long way in both features and price. I remember then the Tekin BC112C was hot poo poo - one of my dad's friends that we raced with actually had the combo of both the BC112C and the BC112A, which cost a goddamn fortune back in the day. But, you only had to plug in one power cord to run both chargers and you got what was probably the best peak charger out there at the time.
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May 1, 2009 23:20
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When I was last in it, I was picking up Hitec digital servos; if I remember correctly they were essentially a straight swap for the Futaba servos, and you could get a high-speed one for the price of a crappy Futaba.
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Jun 1, 2009 01:24
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You Am I posted:Where did you get the idea that Futaba is poo poo? HiTec is like the basement bargin crap of the RC electronics world. Nearly everyone I know of has done their best of offload them for a better servo I never said they were? They were all I'd ever used for years, and all of my radios are Futabas. I just meant that for the price of Futaba's lowest-end servos (plastic gears, analog, basic specs) you could pick up a high-speed digital Hitec. The Hitec servos weren't the greatest things in the world but I'd rather have their top-end than Futaba's lowest spec.
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Jun 1, 2009 19:30
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OMGWTFJohnny posted:tl,dr (I tend to go on and on about racing So, wait - you're telling me that it's feasible to run two 4-minute heats and a 4-minute main on one goddamned charge, at least in stock?  Granted, I ran 12th scale on 1500 mAh nicads and ran for 8 minutes, but it was pretty much guaranteed that you'd be dumping on the last lap. I'm just so used to the idea of having a bare minimum of one battery pack per race, plus at least one sapre, and to be charging / peaking them all right before the race, that the thought of it all being unnecessary is just mindblowing.
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Jun 8, 2009 15:23
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Swordfish posted:As someone who has never really touched an RC car, is there a good reason not to pick up an 18R cheap from craigslist? Yes...it can get very addictive, very quickly 
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Jul 27, 2009 06:59
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You Am I posted:Finished my Tamiya Buggy Champ: This reminds me of what so many R/C cars lost since the '80s - any semblance of realism to the full-scale version. Sure, they're much faster but they look so much cooler like that. The short course trucks look more and more tempting every time I open the thread, though.
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Aug 9, 2009 02:09
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Can the gearbox even stand up to much more than a 17t motor? When that thing was new, 27t was the big class, mod motors didn't go much further below 17t, and you couldn't get the power out of the batteries like you can now.
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Aug 24, 2009 16:29
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Stregone posted:Well back in the day the reason motors weren't very low turn is because batteries sucked. Also, that isn't the original original rc10 with a 6 gear tranny, it is a little newer and has the 3 gear stealth tranny. Pretty much the same one they use today. Ah, sweet. My dad's gold-tub RC10 is still kicking around one of our garages somewhere, and I'm 99% certain that one is still running the six-gear transmission.
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Aug 26, 2009 16:09
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compressioncut posted:Anybody here run pan cars? I used to, 1/12 was my first class and still my favorite but nobody in Phoenix wants to run it. It doesn't help that I don't think we have a single goddamn indoor track. The cars are awesomely simple, and they're fast as all hell.
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Sep 9, 2009 17:38
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God drat you and your pancar porn. If I had a carpet track I would break out the RC12LW in a goddamn heartbeat, I don't care how old it is.
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Sep 26, 2009 06:36
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Yeah, at least in the old days if you were flying past everyone on the back straight, it meant you were overgeared and were probably losing time in the twisties / running your battery down too hard. (When you only had 1500-1700 mAh to play with, you had to gear down to run a full four or eight minutes!) With modern batteries it's probably less of an issue, but I'd still wager you're losing more time coming out of the corners than you're gaining on the end of the back straight.
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Sep 30, 2009 00:41
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kuffs posted:Pretty sure they all use different protocols. I think some of them are compatible, but for the most part you're best off running with a paired system. God, this thread is killing me - there's simply no on-road tracks here that race Saturdays that aren't in an unprepared parking lot.
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Sep 30, 2009 17:54
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krushgroove posted:Just raise the ride height a bit, run thinner oil and treaded tires I've got some TC3s still but honestly, getting back into it I would rather jump into pancars again, now with all of the advances made in lipo and brushless. They're so simple to maintain
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Sep 30, 2009 18:11
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kuffs posted:This would have been a trivial kitbash with the classic tub chassis in the day. (Woooooo RC10DS! Goddamn, I wish I could find one of those conversion kits for my old RC10GT tub chassis) Oh god, the RC10DS. I remember thinking that was cool as hell when I was a kid. Don't think I ever so much as saw the box for one in real life, though.
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Oct 9, 2009 22:14
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SGT. Squeaks posted:I may have to get a blitz. Last night was the first race of a Short course point series at a local track. Over 30 entered, and the top 5 were all Blitz. HPI is dominating. I'm in Minnesota with family today, and walking around one of the smaller towns (Hastings) I came across a guy who was flogging one of those in the middle of the street. drat thing can move, and it made it really tempting to go offroading and get into short course trucks.
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Nov 8, 2009 04:04
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I've always loved the idea of RC rally, but isn't the biggest problem a lack of viable tracks? You don't want to run them on the same crazy-rear end jumps that you'd run a truck / buggy on, and nobody with an onroad track wants to get dirt on it at any point.
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Dec 10, 2009 23:07
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I don't really have anything to say, I just want to post so you don't have to quadruple post, and to add that I love pan cars. I still wish there was a viable local track for me to race them at.
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Dec 24, 2009 02:43
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kuffs posted:I think about the $25ea I paid for Radio Shack 3300 NiMhs I'm pretty sure that back in the day, my dad dropped the better part of a Benjamin apiece on six-cell Panasonic 1700 NiCd packs. The ones that were worthless after about 10 cycles. He then turned around and did the same on Sanyo SCRC1700s, which were the absolute poo poo at the time, and at least those cells lasted a long rear end time. I'm guessing cheap LiPos have just about taken battery performance out of the equation? What the hell is Trinity going to overprice and make money on these days?
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Jan 12, 2010 21:04
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So, as it turns out, a friend of mine at work is actually an old R/C fanatic as well and is looking at getting back in. I may finally use this as an excuse to get a SC10 and try offroad. As someone who last raced when 3000 mAh NiMH cells were brand spanking new, can someone point me at a resource (or just school me) on what the hell is going on with LiIon / LiPo / LiFe packs? All I see are various voltage ratings and a "2S" or "3S" rating which appears to be related to the number of cells? What's all this talk about balancing packs? Where can I get a few cheap packs? Do I need to stick with the one pack, one heat / race rule or do most people just run one or two packs and top them between runs? Help me Something Awful, you're my only* hope. *No, not really, but I don't want to pay $7 for a goddamn RC mag which is more ad than content.
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Feb 19, 2010 05:18
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kuffs posted:-They are loving wonderful and I'm transitioning everything over to LiPo. TX/RX, starter box. Hell, I'd run one on my glow ignitors if I didn't have a whole stack of sub-c's to go in them. This is what I like to hear. Thanks guys, it's going to be a bit weird working with a charger even more complex than the 20 year old Tekin BC112C. I'm in no huge rush to order things since if I do decide to greenlight myself on this as a project, step one is going to be spending a few days rummaging through my parents' garages to see what state all of my RC gear is in. I've been geeking out hardcore on everything that's changed since I last raced. Looking on Tower (and I'm sure I can find it cheaper elsewhere), the Futaba 2PL looks like a really good way to get a 2.4GHz spread-spectrum radio so I can stop worrying about crystals (I'm sure some of my crystals are probably also 20 years old by now anyway). Anyone got it / any reviews on it? I've always been a Futaba driver anyway, started out on a 2PBKA and later upgraded to a 2PEKA. I think my dad still has his ancient 3PG in the garage somewhere. That thing is a loving monster.
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Feb 19, 2010 18:11
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Regarding cold temps: I live in AZ. Cold is not an issue, since the coldest I would ever probably be running these would be around 55 degrees. Does balancing take longer or something?
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Feb 20, 2010 03:19
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You Am I posted:Balancing Lipos does take longer. You don't have to balance, but if you want longevity, I always balance Says the man who supports the wrong company's V8  As someone who spent way more than $30 back in the day on packs with way lower performance than what you can get from Hobbyking, I won't feel too bad if I burn one, though I'll probably end up balancing them properly anyway. Anyone got any suggestions on a brushless setup? The local Pro-2 class runs 10.5 motors.
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Feb 20, 2010 06:08
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James Woods posted:I can't say enough things bout the Spektrum DX3S. At $200-250 it's a bit pricey but it has ten model memory, telemetry, digital reverse and trim, and a bazillion other custom settings if you really want to geek out. Oooh, that's nice.  If I get into this hobby again and stick with it, that's probably where I'll end up long term.I must admit, though, I stumbled across this and I think for $30 I can't pass up turning an old school 2PBKA into a 2.4GHz set for shits and grins. Either that or I'll just take the lame route and make sure my 2PEKA works fine and just go with it for a while.
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Feb 21, 2010 18:55
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kuffs posted:I'm looking to get rid of my 3PM 2.4gHz. I'll make you a good deal on it. Oooh, that's tempting. I need to talk to my friend at work tomorrow and see if he's going to jump back in and if so, what class, before I start making any actual purchases. Just to add some more fun to the discussion, I dug through the stash at my mom's place and found about half of the R/C gear - my dad's original RC10 CE, his 3PG radio, my 2PBKA radio, two complete RC12is (and parts to build at least four more), a complete RC12L, a mostly-complete RC12LW, two Losi XX buggies, a box full of 1/12 wheels and tires, and a box full of old-rear end NiCds in the 1200-1700 range.
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Feb 22, 2010 02:36
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Frobbe posted:buy new batteries, and fix up everything else. nothing's more fun than restoring old stuff. All of the 1/12 stuff went in a box to go to my dad, along with his 3PG. I think given the chance he might actually do the 2.4GHz conversion on it. The XX's aren't quite old school enough, but the RC10 could easily be cool as hell. Still got some 25-year-old AE tires on it, too. I'm pretty much dead set on getting a SC10 at this point, though I'll be waiting a month or so for the revised kit coming out sometime next month. The Blitz looks good but it's not out as a kit yet, and my 1985-vintage AE logos would look a little out of place on the body. One of my friends at work just ordered the DX2S with all of the telemetry for $159 shipped; when he gets it in I'm going to give it a feel because that is just a hell of a deal.
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Feb 23, 2010 01:33
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I need to find out what classes the local track runs the SC10s in. As far as I can tell, the only one they're legal for is Pro-2 which is 10.5 brushless; the only box-stock truck they run is the out-of-the-box Slash in a class by itself. That said, I've never been one to go nuts on trick parts; I always ran the cheap version of the TC3 and never bought any major upgrade parts for it. Part of it is my buddy is waiting for the updated SC10 as well, and I might as well wait for him since he's the reason I'm getting back in.
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Feb 23, 2010 04:48
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News to me, too. For shits and grins - a good 1/3 of the 12th scale wheels in my collection are old-rear end HPI five-spoke wheels, in bright motherfucking pink. 
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Feb 23, 2010 20:38
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Welp, it's official, I'm getting back in. I'm doing it the cheap way this time, at least at first, in case I get burned out sooner than I want to. I've got three of the Turnigy 5200 mAh 2S 30C hardcase lipos being shipped, and picked up two Dynam DC6 chargers to run off of an ATX power supply. I just spent an hour scavenging old Dean's plugs off of my box of old 1200-1700 mAh NiCd packs; I'm going to recycle the batteries since they range from 15 to 22 years old. I did grab some Dean's battery bars off of them too, heh. I'll probably end up picking up the remanned Novak Havoc Sport ESC and the remanned Novak SS Brushless, in 13.5T so I can jump into the local novice class to start. I'm holding out on buying a radio until I can give my friend's DX2S a feel. Just got to wait for the revised SC10 to come out, if for no reason other than the body (or a drop in price on the existing SC10 kit, either way).
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Mar 8, 2010 02:31
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I used to post a lot on the old About.com RC forums, ages ago. Even though this gets a fraction of the post volume about RC compared to that, or compared to rctech.net, the discussion quality here is awesome. rc10talk.com has some good boards too, though they're heavily biased towards vintage. Which is cool as hell to me...I can't decide now if I want to freshen up one of my old XX buggies to run in Novice for a while until the revised SC10 comes out, or if I want to really old-school it up and throw my electronics in the gold-tub RC10. Speaking of which, apparently gold-tub RC10s have been remarkably competitive at some high level events recently; there was some indoor national event in February where one placed second!
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Mar 10, 2010 22:39
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kuffs posted:IOC, you make up your mind on radios? I've been watching 3PM 2.4's on rctech recently. I don't think they're selling at $125. I'll drop to $100 on my previous offer. I still need to find time to give my friend's Spektrum a feel, but...drat, that's a tempting offer. I did decide against using the Corona conversion kit, at least for my racing stuff. I might put together something to bash around eventually and bust out the 2PBKA with that setup for nostalgia's sake.
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Mar 11, 2010 00:47
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I haven't actually charged an R/C lipo yet (I just got my Turnigy 30C 5200 mAH 2S packs here on my desk!) but my understanding is most, if not all, can be charged easily at 1C - which would be 0.4A. Even then, 0.1A would let you charge those at 1/4C.
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Mar 11, 2010 23:54
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kuffs posted:I think IOC is right. You might double-check your manual if it's not too engrish. The levels of cheapness on some of this stuff is hilarious - the labels on my Dynam DC6 chinachargers still list AC input, even though only one of their models has that built in.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:02
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Oh, on that same note - if you've wired them all as parallel when charging, you have a 1S6P pack. You shouldn't need a balancer, and your effective capacity is now 6*400 mAh = 2400 mAh. So, charging at 1C on that would be 2.4A.
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Mar 12, 2010 00:33
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Kuffs, sending you a PM regarding that 3PM
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Mar 12, 2010 18:30
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