OT: RC cars/boats/planes

No, trucks/buggies are really designed from the ground up differently. The main difference is how the trucks are designed to handle the dirt and rocks. The cars usually have exposed belts/gears/etc, and the trucks are very well protected. There's also some more minor differences, like the suspension arm length for travel and stability, and so on.
 
cool, any particular brand kits you would suggest, been looking at ebay for hours now seen Traxxis, red lightining, Losi, HPI, and smartech seem to be the ones I see the most, any thoughts, opinions, comments ect. ect. Some of the Nitros I've seen on ebay are around the same cost as similar electrics.
 
Losi is a good brand. I would sorta of equate it to buying a Honda or Toyota, it's a solid piece. HPI is also great because of mass support. EVERY hobby shop will have parts, and the upgrades are there. I had an original nitro RS4 that didn't have a stock part on it. Slowly worked it up and was a serious car at the end. Team Associated is another one too look into, esp. their touring cars are solid.
 
I notice some cars say the motor is a 19 turn motor and some say .21 motor which I am guessing is .21 HP but is there some sort of way to figure out what 19 turn equates to in hp?
 
Not exactly, it's going to get pretty technical, lemme know for any clarity.

'Turns' is the number of times a copper wire is wound around the armature of a motor. The armature is the part inside a motor that spins. The higher the turn number, the more windings. However, the higher windings means that thinner and thinner copper wire has to be used and thus less power.

Additionally, there are two basic types of motors, 'stock' and 'modified'. A stock motor is basically what it means, and doesn't have like upgrades magents etc and stock motors usually are either 27 turn or 19 turn. Modified motors and run anywhere from 27 down to 5 or 6 turn, I think. Of course the lower the turn, the more power, and the more it will suck battery life. I have a 6 turn, and that thing is crazy fast, but will only get 2-3 mins max.

One more thing would be, in R/C speak, motors will always mean electric motors, and engines will always nitro or gasoline engines. .21 (point 21) is a common sized engine for 1/8th.
 
ok so that is why I only see .21 on the nitros and the turns on the electrics. Couldn't you use larger or stronger batterys to get more time? like lithium or nimh? Ok got the motor down, I remeber in the RCcaraction.com beginners link it mentioned getting an ESC for an upgrade yet going through all these cars it seems to be the standard now, besides the motor/engine what else should I be looking at as far as the specs
 
Lithium was after my time lol. Yea, ESC are pretty much standard now. Before there used to be a mechincal speed control, in which a servo spun the two motor wires across a contact board. Pretty much full throttle or off. Can't do that today will more powerful motors.

The next thing would be too look into radios and the different types, AM (i doubt they still use them), FM and PCM and how they all work.
 
With the batterys, which type gives you the longest run time, I know that 1500ma will give you less time than 3000ma but I don't know the whole scale for lithium and nimh and all that jazz. Alot of the cars I've seen on ebay still use the AM i've heard of the FM and I imagine that its just a stronger signal than the AM but I haven't seen PCM yet.
 
Alright went to a hobby shop learned about the whole AM-8 channel FM-30 Channel PCM-80 channel locked in, interference jazz and about shaft driven and belt driven, although I haven't seen many shaft driven cars.
 
Yea, there aren't many. The drawback to shaft is that it's a fairly complicated design, and if you want to run a stick battery pack, it would have to go on one side, and throw the weight balance any off (batteries would still weigh more then esc, servo, motor). Team Associated is probably the main shaft car.

For batteries, yea, the bigger the mA, the better the battery. I'm not positive but, I think lithums are better then nimh's. I know they are smaller and lighter, but not sure of the power output.
 
Oh, didn't hear about the weight balance problem with the shaft drives, I know the lithiums are twice as much :-), I think they are suppose to last longer as well though. do the Team Associated shaft drive cars do something to distribute the weight better?
 
Well it's not a 'problem' so to speak unless you're full out racing. But then, I don't know anyone racing with stick packs lol. Usually you just run split cells to balance, 3 cells on each side.
 
The split pack are called saddle packs and that is the "best" way to run in road races but the difference is very slight unless your really good to begin with. Lithium can last 2 or 3 times as long as a low mH nimh battery but the motors usually can't handle running out a full 8000mH lithium unless you are using brushless.

Lithium also packs a TON more speed which is why you will only be able to race them in modified classes. They also make them in a saddle pack.

Racing in the stock class also means you have to be running a 27 turn motor. Like Aqua said the lower the turn the faster the motor but it also makes it more power hungry.

If you want to do it right the first time around (the way I wish I did) you should go with a Novak Brushless 4800SS which is the brushless equivalent to a stock brushed motor but preforms more like a 12 turn. Use it with the Novak GTB ESC which is a speed control that can run much bigger brushless motors if you decide to upgrade or switch out engines to race differnt classes. I would also go with the PCM radio becuase you don;t have to worry about crystals or somebody else having the same signal causing you to crash or bust up your car.

The cost vs reward with the batteries are up to you. If nothing else you should purchase a charger with the lithium charging option, in case you decide to upgrade. Having a lithium battery to beat around your neighborhood or have long practice time is great but you would have to race modified. The guys in the modified classes are really good. If you race with them you will need to make sure you are at least good enough to get the hell out of the way or you will get smashed.

It is a really fun hobby. I just wish there were more places to race. Were you planning on racing or jst running around the nieghborhood?
 
just running around the neighborhood but I would like to maybe get into racing eventuall but like you said, I don't want to get smashed :-). Still looking for those pictures and jazz bacchus_FL
 
Looks good. Nice that it's mostly complete. I'd get that traxxas stuff off ASAP lol. Other than that, look for a charger and you're good to go. Before you know it, you'll have a complete toolbox of batteries lol.
 
lol he just sold it before you posted, oh well, there will be more, I've seen a couple TC4s for around 200-230 complete with some batterys and a cyclone s or 2 that looks nice. Still looking, everyone on RCtech keeps saying get a T2 they are around your range, all the T2s are freaking 200+ for the freaking chasis and no electronics, freaking electronics are going to cost me another 100-200 for half decent stuff to get anything decent 300 no problem. freaking 500 the same as 230 bah humbug, still looking and reading and jazz. Some guy at a hobby shop off colonial past alafaya near the auto tag agency tried to tell me nitros weren't any more maintenance than electrics and I should get the new traxxas that does 70+ out of the box. Guy was a real ******* too. Went to superior hobby though, LOVED those guys, helpful as hell, lead me onto the cyclone s
 
Yea. Superior knows what's up lol. There's a reason they host HPI's regional race. For just jumping in, a TC4 is solid platform. The best I can compare it to, is asking which to get, Octopus or Euro-Reef skimmer. The Octopus is solid, but everyone will always push for the Euro.

It's definitely a bug, just like reefing though. Just wait till you spend $500 for a just nitro engine lol.

You wanna see what $300 got you back in the day lol?
 
Note the ESC or motor weren't included, and 'back in the day' meant 2002 lmao.

OB43.jpg


OB42.jpg


OB4.jpg
 
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