R/C Hobbies

[Honeymonster]

What about charging times though? Do batteries still only last 15 mins or so?

It's gonna be easier to carry a big bottle of gas than hundreds of batteries?

Crikey Ben you live in Lipo land (Chinese completely own this market).

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...11&v=&sortlist=P&LiPoConfig=&CatSortOrder=asc

Difference with lipos is this..

Lipos have a C rating for example 4000mah (4amp) battery that has a 20c rating can output 20x it's rating so that's 80000mah or (80amp) which is just an insame amount of power.

They can also all be charged at a minimum of 1c (1x their rating), which means maximum charge time is one hour. Some of the more expensive batteries can be charged at up to 15c, yup that's right 4 mins.

They'll live a lot longer if you stick to the one charge hour rates.

With sensible gearing and motors you can get insane runtimes, and also buy a few packs for the same price as a can of fuel. When I was a kid we had 800mah, then later at a competetive level it was 1700 or 1800mah if you were rich. Now 5000mah is common and run of the mill.

And don't let the Chinese Hobby King brand put you off (look at the reviews). For the electronics they are on par and quite often superior to the European and American products at a fraction of the price (especially the Turnigy brand). Unless you're actually racing competitively you'd be a mug to pay the european prices.

Everyone I know gets their Lipos from Hobby King now, some of them going into thousands of pounds worth of aero planes.

They do some motor/speed control packs too and their range of chargers is outstanding. If you look at the European ones they are the same chargers, come from the same same factory then are just rebranded and sold for three times the price.

However I'd say for the actual car itself you may want to look at the more known brands, however if you're interested in that copter, or some aircraft HK is still an excellent choice.

And really since you live so close to the place it would make a lot more sense no??

As for glow the fuel is messy and expensive. Getting them running right can be a chore. Your a lot more limited to where you can use them too. If I was in the market for another car/truck I'd be looking at electric for sure.

To demonstrate how far electric has come this is a brushless motor which is the equivalent of a 150cc engine:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...Max_150cc_Size_Brushless_Outrunner_Motor.html

Obviously don't be putting one of those on a 1/10th scale car.

 

[jenks69]

1:10th electric for me!

I had a Tamya Boomerang modified onto a fibreglass delta chasis (done by my brother in law then handed down to me). Great fun, but the dog bones kept falling out when pushing it hard round the track

My step dad bought me a 2nd hand Traxxas Rad 2 which I crashed at a local race meeting and snapped the front of the chassis clean off on the first run. This was due to electrical problems (local shop transfered the radio gear from my boomerang I hit full throttle on the striaght which made the reveiver fall out and the speed controller wedged full on) they were Traxxas sponsored racers so I got an early TRX1 prototype carbon fibre flat chassis and the rad two parts swapped over onto it as way of an apology. They'd forgot to take the backing paper of the sticky velcro....

I saved some pocket money and bought a Hawk2 monster truck which I swapped over to the TRX1 prototype chassis and made the Hawk 2 a Rad 2 with standard chassis, I then fitted a lemans mercedes shell to it, was awesome fun and got lots of laughs as it plodded round the track, it was just for fun and I used to race in the beginer classes because it was sooooooo slow. Eventually I turned it into a stadium racer, but it just wasn't competitive enough to keep up with the others in the class.

I bought from my step dad a Schumacher Couger 95 Team spec with every upgrade possible, that is a nice machine.

As it stands I've still got the three in this current form:

Rad 2 fully working and ready for fun!
Couger 95 fully working and ready for fun!
Hawk 2 on TRX1 chassis needs new shocks - the seals exploded after a 20' jump down a banking and needs new tyres (stadium racer size they are slicks, could also do with a new ESC), and a more powerfull motor stock 540 is just too slow, but any low turn high power motors drain the batteries in 3 or 4 mins

All raced ragged and abused on the street in the park and at local clubs, expect the Couger that's never been used on anything except indoor carpet tracks. There's an awesome looking outdoor track not too far from here, I keep meaning to pop along and see what the club's like.

I've raced at three different clubs and they all had a very different vibe, one was far too relaxed but was always fun, the other was way too up itself and you'd think they were running the world champs every meet, the other was OK but not enough members and plagued by bad responder units. Was almost a personal race night for the aforementioned dude sponsored by Traxxas.

 

[ysidfa]

1:10th electric for me!

1/10th is definately the way to go!

The first LIPO I bough was a 25C discharge rate and it would handle most things without getting too warm. I then upgraded to a 12t GT brushed motor and 10t ESC, it drew too much on full throttle for the 25c LIPO (found out a bit too late when I saw a plume of smoke billowing out of my RC car) so I bought a 40c 7.4v 4800MaH LIPO (think it was a Team Orion). That can handle some serious Amperage and hardly gets warm! On a hard run, it lasts about 7 minutes before the safety cutout in the ESC kills the power.

But in my Tamiya M03 running a 17t Brushed LRP motor, it will happily do half and hour, maybe 40 mins of pootling around under cars and around a coned race track

I would highly suggest a Tamiya though, cheap, reliable, easily and cheaply hop-up-able.

Ive never used HK, ill check them out, do they ship from the US to the UK?

Tom

 

[Honeymonster]

Ive never used HK, ill check them out, do they ship from the US to the UK?

Tom

Hobby king is based in China but has warehouses all over the world that have been established recently since it became ilegal to send Lipos by air.

You can change the currency on the left hand side I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the prices.

Stuff shipped from the China usually takes about 10 days, stuff shipped from the UK warehouse, normal UK postage.

I get mine shipped from the German warehouse because it works out cheaper to where I live strangely.

One thing I think that should be mentioned while we are on the subject of Lipos that I just take for granted now.

They are without any doubt potentially dangerous when damaged or while being charged. They should never be charged unattended, ideally outside in a Lipo sack.

If you damage one it should be dumped in a bucket of salt water as it could quite easily become explosive (more of a problem in aircraft which don't use the hard cased packs).

They also need to be charged with a balance charger, no excuse to use any other method as the cells need to be optimally charged individually. Charged above 4.2v magic smoke or a duff pack if you're lucky, discharge below 3.0v and most likely you've fubared your pack.

Speed controllers designed for lipos will cut before the cells go below 3.0v as Ysidfa just mentioned.

I'm sure most of you chaps know this but it's certainly worth mentioning for those not familiar with the technology as these things can be volatile no doubt.

 

[ysidfa]

Hobby king is based in China but has warehouses all over the world that have been established recently since it became ilegal to send Lipos by air.

You can change the currency on the left hand side I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the prices.

Stuff shipped from the China usually takes about 10 days, stuff shipped from the UK warehouse, normal UK postage.

I get mine shipped from the German warehouse because it works out cheaper to where I live strangely.

One thing I think that should be mentioned while we are on the subject of Lipos that I just take for granted now.

They are without any doubt potentially dangerous when damaged or while being charged. They should never be charged unattended, ideally outside in a Lipo sack.

If you damage one it should be dumped in a bucket of salt water as it could quite easily become explosive (more of a problem in aircraft which don't use the hard cased packs).

They also need to be charged with a balance charger, no excuse to use any other method as the cells need to be optimally charged individually. Charged above 4.2v magic smoke or a duff pack if you're lucky, discharge below 3.0v and most likely you've fubared your pack.

Speed controllers designed for lipos will cut before the cells go below 3.0v as Ysidfa just mentioned.

I'm sure most of you chaps know this but it's certainly worth mentioning for those not familiar with the technology as these things can be volatile no doubt.

Not to mention all the warnings of death, cancer and other illnesses you see on the countless warning stickers on lipos.

I would love to have to money to run a full LIFE system, but ESCs that can run LIFEs to there full potential safely are pretty expensive IIRC.

Tom

 

[colin79666]

Update on the Lunch Box.

Well the build is almost done. I've given the shell two coats and it is currently drying. The chassis is done although I broke the battery holder bit so I've had to order another set of D parts :bang:

Front wheel angle has proved to be a pain. Why do Tamiya insist on providing tie rod lengths which result in stupid towing angles? Anyway took it apart again and lengthened the rods so it goes pretty straight with a slight toe out.

 

[ysidfa]

Update on the Lunch Box.

Well the build is almost done. I've given the shell two coats and it is currently drying. The chassis is done although I broke the battery holder bit so I've had to order another set of D parts :bang:

Front wheel angle has proved to be a pain. Why do Tamiya insist on providing tie rod lengths which result in stupid towing angles? Anyway took it apart again and lengthened the rods so it goes pretty straight with a slight toe out.

Good old Acoms Techniplus 27mhz

 

[Honeymonster]

That's coming together nicely can't wait to see it with the shell on! .

Always was a sucker for the Lunch Box.

As for LiFE VS Lipo

The life cells have are lower voltage output, they are much heavier and larger (a bigger problem for planes/copters). The capacity generally isn't as good as Lipo's nor is the C rating.

However...

They are tremendously safer, the can be charged incredibly fast 15c+! They can be used thousands of times with out losing a great deal of capacity (Lipos have a much more limited life span).
Another problem with Lipos is they need to be stored half charged or they degrade and massively lose their capacity (all decent lipo chargers like the "industry standard" Imax B6 have a storage charge setting).
Speed controller wise the issue arises with voltage, some have developed booster circuits (DC to DC converters) which up the voltage to that of a Lipo (otherwise the motor KV is way off). Problem here is this increases the current drain on the pack even further. Then others have added an extra cell which is above the voltage some car ESC's are designed for. I think the general consensus is most decent ESC's will cope with the higher voltage because of the more limited current available though.

So while I think for a park racer Life would no doubt be the ultimate choice, I really can't see them being considered for all out racing since power to weight and all out performance is the goal here. I must admit I'm a bit out of touch with the car hobby though and not aware if there any specialist Life set ups developed purely to try and overcome these problems. Of course the battery tech is still just as relevant with planes. Lots of people are still happily using Life in planes, willing to except the performance loss for the added safety, quick charging and long life characteristics.
Also it used to be a case of cutting up Dewalt drill packs to get these cells, now there is a decent selection of these available for very little money. A lot of the decent multi chargers have a Life charging option too.

And the Acoms Techniplus, all time classic!, I still have one of course (must be millions of these things, probably the most popular radio ever) still have my rarer (but no better) Sanwa Dash Saber too. Most of the club people preferred Futaba. I could never really see any difference in performance, I think they just liked the fact they were white.

Another really cheap place for batteries, chargers and stuff in the UK is Giant Shark, used to be called Giant Cod but recently got bought out by another company. They are more geared towards aircraft but still have a really excellent range of crazy cheap stuff.

http://www.giantshark.co.uk/

All from the East of course, but then it's all made there really. I'd still like to support my local Hobby Stores, we don't have any here now unfortunately. I also used to order all my plane kits from Galaxy Models in the UK, but that went up the spout recently .

It's hard to justify buying local if you can get it 3 times cheaper elsewhere though, especially during a recession! I mainly suggested HK for Ben since I think he lives in the east. LOL

 

[colin79666]

All done now (including replacement battery arm thing) with the exception of some minor painting

Still haven't had a chance to run it outside, not going out in the rain with this one.

Yes - classic Acoms radio gear. Does the job and I know how it all works, which I couldn't say for this newfangled 2.4GHz stuff

 

[Honeymonster]

Looks awesome well done chap you must be chuffed. Hope the weather clears up so you can take it for a blast.

 

[ben]

Is this a special Midnight Pumpkin? http://www.modelzone.co.uk/mz-exclusive-1-10-tamiya-rc-midnight-pumpkin-kit-black.html

Assuming thats just the kit - they only cost 90 quid out here http://tw.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/b66747669?&u=:liutsengching&tp=

 

[colin79666]

For those in the UK the Midnight Pumpkin is a bit cheaper here: http://www.goldstarstockists.net/li...-controlled-rc-car-model-kit-lbx-p-42774.html
You would need to add an ESC though (circa £15).

The Midnight Pumpkin is the same chassis as the Lunchbox, just has a different shell so it is a study beast.

 

[Honeymonster]

Sure looks like the basic kit, no radio batterys or charger.

Guess it makes sense, designed in Japan but probably manufactured in HK or the Philipines.

(Tamiya wiki)


Overseas subsidiaries

• Tamiya America, Inc.
• Tamiya Philippines, Inc.
• Tamiya Hong Kong, LTD
• Tamiya Europe, GmbH

Presently, over half of Tamiya's products are manufactured in the Philippines.
Tamiya is a major shareholder of Creative Master Bermuda Limited, a Hong Kong based contract manufacturer which includes Tamiya amongst its clients.


Mmmmmm Pumpkin, You looking to buy one?

Edit: Nice one Collin that's an excellent UK price!

 

[ben]

I was on the tamiya site, the f40 or the countach look very tempting as well.

With the road cars, do they all use the same chassis too?

 

[colin79666]

I was on the tamiya site, the f40 or the countach look very tempting as well.

With the road cars, do they all use the same chassis too?

Not all use the same. The TT01 is a very popular starter chassis and probably the best to go for. Plenty of upgrade options as well. Just bear in mind that road cars need a smooth surface as they have very little clearance.

Whichever kit you go for I can't highly enough suggest getting proper bearings at the same time. They are cheap upgrade that makes a big difference and is essential if you later upgrade the motor. Much simpler to do the bearings when first putting things together.

 

[Ziggy122]

Is this a special Midnight Pumpkin? http://www.modelzone.co.uk/mz-exclusive-1-10-tamiya-rc-midnight-pumpkin-kit-black.html

Assuming thats just the kit - they only cost 90 quid out here http://tw.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/b66747669?&u=:liutsengching&tp=

i've used a shop called Modelsport UK for years
They are by far the best RC shop, there customer service is 1st class

I've sent alsorts back - they've either pocketed it themselves or sorted out the manufactor replacement for many many people

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-midnight-pumpkin-metallic-special/rc-car-products/24668#top

i avoid ModelZone - overpriced - clueless people

As for Nitro vs electric

electric are pure awesome speed and agility - and some rugid models out there

But for me - nitro has my heart - the noise and the mechanics of it all - make me have a little wee if you know what i mean

Ziggy

 

[jenks69]

Oh my word! I can't believe how cheap the motors and batteries are these days! When I was racing the going rate for a 2nd hand branded battery pack was £40 2nd hand motors were silly money too!

I soooo hope Blake likes 1:10th off road buggy racing when he's a bit older!

 

[ben]

Curses! One of the ones I want is TT01, but the other is TL01 .... grrr

 

[Ziggy122]

Brushless motors can be picked up for silly money too

Ziggy

 

[Honeymonster]

How cool is that:

​

Discontinued but it seems a few sites still have them in stock. No doubt useless from a competition point of view but it just looks so damn cool.

http://www.emodels.co.uk/plastic-kits/tamiya-fiat-abarth-1000-berlina-corse-58465-p-24784.html

Seems they have a series with the newer shaped one but imagine doing a race series with these.

EDIT:

Seems it's an M-05 and there is a racing series for this class, it's FWD which I've never seen before too.