General Grassroots R/C hobby thread

I couldn't decide which years-old R/C thread to revive, so I made a new one.

I guess I've been interested in hobby-grade R/C cars for about 10 years now, since the short-course trucks got popular, but didn't buy one until 2015 or so, drove it once, and put it away. Well now I'm playing around with it again and having fun since I have a yard to drive it in. And then I decided to get another one, and a third one, and a fourth one...and working on a build for a fifth one when I can swing it...this is part of why my real cars never get finished.

I'm not brand loyal right now, I have two Tamiya, one Kyosho, and an HPI with a Traxxas motor (it came like that) so let's see your R/C stuff! And let's figure out the appropriate "$2000 challenge" equivalent budget for one of these. $100 bucks total? Or is that too optimistic?

That unpainted body is a reproduction of a Tamiya Baja F150...a truck I always wanted, but couldn't afford. Even the re-released one is kind of rare now. So instead I'm going to buy a CC01 kit which has a solid rear axle for slightly more scale realism and try to make my dream trophy truck.

Don't shy away from other stuff, post your boats and flying things too.

Here is me a few weeks ago flying my SlowPoke 40, briefly. I had an aileron failure.

Here's kid 1 with his Slash.

Kid 2 wants some form of 1/18th scale car next

I managed a local hobby shop for 12 years. We sold and shipped RC supplies all over the east coast. I was club president for the local RC club for 4-5 years and organized or helped organize the local RC boat race for 15 years. I started out racing cars at a local off-road track. Then moved to racing gas boats. I also flew/crashed planes for several years. All of my RC hobbies were long before the advent of digital cameras. Unfortunately, I have few to zero pictures. 

If you look on the top shelf above the G35, you can see some of the stuff I used to race and play with. All the planes were given away years ago, but there are a couple of 1/4 scale cars, a 20, 40, 60 mono, a 20 Outboard tunnel hull, a Traxxas Stampede, as well as a couple of 1/8 scale cars, and a couple of electric boats. 

My father was huge into R/C flying, from the original reed controls of the '50s right up until his death in the mid-'90s.  He was a bit of a pioneer in the old days, because he was very good with electronics at a time that was rare.  He was an excellent builder - his planes were always light, strong, and straight.  He also dabbled in cars and boats. 

He was also a good R/C sport pilot.  He flew on the Academy of Model Aeronautics national demonstration team throughout the 1970s and I got to go on the flight line at a lot of big regional airshows.

I liked going to the field with him when I could, and I flew some, but I was busy and had other interests.  I was also a little scared of crashing.  I kind of regret that now, but you can't have all the hobbies.

I've got 30 years of R/C history sitting on the shelf behind me. I refuse to grow up and keep buying more. No boats or planes though, nowhere to play with them.

If you've ever wanted to fly, but are scared of crashing, get one of these: Hobbyzone Champ. 

Dead nuts simple to fly. Cheap to repair.  The most expensive thing besides the electronics  is the fuselage at $25. And you'd have to stomp on it to render that unrepairable. The batteries are $5. Go get one. 

Anyone have good recommendation on battery ecosytem to reboot the old stuff with? I have some RC10T and Schumacher Cougar2's that are decent batteries away from revival. Not sure how 12 year old me mowed enough lawns for all this crap, but I still have it and boywonder is interested at least a little.

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

Anyone have good recommendation on battery ecosytem to reboot the old stuff with? I have some RC10T and Schumacher Cougar2's that are decent batteries away from revival. Not sure how 12 year old me mowed enough lawns for all this crap, but I still have it and boywonder is interested at least a little.

I use NiMH for pretty much everything. I have a mix of Tamiya and Dean's connectors across all my R/C stuff. I just use adapters since I'm not pushing crazy power through anything for bashing. My Wheely King runs forever it seems on a single 3000mah NiMH battery. My crawler runs for weeks on the same size. The only car that will eat a battery is my Associated drift car, which is brushless and prefers to be at WOT for maximum fun.

I just have one working battery for now. (Used to have more, but they got lost or quit working.) It seems decent but I'm gonna look into a 5000mah battery for longer runtimes.

https://www.amainhobbies.com/onyx-6cell-7.2v-subc-nimh-battery-w-tamiya-connector-3000mah-onxp5311/p-qtaqtsrq6m2xactz

I'm a little leery of lipo batteries. Not ready to go that route yet. If I did that I would get the fancy battery fire safety locker and upgrade all the connectors to something rated for higher power levels.

Sheesh. I still have my Losi XX, rc10lso, & trinity revolver. I was sad walking into the local, and only, hobby store here in GR and it's 95% overpriced made in China RTR junk from horizon aka tower hobbies. Even tho they had losi, it's just a rebrand made in China. Then they don't even have the extra stuff needed for a individual build like radios, receivers, speed controllers, etc..

In reply to Ranger50 :

What's interesting is that some of the Chinese companies are now just selling stuff direct, without going to the trouble of branding it as a more well-known company. Some of them are actually pretty good, and they show signs of improving from one version to the next, like better speed controllers and brushless versions etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LTsuZSjrmI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB8UIollauk

In reply to slowbird :

That Kei R/C truck looks awesome.

I am tempted to get one of the mini-crawler trucks, since you don't need a ton of room or huge obstacles to have fun with them.

Or... one of the R/C rally cars and set up a course in my back yard similar to this:

(3) This RC Rally Car Championship is Awesome! - Running with the Car - YouTube

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

That rally track is really cool. I'd have to build a much smaller one because I don't like to run that much, lol. But I do like the rally cars.

I just snatched up one of these for borderline beer money, $39.95 shipped:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Wltoys-XKS-144001-RC-Car-1-14-2-4GHz-High-Speed-Buggy-4WD-Racing-Off-Road-Drift-Car-RTR/686765843?=&irgwc=1&sourceid=imp_1TpTq6z0JxyIRBXxyxWiKU4dUkBSXrQQEydJSo0&veh=aff&wmlspartner=imp_379647&clickid=1TpTq6z0JxyIRBXxyxWiKU4dUkBSXrQQEydJSo0&sharedid=&affiliates_ad_id=565706&campaign_id=9383

Truthfully I needed the remote control from it since we broke the one for a WLToys 12428 in the family fleet. But why pay $30 for a replacement transmitter when I can get a whole extra car for $10 more!

These WLToys cars are great if you don't beat them too hard. You need to "nut & bolt" it before giving it a good run. Also open the diffs and grease them well just in case. Plus check the pinion mesh.

In reply to slefain :

Nice. I looked at that one but ended up with this one for $55.99, just personally like the looks of this one better. Oh man, late night impulse purchases are bad for my wallet. 

slowbird said:

In reply to slefain :

 Oh man, late night impulse purchases are bad for my wallet. 

Yeah but this is CHEAP. It's not that much money at all compared to a Traxxas or ARRMA. At least that's what tell myself. I'm saving THOUSANDS!!!

Current fleet:

HPI Wheely King

WLToys 12048 x 2

Associated APEX Lexus drift car

Danchee Ridgerock crawler

Four generic 1/28 trucks for family spec racing

and as of a few minutes ago a WLToys 144001.

Now to do the pre-flight checklist and maintenance: https://www.quadifyrc.com/rccarreviews/wl-toys-144001-setup-3-things-you-must-do-before-you-even-turn-it-on

 

In reply to slefain :

Heh, true. My next purchase will be a roughly $100 mini crawler, so that I can put a Ford Explorer hard plastic body on it from a Lindberg model kit. Cheaper than a TRX4 and I can play with it indoors.

In other news, my bearings are on the way from Hong Kong and I can hopefully build my Tamiya TT-01 soon. And I got some aluminum parts for my TT-02 and took it out for a bash in the driveway. It's fun but I need to set up a proper rally course soon. And I couldn't help myself, I ordered another short course truck body to put on my Blitz. The Bronco body I bought for it just isn't going to work out so I'll save that for another truck (maybe a 4x4 Slash? At least I can get extended body mounts for a Slash) And more paint is on the way so I can finally paint some stuff I hope.

I've got a tower hobbies branded short course truck. It's fun, but parts are NLA. and it's stupid fast on 3s

my RC hobby of choice is crawlers/trail trucks. The Comanche is a redcat gen 7 I love and use every time I'm out. The orange is an axial wraith 1.9 I regret buying but my wife uses it on rare occasions. Both of my sons have redcat E10s but after getting me back into the hobby they quit. 

Have dabbed in it in the past with an Associated RC10T kit I built up in the mid '90s and modded along with a Kyosho Mini-Z modded/hotrodded a bit more recently (past 7-8 years). Reason am posting now is have a new R/C vehicle incoming.

Recently sold my house and have moved to my parents property in the desert region of northern Arizona to help them out in their homesteading. Got my two sister's  ~11 YO nephews some TRAXXAS 1/10th 2WD models before I left Texas as gifts (one a RTR Bandit and the other 2WD Slash kit since he likes to build things) along with getting my ~6YO nephew who lives on my brother's property across the way from my parent's place, a Bezgar model 3 1/12th 4WD buggy . The 11 YO nephews actually came up to be with family with their moms for 10 days and 'all the boys' had fun time playing with the RC cars... got me kind of wanting one again, missed the RC10T from way long ago... but wanted something 4WD and a bit more offroad-sportscar in handling this time since in desert climate now and got rid of all my life sized project/fun cars (my Nissan Frontier is it for my only vehicle now, along with a 16' cargo trailer will be converting to a towable living space.)

Actually started looking last week and a newer iteration of one I thought of from the past sprang back up during the search... perfect for what I wanted from it - proven platform that both handles beautifully out the box and has good looks and as bonus a very good historical winning history and still a competitive (though I don't plan on racing it). The following is what I decided on and have incoming, along with a nice charger...just got confirmation of shipping on both ... so now I can purchase the 4S lipo battery(ies) [the specific R/C color combo I wanted was pretty much almost out of stock...wanted to be sure it was in stock & shipping before getting the batteries.]

https://youtu.be/nL_xfY9np3A

The red version is what I wanted.

I have to find pics, but currently have a TeamC short course truck, set up for Mod 2wd racing, 8.5t brushless etc, a TeamC buggy for stock class 17.5t motor, a Redcat Gen 7 with the portal axle conversion and belt drive drift car.

Was dipping the toes into racing like 4-5 years ago, got out of it, and my buddies got into crawling a little over a year ago and I got back into it.

The WLtoys buggy arrived. First thoughts: it's smaller than I expected, but not too small. It's also fast, maybe too fast for a novice like me. It came with a small lipo; I think I'm going to find a nimh battery that fits in it, at least to get used to it. I also think it could use some different tires.

It's hard to drive and film at the same time.

The price seems to have gone up unless they charge different in different areas.   Does it still sell for $40 for you?

My friend had one of these back in the day:

I wanted one SO BAD!!! It started my obsession with rally racing and the Quattros. I wonder if these are still around...off to eBay.

In reply to slowbird :

I still have to pack the diffs on mine, but I gave it a run around the yard for a test. Punchy little bugger!

It may have metal gears in it, I'll let you know once I open it up and grease everything.