cocktail

Hi everyone! Here is the story. I have ALWAYS wanted an RC car when growing up.....the grasshopper was the big hit when i was a kid but could never afford one......all my life i have wanted one but never went that step....didnt know they could be shipped assembled....back in the day they had to be assembled....another reason i never got one.....so all of a sudden i want to get one.....where to start? whew! lol

I am looking more into the offroad buggy type of car......a nice solid look and no more than 250-300 shipped....keep in mind that i will only be using this on occasion, just for fun here and there..... and dont know much about fixing things of this nature :-) Is that stuff hard to do? (resorting back to watching my friends dad take a week or more to put his first together)

Gas or Electric? How much is gas gonna cost and how long do you get from a filled tank?

How long does the battery last for and how long to charge?

What do extra batteries cost?

What brand?

Anything certain features to look for?

What is this talk of 1/18 1/10 .....is this size? Is there a reason i would choose one over the other?

This is the style and look i want but in a quality vehicle :-) Is this a good choice? Price is perfect! http://cgi.ebay.com/1-10-NITRO-GAS-R...QQcmdZViewItem


Could you please lead me in the right direction to a nice affordable car i will enjoy....thanks

JeromeK99

iTrader: (3)

DON'T BUY THAT THING!!!!

First thing I would suggest is find out what your LHS (Local Hobby Shop) or track sells... Biggest thing is parts support! That thing looks like a Chinese knock off of something.. I have seen so many folks over the years buy something like that and as soon as they have a problem, they are done..

Second thing I would suggest is maybe go electric... with gas/nitro, you have all the same chassis tuning and maintenance issues.. but with one more.. carb tuning! And that is a big one! With brushless motors and LiPo batteries, electric can run 15-20 mins with tons of power!

With your buget and wanting to mostly backyard "bash", I would look at a Traxxas Slash Truck. They run about $200 assembled with a radio and motor.. just need batteries and a charger. They are very tough, look cool and even have a strong new racer following. Most tracks are running them "box stock" to keep the playing field level in my area.

eBay is a great place for deals in R/C, but only if you know what you are buying.

Good luck!


Jerome

kdeselms

Definitely, you should hit the local hobby shop and see what they carry and support with parts. There are a ton of ready-to-run vehicles available to choose from that weigh in around the $250-300 mark (really good ones, for that price) but you want to make sure you can easily get parts.

I've got to again recommend the Traxxas Slash, take a look at it. Very durable for bashing around, easy parts support just about anywhere and if there's a local track, chances are really good you'll have quite a few people to race against when the mood strikes you.

Tony_B

iTrader: (17)

Yes, that is the designation of size. 1/10 scale is by far the most popular (in my opinion). 1/8 scale vehicles are bigger than 1/10 scale. Its a ratio of size to actual size. The lower the bottom number the bigger the car.

I have raced for a few years, but have been out of the scene for a couple. Right now is an exciting time for electric with all of the advances in batteries and speed controllers! I would definitely go electric. Especially for a Newbie. You will get frustrated with gas and give up. I had a RC10GT truck years ago and with no guidance from other racers, I gave up. These forums are a great place to ask questions.

The others make a great point. If you can not get replacement parts (shock towers, a-arms, etc) some Chinese knock-off "bargain" will suck. I would suggest getting a RC10T4 rtr (ready-to-run). It will be a great start. You can upgrade parts here and there as you go. I agree that a brushless setup with Lipo batteries would be the first couple upgrades.

If you buy a kit, to put together, it will take you some time to assemble. For me, thats part of the joy of the hobby. I love to asseble kits! Also, by assembling your kit, you will better understand its workings and how to fix breakages and diagnose problems.

Make sure that you look into all of the safety precautions with Lipos!!!! Again, these forums are a great wealth of knowledge.

Best of luck!

shurcooL

First of all, you should definitely go for electric. It's much easier and more maintenance free than nitro, and for $250-300 its your only reasonable choice.

I think your best bet would be to go for a RTR vehicle and some NiMH batteries/charger for it. Going brushless/Lipo would put you over $500 probably if you don't go for junk. You won't be able to go 70 km/hr, but somewhere in the area of 25-35 km/hr. You can always upgrade to slightly faster mod motors and get more speed once you desire it. Let me tell you, starting out and getting the hang of driving an RC car is MUCH easier and cheaper (you will break parts FAST with a 70 km/hr car if you don't know how to drive it, not so with a 30 km/hr one) with a car that's not insanely fast. Not to mention, when you have a faster car, you WILL need more room/space to run it on so that you can actually reach top speed compfortably.

Ok, as far as cars go.

One good choice for you and one that will easily fit in your budget, and give you a VERY smooth intro to RC cars would be the Team Associated RC18B 1/18 4wd RTR in my opinion, as long as you don't mind its small size. I have one, and I think it's the perfect car for newbies to start with out.



Its probably not the coolest looking buggy, cuz its sorta disproportional in size, but once you have it, you'll get used to it and it won't bother ya. It's actually pretty cute, lol.

The main limiting factor is the size. It's pretty small, so you won't really be able to run it on grass, at least not very fast. You will need some pavement or flat ground. I don't think its small enough to run inside your house, unless you have a huge one, because its turning radius is pretty large...

Now, if you're ok with its size (personally, I like bigger buggies, cuz I like racing and they're easier to get some nice competition for), it's got very nice bang for the buck. It will go pretty fast for its size, about 30 km/hr out of the box. It costs around $200 and comes with everything you need but the 8 AA batteries for radio. The included 1100 NiMH battery is pretty good and I've been using it for a while now with great power left. It does come with an overnight wall charger, but you'll probably wanna get a decent NiMH fast charger so you can charge the battery in 1 hour instead of 12. You can get something like a Duratrax Pirahna for about $50, which is a great NiMH charger. Or you can find something better, see what your LHS offers.

Go look at some vids on youtube of rc18b in action, see if its to your liking.

Now, if you want a bigger buggy, i.e. 1/10 scale, then you'll probably have to stick with 2wd if you wanna stay under $300. Unfortunately 4wd 1/10 cars are kinda expensive, more fragile, and are really meant more for the racers rather than bashers (ppl who run RC cars on the street... agressively or otherwise).

A decent 1/10 2wd buggy choice for you would be the Team Associated B4 1/10 RTR. IMO, of course. It's my favourite 1/10 2wd buggy, and I use one for racing. It'll cost you a little more, and you'll need a 6-cell battery for it.

If you really want 1/10 4wd, the only reasonable choice I can think of would be the Lazer 1/10 4wd RTR car.

If you visit the Losi.com site, they have some nice RTR choices for you too. Personally, I'm not very much into their 1/10 competition buggies, but they have awesome 1/18 2wd stuff and their 1/8 nitro buggy is my favourite. :P

Hope that helps you man. Btw, if you live near Toronto, Canada, I might have a decent NiMH charger cheap for you. PM me if so.

P.S. Even 1/10 buggies are not that great on grass (especially 2wd), even if its pretty short. So make sure you actually have somewhere that you can run them at. IMO, this should be your main deciding factor. It doesn't matter how awesome your car is, if you have no where to run it successfully, you will NOT enjoy it.

P.P.S. One thing I should mention about the RC18b, it has an exposed drive train (the motor, and the gears) inside, so small rocks/dirt/dust tend to get inside under the body and INTO the gears. This kinda makes this car somewhat unsuitable for driving on the dirt, especially if you use reverse (rocks fly directly from rear wheels into the gears, lol). But on the pavement its absolutely great.

porkey

iTrader: (1)

i had one and the only thing i broke for the year i had it was a chassis and was only 5 bucks

Tony_B

iTrader: (17)

I agree with the rtr solution, but as I said in a previous post, I think everyone should assemble a kit now and then to be knowledgeable of repairs. I also agree that a Lipo setup may be beyond a newbie, but a brushless setup geared correctly will eliminate a lot of motor maint. I hate latheing comms or having to have someone do it for me.

shurcooL

Valid points Tony. But stock RTR motors don't require maintenance. I guess the mod ones do if you wanna race competitively. Perhaps Brushless would be a sensible upgrade over stock once you've had enough of stock speeds and want to go faster. But for someone who's not into competitive racing (at least not yet), even stock should keep him entertained for quite some time. I used it to learn for a year.

Tony_B

iTrader: (17)

True dat! (I agree.)

shurcooL

kdeselms

I went the opposite way (as I suspect MOST newbies to the hobby are) and got an RTR, then disassembled the thing to make sure I knew how it was put together and how to fix it! Once you start driving it, you're probably going to want to take it apart just to clean it, anyway.

Electric all the way for newbies, though. I really love it.

brushlessTfour

just to make a suguestion, i would check on the duratrax evaderext rtr.. i got my son 1 and its a very quick and dependable truck, the motor that comes with it will be a good start if you have never driven an rc car before.up grading to a brushless esc/motor combo would be the first thing i would do, theyre kinda pricey but well worth it and the li-po batterys sre great,, i have run times around 30 to 45 minutes with mine. the brushless/li-po battery, and charger will be expensive but worth the money, and by the way the truck is $ 120. ready to run, just add battery

porkey

iTrader: (1)

NO! they r junk i had one and had nothing but problems

cracka

You appear to have problems with everything you've had.

cracka

As someone else suggested, especially if you don't have the skills neccessary to work on one, stay away from any cheap knock-offs as well as any nitro or gas cars as they tend to need a lot of maintenance and technical skills most newbies lack. Also do some looking around at your local hobby shop and see what brands they carry and stock spare parts for because everyone breaks things, especially new drivers, so parts support is a neccessary evil. Most of the rest of your questions should also be answered by people at your local hobby shop. Also plan on doubling your budget, so save some more money if neccessary, because people often seek to get involved in this hobby for cheap and then are dismayed when they end up having to spend more just getting started --- $500 is IMO the minium figure you should look at starting off spending.