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AMB Personal Transponders...Too Expensive?

AMB Personal Transponders...Too Expensive?

Old 12-29-2005, 01:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Soviet
It's easy for a multi-million dollar company to mass produce smartass...
This is part of my point. If it's so "easy" why aren't other companies building them too? While it just might be "easy" it HAS TO BE profitable too.

Don't get me wrong - I am not impressed with the price either. But they DO last forever IF you take care of them. At least I don't hear people whining about the latest, greatest, I gotta have one of them to be fast, transponder of the week.
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Old 12-29-2005, 01:29 PM
  #122  
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I have this idea (I am sure tons of ppl had thought about that already).........BAR CODE, just like the one that supermarket does, with a red lazer sencor gun.................every racer registered recieve a sticker w/bar code over it, everyone is different. Put that sticker on the body, or inside the body, on the car....as long as pointing up...Then the loop is a lazer senzor bridge with guns pointing down......

I know....sounds too simple.
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Old 12-29-2005, 01:37 PM
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Dunno how reliable that would be... ever pay attention at the check out line at the supermarket?? lol

what happens if you bottom out an rip your sticker?
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Old 12-29-2005, 01:42 PM
  #124  
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Yeah....good point, but of course, this is the concept....when someone gathering some E.E and actually DOING the whole thing, we are not talking about a simple white stickers with bar code and a retail supermarket type senser gun.....may be something better and more reliable and still be able to be printed by barcode machine. And the senser bridge is probably 100 time stronger and faster then the typical supermarket type.

Or....ppl can paint their body with bar code scheme, looks cool and actually functional................(really, bar code painting scheme might looks really cool and is functional...LOL)
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Old 12-29-2005, 01:56 PM
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My personal view... if it's too expensive for you, DONT BUY IT!
I really do wonder sometimes why people on here whine so much...

Seriously, they are not a necessity, and if they are there at your track, then I think there is something wrong that.

Until either a) AMB drop their prices or b) genuine competition appears then the prices will not drop. Deal with it, do what any sensible person would do, budget for it! If you do it for a £300+ car then surely you can do it for a PT if you need it that desperatly!

There is a company over here already producing PT's for the AMB20 system... http://www.team-mrt.com/ and scroll to the T1-10 section.

BTW, I have an AMB PT in my car, and it hasn't moved in about a year now, still works fine, one of the best bits of equipment I brought.

Rant over...
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:06 PM
  #126  
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That's the thing... look at the competion.. do you really want that thing in your car? Not to mention it only has 10 channels. Leaves a lot of room for human error having to constantly worry about which channel your on for the next race.
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:19 PM
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Originally Posted by koabich
Well yeah if you let your dog chew on them or if you throw them in a shreader!!

I have had the same 2 AMB Transponders since they first became available and they are in the same exact condition as the day o bought them.

I am sure though that if you do not secure the extra slack of wire, allowing it to drag on the alphalt track or allow the excess wire to get caught in between the spur and pinion as you run the wire will get frayed and eventually fall off but I guess that's part of the plot in making you buy a transponder every 3 months...DARN AMB for making the wire so darn long!
Your a dolt. I am talkin about where the wire goes into the main body of the device. Theres no strain relief, and over time the wires inside break down at that point. If you only mount the PT once and never move it again, no big deal. But if you move it around from car to car in the different seasons that sumbitch breaks.
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:20 PM
  #128  
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AMB is the hobby standard. You can go anywhere and use it and it is acurrate. If you want to play you have to pay. Yeah its expensive but what in RC isnt? I have had two AMB personals for three years and have never had a complaint. They have survived about fifteen different cars. Buy it once and forget it.
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:31 PM
  #129  
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Originally Posted by XMSRacing
Seems to me that if we're looking to make the hobby more affordable - there are a lot better places to start then a PT.

Lets think about this. Even if you have HORRIBLE luck and buy 1 every 2 years, thats $40 a year. Ok... BRAND NEW PT is now $40... works great, the world is now a better place.

What have you saved given the same consuming rate of the PT? $20/year.

Now - if you want to make the racing world a more affordable place. Why not go to the people who make the rules and get some restrictions on the way chassis are introduced - a really spec class to put emphasis on the driver.. I dunno.. something.

THAT has the potential to create some savings for the people who wish to take advantage of it.

Racing is money. Period. Its not a negative attitude - heck I would love it if everything we needed could be cut in half price wise. I just think this random bash on AMB for charging $80 for something that is very useful, and does not lose its value is rather pointless.
I just wanna say that I have not once bashed AMB. Their doing what they are suppossed to do and thats make money. I don't understand some of the responses to us DISCUSSING the POSSIBILITIES of cheaper alternatives.
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Clegg
Your a dolt.

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Old 12-29-2005, 02:37 PM
  #131  
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I dont get why people care about AMB making money lmao. Sht who doesnt want expensive things to cost less?? o.o Helloooooooooooo? Now dont get me wrong Im not sitting here crying about how evil AMB is or anything..but less is less..Im ALWAYS open to saving money. So if some company puts out a PT that works with current counting systems and cost less?...they will definatly have my buck. Why the hell not?
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Old 12-29-2005, 02:38 PM
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And it's $88.41US plus I imagine shipping and handling. Interesting though.
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Old 12-29-2005, 04:00 PM
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Originally Posted by XMSRacing
Quite the contrary my friend.

You are correct that they have bought the rights to the game and the GPU. However - that does not mean the rest of the board is up to snuff. The GPU does not do all of the work my ill-informed friend.

Before I go into any detail - do yourself a favor before you make yourself out to be any more brainless on this subject. Go do some research about graphics cards. Compare say - a Nvidia 6800 from ohhh... say eVGA or Asus. And then one from the bargain basement of whatever cheapest card you can find in the 6800 line up. IT WILL NOT PREFORM THE SAME. The core is not neccessarily running at the same speed, nor is the memory of the same type or running at the same speed. Not to mention the circuit board may not be of the same quality and therefore resulting in over crappy performance.

I appreciate your amusing rebutal - but please try again.

Please...I've worked IT for years and am an admin @ xtremesystems (www.xtremesystems.org/com) Building custom PCs, workstations and even 4U servers is how I pay the bills.

I was trying to keep it short. Anyhow...if you want to get into it...the cards are all virtually the same. Same ram, same vid-output chip...same nearly everything. The only difference is usually the bundle, color and cooler. If a card say the 7800GTX 256MB is being sold...if the cards are the same spec, they will nearly all run the same as far as performance is concerened. if you were to compare an ASUS 7800GTX vs. an EVGA 7800GTX, as long as they were both the 256mb version they would be virtually identical. The memory on all the cards comes from either Samsung or Hynx and it's BGA GDDR3 memory.

And again...for the sake of the argument I was trying to keep it short. However I see that obviously most folks in the RC community could care less about the cost. It seems that everyone who wants to race should be rich.

This is especially retarded since RC in general used to be much more affordable, even with inflation factored in.
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Old 12-29-2005, 04:02 PM
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Originally Posted by stumper1
This is part of my point. If it's so "easy" why aren't other companies building them too? While it just might be "easy" it HAS TO BE profitable too.

Don't get me wrong - I am not impressed with the price either. But they DO last forever IF you take care of them. At least I don't hear people whining about the latest, greatest, I gotta have one of them to be fast, transponder of the week.

True that...

Although with our receivers becoming more intelligent, there may be the day that an additional transponder is simply not needed. That would be nice.
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Old 12-29-2005, 04:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Soviet
Please...I've worked IT for years and am an admin @ xtremesystems (www.xtremesystems.org/com) Building custom PCs, workstations and even 4U servers is how I pay the bills.

I was trying to keep it short. Anyhow...if you want to get into it...the cards are all virtually the same. Same ram, same vid-output chip...same nearly everything. The only difference is usually the bundle, color and cooler. If a card say the 7800GTX 256MB is being sold...if the cards are the same spec, they will nearly all run the same as far as performance is concerened. if you were to compare an ASUS 7800GTX vs. an EVGA 7800GTX, as long as they were both the 256mb version they would be virtually identical. The memory on all the cards comes from either Samsung or Hynx and it's BGA GDDR3 memory.

And again...for the sake of the argument I was trying to keep it short. However I see that obviously most folks in the RC community could care less about the cost. It seems that everyone who wants to race should be rich.

This is especially retarded since RC in general used to be much more affordable, even with inflation factored in.
Considering your statements - I find that hard to believe.

Let me say this again - graphics cards... even if equiped with the same GPU will not preform the same when one is built by a quality orgainization such as asus or evga and the other is built by brand XYZ bargainbasement.com Clock speeds of the memory and GPU's often vary greatly and is what can affect performance dramatically.

Comparing evga and asus is pointless and was not what i was saying, thanks.

Done with a PC convo on a thread intended for a transponder.

BTW... how much has RC really changed price wise? TC's are a bit more expensive to buy the kit initially.. but the rest of it is pretty much the same. (excluding the noted topic everyone is ranting about) Really the price has really gone up all that much, but the technology your getting is hella better now then it was when I bought my first car 11 years ago. (Futaba FX10 - god that thing was a TANK!!!)
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