GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

Bingo! I had it bolded incase you are just skimming these posts, which is what I suspect you are doing.

And the $130 I quoted is the Motor, ESC AND battery! And guess what you only need one battery, not 6(packs). How can that be? New technology. And what else? No battery maintenace. No matching, no zapping, no dishcharge trays, no re-peaking. Again that will be hard for some to adapt to.

Let's see, GTX+Mod+top cells(how many pack you need? I'll assume just three, and I'll assume club packs at $50, not the $100 packs some club guys use.), hmmm..'bout $350 by my calcs. And I won't rehash all the support equipment, cause I know your with me on that one. Again, compare new to new and used to used. Not to mention the maintanance costs and increased tire wear from being a 1lb overweight.

And no comments on my claim rule to prevent untethered spending?

Perhaps we need a claim rule on your pit equipment also.

As much as the elitist will deny, this is not real racing,(been there done that, Blackhawk, Elkhart lake, Grattin, Daytona, cars, small formulas and bikes and autoX, fast time of day with an MR2 vs. Porche, ect...not that AutoX is real racing either, real racing is where you actually have a good possibility of dying.) this is big kids playing with little toy cars! There is no excuse to have $5000 worth of equipment you need to U-haul around just to play with your little toy car for 5 minutes. Even some of the elitists are starting to see that. Every once in a while, ya gotta step back and ask, "What they heck are we doing?"

You know, on another thread, somebody posted that they thought this hobby should cost more, while he was probably somewhat joking, I do think there is an elitist attitude that exists and that is part of the problem. Tiger woods is my hero. Just imagine all those stuffy aging obsolete old white guys, when Tiger started kicking thier butts. There are little rays of sunshine in this world.

Clegg

iTrader: (9)

I thought you were kidding wiht the claim rule

And no I am not about that (full cars). Maybe with motors, doing that sort of thing. Basicly saying if you win, you get $45 in cash and the race organizers sell off your race winning motor to the lower tier folks. Or maybe batteries and motor for a price that wouldnt let someone go and buy a 100$ battery pack and a 70$ motor and just keep doing that.

It works well in dirt oval (real dirt oval racing).

But no one would go for it in R/C I dont think.

Also I beg to differ on the costs of 1/12th electronics. Novak Atom: $40, Reedy 19T 40$, Battery pack (1 new 1.7v pack) $30.00. Not that bad. But as I said in the other post, people make it as expensive as they want.

Clegg

iTrader: (9)

Hehe heck my autoX supplies are way cheaper than 5K, I just thought about it

$600 for AutoX Rubber (Falkens) (for the full season), 100$ helmet, 40$ magnetic numbers, 40$ air tank, 15$ water sprayer, 20$ folding chair. Wow... autoX is cheaper for an entire season than my Nitro touring car cost... thats sobering...

GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

Bingo on the "real" car costs! When a set of little toy tires cost $35 and I have to get new ones every month, Jeez? I mean I can get a real car tire for $35 (not my car), WTF? We're talking about 1/1000 of the mass compared to real tires. And for those about to bring up tooling cost, I worked in tooling for 10 years, so hush it. Toy tires are marked up WAY too much.

The claim rule could be applied to just the power system. And the claim rule does not force anybody to buy anything, it does mean that the winner must be prepared to sell x equipment for x $ at the end of the day.

And you're probably right about people making it more expensive than it has to be, but there is alot of keeping up with the Jones, that drives up cost, a claim rule would cap it. You wanna run those fancy unobtainable cell you got from some secret source? Or some secret brush or spring? Fine, if you win, you may have to sell them for a reasonable price.

You know why people won't go for it? Because the truth is those with money don't want to even the playing field. Kids have an amazing insight, until it is beat out of them. Kids see when something is not fair, and they will say, "Hey, that's not fair". Then the parents beat it into them that life is not fair. That doesn't mean we should TRY to make it unfair. We are living in a "Society" as I understand it. Albeit one that voted the current President in not once, but TWICE! 'Nuff said. People are slow. But they're starting to catch on what the agenda was over in the Middle east.

Clegg

iTrader: (9)

Yeh I figure they mine the foam for our tires in some diamond mine in south Africa or something with the costs of this crap.

GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

It's amazing what people will pay for less than $.01 of chemicals.

Davidka

iTrader: (86)

I have a couple of Pink TRC 1/12 fronts sealed in the package that I'll sell ya' for $10 a set...

GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

Actually I'm hoping that with this 1/2 weight car, I can just use the 4 sets of tires I have for the whole year!

JCTC3

John, I was I that said racing should cost more, because people don't respect the fact that some people take it seriosly. They think hey can spend 200 dollars on a car,show up with out practicing and use a battery they charged at home three days ago. And all they do is complain about how unfair it is, I can,t beat Brian Kinwald. It is one of thee only racing forms where you can compete against the best, all you have to do is follow the class rules. Try building an F1 car at home or a Nextal cup car and show up at the track. You won't even be able to race. As far as being jealous of people who spend money that you don't have get used to it. You need only go to a high school and see 16 year old children drivind BMWs and AUDIs to school to see how fiancialy diffrent you are. As far as making a class that you feel is fair based on cost and efort it takes to run how would you feel John(and CLEGG TOO) if I showed up to a gaming party for let's say HALO2 with a comadore64 and just bitched and complained how much money you spent on your computer and it's unfait I can't compete. And spent my time and effort trying to get everyone to switch to a gane like pong so I can play too? Reasons are it's cheaper, you don't have to bring all the extra stuff, you use less electricity so it's better for thee enviroment, the easy game would make a skilled gamers game not how fast your computer is,you wouldn't be constantly buying new games to find one you win at. So with that logic when are you having pong fest?
Jeff Cirves

Clegg

iTrader: (9)

JCTC3 - you realize these are toy cars, and you are running in club events?

Now if you are talking about running the nationals, or being a top tier driver, thats one thing, but if you just run at the same local track week after week after work and on the weekends... dont consider yourself "serious". "Serious" people are the ones who get paid to race, and travel around. We are all just enthusiasts (hardcore for some) the last thing we need is people to start taking this thing TOO serious.

And I never said effort about anything, so take me out of that. I simply want ways for people to get into the hobby, and do agree that some stuff is stupid expensive for no reason at all. If R/C was the way you wanted it you would scare people out of the hobby making them never even want to stay long enough to get "serious" about it.

You brought up F1, great! - because they have BIG problems with cost, and teams can barely keep running. Why are they going to V8's? (well thats costing them more, but they claim in the long run it will be cheaper), what about the talk about spec tires by 2008?, etc... The fact that its nearly impossible for new teams to come into F1 is whats causing F1's grid count to drop. Same damn thing in R/C, if you want people to come into the sport, you need to make it accessible for them.

GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

One reason I brought up this issue again, was that after I saw how cheaply and effortlessly you can race dirt buggies (I carry all my equipment, buggy, transmitter, tools charger, ect. with one arm!). The main reason it is cheaper is because it is lower traction. Lower traction eliminates motor and battery wars, just the things I was concerned about last year.

And I do charge my batteries at home(for dirt)! And moving to Lithium would get rid of all the black guru magic associated with the older tech cells. How many different charging/discharging theories are there that contradict themselves? Heck people are still doing things to thier NimHs that they don't need to, but that's what they did with NiCds.

So, just trying to think outside the box how we can make carpet racing cheaper also, I am not a status quo person. I mean seriously Jeff, wouldn't you rather have a single boat cost $100 instead of $800?

And I raced with Kevin Schwanz at Black Hawk on a shoe string. Built the trailer myself ($100), $20 in safety wire, new tires a few times a year. Maybe I should go back to racing real motorcycles, it's cheaper! And now I have a nice soft belly to support myself on the tank!

And I have no problem putting in effort where it's NEEDED or where it may produce less work in the long run.

Regardless of whether I have money or not, I don't want to spend any more than neccessary just to play with my little toy car.

And as far as not being able to win, I think I posted some details about my record above, so that is not the motive. I am more than willing to run with open guys if they're not scared to get beat by a 400 gram car. Same reason people don't want to race against brushless. On one hand they say it is more efficient and not fair on the other hand they say it has to prove itself. Huh? Somebody said once it proves to be dominant it will become main stream. Is that why people like running stock so much? Because stock motors are "dominant"?

JCTC3

John, Brushless motors are not new technology. The fact that they have been around for so many years and havn't caught on enuogh for there to be racing classes by now leads me to believe there is a reason for that. In the boats they are now dyno testing the brushless motors for the desired rpm and looking at the best eficiency, this creats less heat in the speed controller. If you really push the edge you will pop the esc on a regular basis. Most are usually covered under waranty but take several weeks to several months for replacement. So you end up owning one or two backups just to be able to race. Also I have found out that you can't use conectors on the motors long term, adds resistance and will pop thee esc.Not many people know how to properly set up the hall sensor on senored systems, takes alot of patiance but a performance and eficiency gain is to be had. Is it fair I know how to set up a motor and esc and others don't? Is it fair I know to add capaciters to buffer the em signals? Is it fair I can soder cells end to end to meet the reqirement of 6 to 8 inches of wire including your battery bars as spected by most esc manufactures? I would like to see a brushless class but I think you are knieve about long term racing, you still will have esc problems and your motor when heated above 150f will have the rotor magnets steadily degrade, hey but spend some money and all these problems go away. That is what racing is no matter what form it is.
JEFF

GordonFreeman

iTrader: (2)

What part of Mod speeds, cold motor, cold ESC and cold battery didn't you get?

And by the way brushless has been around a lot longer than you or I. Since you're an electrician, you know all about AC induction motors. They don't even need a rotor magnet, magnetic currents are set up by the stator fields.

A little history for your purusal:
http://inventors.about.com/library/i.../blfaraday.htm

The reason it has been slow to come to RC racing is because we use a DC power source instead of AC. So you need to build a computer controlled ESC that can control the stator phases in a timely fashion. I have yet to see a sensorless system that does not studder from a stop (in cars).

It's great that you figured out how to loosen three screws on the back of the motor and twist the timing plate around. How did you quantify your gains or losses? Sure you can see the free RPM speed increase or decrease.

Under the current rules, 4 Cell, ect...You are forced to have a high amp draw for Mod speeds. If you can think outside the box, you simply use high voltage to get your power instead of high amps. Right? Why is Castle coming out with HV ESCs now? Because Power=VoltxAmps, but you know that I assume. I'm sure you also know that F=ma. Any high school grad knows that. Power density? You know all that stuff. Simple basic stuff. All that stuff you listed that your working so hard to overcome is because of high amp draw and too much weight.

I can regurgitate all the oppressive reasons why brushless has not caught on in cars, but I won't. But, the thing is though, it is catching on. Who wants to bet me that the use and acceptance of brushless will continue to go up in the hobby? No takers? Didn't think so.

I'll just practice on Mondays or which ever day they will have onroad practice. And I'll continue to have great Mod racing at RCP where driver skill is king, not how big your wallet is.

I'll also put an open invitation, for anybody to bring any car using any power system, any motor, whatever, to come and race with me for 20 minutes, ah let's make that 30, no pit stops.

Racin Rev

Jeff, how long have you been at this? Do you preceed esc's? The point is that you and several other racers that I could mention have been doing this a long time. You also have a fairly high level of income disposability that can be thrown at r/c racing. that is simply a fact. You want to run at the high end and you should. I don't think that anyone would be inclined to say that you caesar, joe c., george, matt, shouldn't be able to run at that level if you want to. You are all capible racers and good tuners (well, with one glaring exception). Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who aren't where you are. they want a hobby not a life. they have limited incomes, or family budgets, or they just can't justify the expense. a class where they can be competitive and have a good time affordabily is what they need. Mod isn't going away anytime soon (though it will never be a dominant class), though stock could be replaced by 19t. the point is, the low end spec class is good for the hobby, yes, good for you. the more people who come out to race, even if they never have the opportunity to be passed by you on the track, assist in buying new carpet, barriers, and pay the rent and heat. it also provides a trickle of the truly committed to go out and challenge you. It is a win win imho.

Racin Rev

There seems to be two camps with regards to the brushless, it is interesting to look at the demigraphic differences. Most of the pro-brushless folks are budget minded people who haven't been in the hobby for many years. They look at the costs of buying in big and blanch. even if they bite the bullet they find that these little motors have a learning curve which becomes steeper depending on how mechanically inclined they are. The point is, they will take several years minimum to get their motors "up to speed". add to this the curve for learning to drive and set up their cars (though less a factor with all the set ups posted on the web) and it takes a while for it to be mano a mano instead of mano a machino.

Now, who are the guys who are disparaging the brushless motors. These are the guys who have been around awhile and have paid their dues, or the up and coming wannabes. They don't want a field leveling technology because it erodes the edge that they have worked very hard for. They want you to have to grope your way up their level slowly so that by the time you get there they will be an intimidating enough presence to keep you in line or they will be too old to race. at some level i can't blame them for not wanting to give up an edge but on the other hand the shorter learning curve is better for the hobby. again look at f1. it is a couple of dominant teams and a bunch of also rans. Then look at nascar, it is mano a mano and bumper to bumper all the way because the differences between drivers and equipment is reduced. It is fun to watch and i bet fun to race.