Pulse_

You can't say the user is always responsible and you can't totaly blame the ESC reliability either. It's always part of both, but sometimes one is more involved than the other.

A good design has to integrate a certain margin of error. It's a hobby so you have to keep it real, not everybody is a perfect solderer or user for some reason. If the choice of design is too complicated, you can make it better.

Most RX8 aren't sold to pro drivers, don't forget about it. And pro drivers using a brand doesn't mean much either. Are the pro drivers doing 10 hours endurance racing in electric? I do, and I'm a local hobbyist.. So I would trust a basher's or standard hobbyist more than the guys who know so much when it comes down to reliability.

Randy_Pike

iTrader: (6)

Nobody is looking to place blame. The reality of it is that things fail. What everyone needs to understand and realize that there are so many outside factors involved that each must be considered when working out problems with the entire car.

Edumakated

iTrader: (19)

That is the problem... pro drivers are not weekend hacks like 95% of us, nor are we paid to endorse a product. Too many manufacturers use Pros who aren't nearly as hard on equipment to test equipment/reliability which is flawed because the average weekend hobbyist is much harder on stuff.

Lutz or Pike perfectly landing big jumps is not testing equipment imho. that is babying it... you need guys who don't solder perfectly, case big jumps, over gear, hit walls, clip tubes, etc to really know if a product is well made. By the way, I've been racing electric 8th for six years, so it isn't like I am just learning how to drive. Definitely not a pro, but I know what I am doing.

Don't get me wrong, not bashing Tekin. They have a lot of my money on their books But the reality is that rx8s have not been the most reliable ESC. And to be fair, Castle has the same problems when their Mamba Monster first came out. Those were blowing up left and right. I think I had 6 or 7 of those too.

Zerodefect

I love Tekin Gear. I run thier 1/8th motors and 1/10th ESC's exclusively. I still run Trinity Epic motors in 1/10th scale, but also like the Tekin motors.

But I'm done with the Rx8. Missed races and 2 DNS's were the last straw.

Maybe Tekin will offer a loyalty program on their next 1/8th ESC. Like, get a Rx9 1/2 off when you turn in a Rx8. Hopefully in the future something cool like that will help bring us 1/8th guys back to try Tekin again.

I replaced 4+ Rx8's with one Speed Passion Silver Arrow. That big clunky POS SP esc has outlasted all of my Rx8's combined. When a new SP or HW esc costs only 5-30 more than repairing an RX8.....

ESC's take a beating. They break. I'm ok with that usually. Part of racing and all that, but i can't afford the ROF with the Rx8's.

sirio76

I agree, and this is where most of the problems starts if you want to drive an F1 car(1:1) without the proper know-how it will not last very long that's why this is not a good esc for bashing, you need to know exactly what you are doing. If somebody wants something like plug and play and more user friendly this is not the best esc, and if someone wants to run his buggy for a two days endurance he do this at his own risk, races are typically 10/12 minutes long I'm not a pro diver but probably I'm the only one who have readed about 300 pages of the rx8 official thread before considering to buy it, as a result mine are still running as well as my other Tekin stuff I'm using on 1:10 touring, scaler and short course... maybe I'm just lucky

Randy_Pike

iTrader: (6)

@Edumakated clearly you haven't seen me drive! lol

BEAR5OH

iTrader: (30)

I'm gonna come off like a total d**k right now but:

To those with complaints about the posts for soldering - Learn to solder properly. Learn how to route your wires and also use the right KIND of wires.

To those complaining about reliability when they don't drive their vehicle well - If you don't expect to break SOMETHING, ANYTHING when you screw up on the track, you need to start doing so. Whether you are breaking a part on the car or something electrical, expect to do so when you make small mistakes, or big mistakes.

Be glad someone came out with an ESC that you can finely tune and you can solder connections at your discretion. I find the posts on the RX8 to be easy to work with.

If you live in SoCal and are not good at soldering, i'm more than happy to help you learn.

I mean no offense to anyone here that has replaced several RX8 ESCs especially at crucial times. If you race, you know you should always be prepared for anything and everything. I have found the RX8 to one of the most reliable components on the market today.

I'm kinda sorry I resurrected this thread from the dead because some of the posts are getting off topic. I think the main idea was to gather information on what your running and your experience with the RX8 has been in those configurations.

B.

Chase1472

iTrader: (76)

lol I was going say I have seen some tekin team drivers try doing back flips on triples

Randy_Pike

iTrader: (6)

Yeah that could be half a dozen of our guys. I blame Lutz

Pulse_

Randy Pike's answer was better

j/k

I fried an ESC -> I considered at the very first place I was in case, I always do -> asked on the RX8 thread for some advices -> bought a Hakko 936 soldering station + read some stuff about soldering (and I don't totally mess things you can check pics of my toys if you want) -> did it a better way on the next RX8 -> we'll see how it goes

Anyway we are just speaking about our own experience, there's no generality to make. That's the trap of the forums, we're looking for some "truth" concerning products. But there's no other truth other than your own experience. Maaaaaan that's a beautiful sentence yeeeehaaaa Sorry, it's late here

john stu

iTrader: (21)

i feel the solder posts are great and i love the look of them but then again im very experanced at soldering and if your not then i could see why you would prefer something else,

hear is my issue: when i got into 8th electric i had a close friend who did so at the same time, we bought the same cars,same battery's only difference was he went the castle route and i went tekin. here is a little back round we usually go to the track together so we drive under the same conditions, drive about the same about of time per week hitting the same jumps only difference is i consider myself to a much better and smoother driver and i definitely crash less and break less parts on my car (except esc's lol) ive been through 8 rx8's two of witch ruined two my battery's and he is still using his very first castle 2650 combo and the same battery's!...............sure i hate driving his car with that castle cog from the start but i have to say his system has taken a beating i mean a beating! and it just wont die he hits stuff i never would and breaks parts i never have and his castle stuff has never skipped a beat, pissis me off actually he teases me constantly to switch to castle but i just love the way my tekin drives (and looks) come on tekin make this thing more reliable, same track same conditions and with a worse driver his stuff still works great and i drive all cautious trying not to break my fragile tekin yes ive tryied zeal i tryed everything and it has broken 8 times twice up in flames to his zero, really? and its not installation because he is a newbie (thats why he crash's more than me) i installed and soldered all his stuff. the downtime ive had races ive missed and money ive spent sending this thing in to get fixed is insane. and i had to buy a spare.


best esc on the market by far, if it was more reliable

Zerodefect

Fair enough. I'd prefer to have the oldschool setup with the wires back on the board permanent again. Stinks cause you have to take care of that wire, and be mindful how much to trim off.

It should be mentioned that I'll only solder a Rx8 up with a Hakko station. Allthough I did do someones car at the track with a Weller 80w pencil iron and it worked out ok.

I think losing a battery wire in the middle of the race really hurts the Rx8 as well. Seen a couple Rx8s fail a month after such an incident.


I think the analogy with the pros is fair, but they have a dozen ESC's and cars on hand. Things might be different if they had only 2 cars and each was 12 months old. That's were the difference between pro and sportsman lies. And then there are the folks with plain bad luck, who really haven't done anything wrong.

Pulse_

@ johnstu: 8! Tekin customers are the best on earth

@ Zerodefect: +1

bigjayjay1

iTrader: (86)

I hate these threads it only represents a few people other read and believe. Tekin has a solid product best in the business's their performance is why other companies strive to do better. Will speedos fail YES read all the threads does every company have great service NO. I've been running tekin for years had a few issues but they were resolved quick. The new three hole case was a knock out it improved the durability. I'm still on my original unit its been two years. Also how you mount your speedo is key make sure you take some shock away by using some pad etc. For every one bad comment their 10 good comments TEKIN rocks

Randy_Pike

iTrader: (6)

Thanks for the kind words guys. We are listening to what you all have to say. As always we too are looking to improve upon our products both existing and future products.