Does enabling reverse change anything?
 

I've heard that having reverse engaged on an ESC changes the performance. Is that true? I have the Tekin set to Forward/Reverse Break with reverse delay. I am racing on Indoor Clay. 2wd and 4wd buggies.
ESC's are Hobbywing XR10 PRO 1260A and Tekin RS Pro Black edition.
Cars are EB410 and soon to be built Losi 22 4.0 SR.

Thanks!

The first I've heard of such a claim. I see no reason why it would.

Yes, it turns you into a dork that has no business on a race track.

J/K...kind of

It would be hard to believe that it would affect the performance but, race tracks are one way roads anyways, so you shouldn't be doing any reversing.

I always leave the reverse on but never use it during a race. Comes in handy during practice when there really isn't any turn marshals.

So dang true, been their and always doing that

Besides its forward/brake then delay reverse

I run reverse in my Tekin stuff, and I don't notice any difference. I am extremely particular with how my throttle and brakes feel. Ask Randy Pike in the Tekin thread, he should be able to confirm that reverse doesn't change anything.

That said, some Hobbywing esc's had this weird thing that the reverse % impacts brake strength. They said for racing disable reverse, but leave it at 100%. I think they finally fixed that though. It could be with the Hobbywing that you were in reverse mode and the drive frequency and other settings were different. You'll have to look at the manual.

Isn't leaving reverse on illegal in your rules?

It's illegal to use reverse while racing.

I have a 1 second delay. I have used reverse once or twice in racing and got away with it. Race Director didn't see it, and the marshal was too slow, like I literally sat there for 3 seconds before reversing. Also, I didn't back my car into someone else as they were going by either. That said I did technically break the rules, and I really suggest not doing as I have done. You crash in racing, you have to wait for the turn marshal.

I only really use reverse in practice, so I don't have to leave the drivers stand. If I set my reverse delay shorter, I would probably be more inclined to use it during racing, so I keep it at one second, and follow the rules.

One of our local race director is old school, during warm up sometimes I'll drive my car in reverse around the track. He'll say I'm doing the fork lift race like we used to do when this hobby was still about goofing off some with toy cars. So, I know at least one race director knows my car has reverse, and he has honestly never said anything to me about it.

Interesting. I'm pretty sure that where I race, simply having it enabled is illegal. I don't think anyone bothers to explicitly check, but if anyone is aware it's enabled, you'd be asked to disable it.

I think this is a story from the brushed ESC's.
When you have a reverse ESC the motor is controled by a so called H-bridge where the current has to go through 2 FET's. Only forward ESC's have just 1 FET to control the motor. With such ESC's 1 pole of the motor was directly connected to the positive wire of the battery.

So yes, if you do not use the reverse on a brushed ESC you can connect the motor in a same way as a forward only ESC taking away one FET.

Sounds like a lame place to race that's full of petty d-bags. Seriously, as long as you don't use it during the race why would anybody care?

Very rarely do I use reverse in racing... if I get hung on the pipe and I do a mental count to 3 Mississippi and the marshal still hasn't seen my car, nor RD and there's no oncoming traffic, then I feel it's warranted. I actually used it this past weekend when being marshaled by a novice driver who blindly stared at my car just a couple feet in front of him, I guess he froze and the RD didn't call anything out until after I used reverse (go figure?) yeah just a bunch of levels of wrong mixed in, but it was a qualifier so I justified it to myself, yeah I was a dork, but I was a happy dork instead of getting pissed off at the inexperienced marshal.

There have also been times where a marshal refuses to rotate my car when it's pointed the wrong direction, or they marshal my car backwards, so then I will do a J-Turn.

I only use reverse for practice. I would not use it in a race. Having the delay enabled makes it easy to comply. I'm not sure about the official racing rules, I'm pretty new to this. At my track, you are not allowed to reverse during a race, but there is not a rule that says you can't have it enabled.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Maybe that’s why the marshal said hmm reverse huh. Lol I thought that was a old rule guess not. Maybe they just need some end caps on the piping and I won’t get hung up

Just having reverse enabled is a no-no at my track. That said, I've not known anyone to check, but I've not done any points races yet.

That's a stupid rule. That would be like going to a track that only allows one kind of tire sauce and getting in trouble for also having another sauce in your pit bag. if my track started to make rules against stupid things that have no impact on the outcome of the race I would have to find somewhere else to go.

From my experience, in off road racing, having reverse during practice comes in handy quite a bit cuz car gets flipped or gets stuck a lot. And off road cars are quite durable. So even if somebody bumps into another car during reverse, that may not be disastrous. But in onroad racing, it is different. Cars r more sensitive and weaker and faster. If somebody reverses and bumps into another car, that could cause some major damage. The effect gets even larger cuz onroad cars r stuck to the ground and dont have any kick ups. So unlike offroad cars during crash, one car doesnt ride on the other. So i would not want to see reverse on onroad track either practice or not.

I dunno. As I said, as far as I know, no one checks, and if you don't use it during the race, I doubt anyone cares. I'll admit, I leave reverse enabled on my car because it's handy for practice and I'm too lazy to turn it off for racing.

It's a national rule where I race. The individual clubs are less strict at actually enforcing it.

good q
 

Having an associates in electronics I can give an educated guess. No. However on my tekin products if I decrease brake strength reverse speed is proportionally affected. The design programming and makeup of each manufacture varies, so to find the absolute truth the original engineers would have the best answer to your question.

most places to race having reverse is a show to exit door.. get your tail moving and go flip or move your car stay outa wrecks.see this happen all the time person is 60 feet away and due to their tunnel vision never see car pile till there in it..you have peripheral vision use it.kill reverse..should never use or need it unless your only bashing.

Where do race where this is the case? I want to know so I can avoid this place.

I suspect you have a very wrong view of rc racing in general. I have been racing rc cars for 28 years and have never seen a track kick someone out for using reverse.

Also, is English not your first language? When I read your posts it sounds like you are using google translate.

My only comment on leaving reverse on in racing is that for Blinky racing now your not "Blinky". For guys running xr10 justocks really doesn't matter but if you have a speedo capable of pulling timing how does anyone know your not. Most guys at the track I can probably trust. Some I wouldn't!

Why does reverse have anything to do with blinky mode? Reverse and timing are not the same thing. I run my Tekin esc's in blinky and I have reverse enabled.

Same here as been to a lot of different tracks and never once been yelled at for using reverse during practice, either on road or off

Practice isn't racing. It's not like they'd disqualify your practice run if your car is underweight. However, there should be no reversing during the race. I don't understand why there's so much objection to that rule. Why must reverse be enabled if you know you can't use it?

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...92a5e57a69.jpg


The ROAR rule book specifies that you can not use reverse, not that reverse has to be disabled. We are not breaking any rules, we don't have to disable it if we don't want to.

Hmm. I was under the impression that when you enable reverse your not esc wouldn’t do the roar approved blink. My hobbywong won’t do the timed blink when I have reverse enabled.

Hobbywing makes it to where you have to put the esc into a reverse mode. That mode may come with timing you can disable. The esc might blink after you set the timing to zero in the reverse mode. Maybe it won't, I don't know.

Most esc's have reverse that you can turn on independent of any other setting. This is one of the reasons I run the esc's I run.

For practice it's great, as a few of the tracks I go to have roughly 14 steps to get to the drivers stand, so when you get parked into the wall, it's so much easier to just BACK up, I think the vast majority of people here have said they use reverse BUT not in RACING, I run Tekin esc's and I DONT bring my laptop to disable that feature, as I have been racing for years and have yet to get talked to by race director or owner for using reverse during PRACTICE.......just pointing out the obvious on using reverse during practice, so why is it so hard to understand that it's up to the driver to control that feature.....also if your racing bigger events they are going to check everything, but I bet they won't check for reverse

My comment was aimed more at the responses to the rules I run under. Refusing to race here at all just because having reverse enabled during a race is against the rules, is a bit of an overreaction.

I didn't consider the Tekin ESCs as I've never seen one. I'm used to being able to disable it on the fly quite quickly. In that case, yes I can see why you'd be frustrated by having to disable it.

Most people here probably don't realize you are from Australia. This forum is mostly people from America. The hobby in general is much larger in America vs. Australia. How many drivers does Australia have that could make the A-main at the Worlds? One, Kyle McBride. How many world class drivers from the U.S.? Way more than one. I've been racing rc cars for 28 years and have raced at more than 50 different tracks. Does Australia even have 50+ rc tracks? I highly doubt it. What you experience as an Australian rc racer is different from the vast majority of people on this forum.

I can see why they specify that you have to have reverse disabled. Australian rc racers are probably mostly a bunch of bogans, and if they had reverse they would use it.

Tekin esc's can disable the reverse without hooking up a programmer.

That's a pretty arrogant attitude to take. At the last IFMAR ISTC race, the top Australian driver, Ryan Maker, finished in the B main. As far as I can tell, the top finishing North American driver was Rick Hohwart, in the D main. But how is that relevant? My opinion doesn't count because you've stereotyped the country I currently live? This will be my last direct reply to you.

Well, this guy is talking about 1/10th scale electric off-road not 1/10th scale on-road. Go ahead and add up all the Americans and Aussies in the 1/8th scale Nitro Off-Road Worlds along with the 1/10th scale Off-Road worlds. Go ahead and add nitro touring car and 1/8th scale On-Road worlds appearances too if you want, but I still stand by what I said about the scale of the hobby. Look at the numbers of entries at races in America. Does Australia have a race like the DNC (799 entries in 2015) or the Reedy Races? Psycho Nitro Blast, JConcepts INS, JBRL, Hot Rod Shootout, Cactus/Desert Classic?

insulting other members is not allowed.. keep this thread on point or you will have a 30 day vacation.. thank you

busch league. reverse should NEVER be used during a race. you crash and marshal doesn't see you? yeah, it sucks, but unfortunately it's part of club racing. don't crash. where i race, if that situation happens, you have no chance of winning anyway so why soil your reputation by using novice tactics?

i run hobbywing escs (V3.1 stock and XR10 Stock) and have reverse enabled and they blink just fine.

as has been said, reverse is quite handy during practice. if it saves me a trip down to the track from the stand, it's worth it. with that, i've NEVER used it during a race. if you don't have the discipline to not use it during a race, then disable it.

Sorry, no. It's illegal (or should be) because it only takes one mistake to reverse into a car at speed and cause damage to the other person's car. It is pretty unlikely that the sauce in your pit bag is going to leap out of the bag onto the track and damage someone's car.

Having reverse enabled on a track car is hugely bush league and lame. There was a time when it was a universal rule to not have it enabled. the only reason it's not still that way everywhere was the influx of RTR cars in the early 2000's that came with ESCs that didn't have the ability to disable reverse.