hobbyking esc's
 

I'm thinking on getting a Hobbyking or Turnigy esc for my SC10FT. The motor is a LRP X12 5.5 . Which is the best ESC for it ? Any luck on the Hobby King esc or things? Any Help would be great.

Some people won't like this but my advise is avoid Hobbyking stuff like the plague. I've been bitten a few times and it simply isn't worth 'saving' your money on HK stuff because you'll end up buying something else shortly afterwards!

If you can afford it the very best ESC for that setup would be a Tekin RSX however if funds are a little tight then the Hobbywing Xerun 3.1 120A would work beautifully with that setup. I run Tekin now but have ran Hobbywing stuff in the past and it is very good.

Others say Castle is ok but I've had issues with Castle stuff as well. My preferred brands now having tried most kit out there is Tekin, Airtronics, Speed Passion and Hobbywing. Go with any of those and it is very unlikely you'll have any issues.

The hobby king esc is a Hobbywing repackaged. It has same form factor, and the uses the same software to program it. Ive been using the X-Car 120 for well over a year, and have had no issues. It runs my 13.5 in my 22SCT. I would read the reviews and the manual. Some issues I have seen is from misinformation. I think one of the speedo's say, only use with 4pole motors, and the guy complaining was using a 2 pole motor. Just read, and ask questions in their forums.

I used the 120a hobbyking in my sc10 for a while, until the sensor cable snapped and I found that the owner superglued it in so it wouldnt pop out fml. Its a fine esc, the owner wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer though.
now I have a speed passion reventon pro

Totally agree. If budget is tight: go for a budget series from a renown brand instead of something from HobbyKing. In the long run, you'll get more out of it.

It's a copy, not just simply rebadged. 5.5t modified is going to place a significantly higher draw from the esc than a 13.5t. Honestly I know a lot of people as well as myself that have had serious issues with hobbyking stuff. I've been racing for over 20 yrs and I'm not talking about things not working I'm talking about the stuff failing completely after a short period of use. I even had one that failed on the first run!! Plus hobbyking's customer support is shockingly bad. I will never use any of that crap again!

I've bought an X-Car, pulled it apart, compared every component to that of an Xerun of the same value, if it's a copy it's a b.... good one, they look to use the same OEM components to me but I may be wrong. The X-Car case is slightly weaker and they use a cheap sensor cable, and there is no fancy packaging but my Son has an X-Car 60A in his XB4, I've put the latest Xerun firmware on it, he uses the same program card / software as the Xerun in my SC10 and it behaves identically.

Some people have a permanent grudge against Hobbyking items, so best to take all opinions with a grain of salt :)

I think the grudge with hobbyking is that they do very, very little product R&D and simply copy everyone else's IP on most things (or so it seems). We're not talking factory OEM stuff (ie: Hobbywing for speed passion, Orion etc) they are copies.

.....and, if everyone did that, the whole hobby would be stuffed.

Quite right. The components might look the same but I very much doubt that they are of the same quality as Hobbywing OEM. Cheap Chinese copies I'm afraid.

A permanent grudge?? Hell yeah and for very good reason...

I am new to this hobby but have been using the hk 120 for about a year in 17.5 tc and it has worked great. With the usb dongle i had no problem reflashing it to hw blinky. if you do some research you will find threads where people have opened this esc up and performed a side by side comparison to the bh lt4 and hw.

Its not repackaged?? Really.. Have you downloaded the manual for the esc for the one I mentioned?? It says on the manual.. HobbyWing!! Yes its the same speedo with a different wrapper. Its done with speedo's, chargers and radios.. SkyRC produces a few 4 port chargers, guess what Hitec has a 4 port charger.. SkyRc product repackaged with their logo... More I can mention..

Also I race Clodbusters, we are using that speedo + 7000kv sensored motors from HK no issues..

I have HK stuff in my pit box, but mostly non critical items!

I find them pretty good for wires and plugs and stuff like that. Their 10/12ga wire is actually much better than HW stuff (wire more pliable, insulation less prone to splitting) but novak/muchmore/lrp stuff is a step up again.


The banana terminals they have are really good. I've used these recently to replace alligator clips for neater termination into my power strip (which is also a HK item! But is identical to a SkyRC one pretty much. The soldering inside is about as good as the muchmore one ($50 v $15) too.

I have used their batteries (nano tech) in my race car up until this week - have replaced with LRP. And also a charger. They have been good to me.

I am pretty sure stuff like batteries and plugs/wire are rebrand as opposed to copies though. The charger looks identical to the protek (amain home brand) and many others. It could be a clone though.

But trusting servos, ESCs and the like I'm not so keen.

It's hard to tell what is repackaged and what is clone/copy. A clone could quite easily be packed with the same manual, don't trust that.

To truly know you would need to pull two apart side by side and compare things like soldering quality and components on the boards - plus the boards them selves, they normally have unique identifiers.

If there are truly repackaged with the support of the OEM I would be surprised. But also much happier to know that $$$ are going back to the source.

Having seen (second hand) how Chinese manufacturing tends to go, I would be surprised if the majority of items are not clones though.

I have some HK "low profile" 4mm connectors and also some LRP ones. From afar they look identical. Up close you are see the casting imperfections and the material is definitely less ductile with less spring. You squeeze/bend the HK one and it stays that way.

I would bet the metallurgy is different and if my multi meter was sensitive enough to measure, probably different resistance levels.

Whether this matters is another story though.....

hobbyking is a clone, not an oem or a rebadge. the story i heard was that one of the hobby wing engineers went to hobby king, and started to make basically the same esc with cheaper materials through hobby king.

SKY rc oems several products for different companies, but they are all legit.

No it is not repackaged. Fact. It is a clone... SkyRC is Hobbywing OEM however. The HK stuff is ok in toys for bashing I guess but not for competition or proper racing. I don't see any of that junk at major races and competitions anymore plus many federations do not approve these for use at races.