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Radio controlled people

3K views 25 replies 7 participants last post by  The Big Buddha 
#1 ·
I know you're out there... I've seen your prior posts and threads. :)

So years and years ago (think original rc10 and a little later) I was really into r/c. Specifically electric racing buggies and stadium trucks. I've recently got the itch again and am considering a rock crawler. My need for speed is gone. I have a big tote leftover from years ago full of broken and never fixed vintage cars that all were probably involved in r/c dui.

Anywho, if you folks have a recommendation to get me pointed in the right direction, that would be awesome. There are all sorts of brands and Chinese stuff that I don't recognize anymore. I'm assuming the cheaper Chinese stuff is to be avoided.

Thanks in advance :)
 
#3 ·
Hpi and Traxxas are both good brands. I have an hpi savage 25 myself. Haven't had it running for about 3 years now. Needs one part I've never managed to buy. These days the battery powered stuff is pretty awesome too. Mine were all nitro powered. There are battery powered that can literally spin the rims out of the wheels.

Bump: http://www.hpiracing.com/en/tag/savage

You'd have to convert to a crawler but there are tons and tons of parts available.
 
#4 · (Edited)
I'm kind of an RC addict. I've been doing it for 30+ years.
I started building my own custom crawlers before Axial was even producing crawlers.
Depends what you are looking for: scale or Competition? There is also the Rock racer types.
You are in for a big surprise with the new technology. Lipo and brushless are like night and day from old school RC.
I really like the Axial products. You can't go wrong there. I have an scx10 which I really like.



Also some custom builds that are more comp.








But the most fun is my 1/5th scale....






 
#8 ·
Oh god, they hadn't thought of YouTube yet the last time I was into r/c. I think I just melted my brain trying to catch up. I'm gonna have read a lot. Stupid internet.

Thanks guys. From what I can tell so far, it looks like I might be steering towards a competition style crawler. Too much money that direction though. Perhaps maybe just a gmade R1 to see if I like it or not. I want it to be fun for one of my sons too. I think if I dumped that much into comp style one, I'd be too afraid to let the 9 year old take controller.

Why does all the fun stuff seem like a money pit. lol
 
#12 · (Edited)
Very nice Fornstar, the Vaterra is a nice scale rig.

You could always add some fender wheel wells to make it look more scale. Very cheap and easy mod. I used black wonton soup containers I bought from Costco in the frozen food section. Or you can find small plastic containers and paint them black. I hate seeing through the wheel wells to the other side. You could also use a thin piece of black styrene over the rear frame to hide seeing through the rear windows like in your 3rd pic.





 
#15 ·
Very nice Fornstar, the Vaterra is a nice scale rig.

You could always add some fender wheel wells to make it look more scale. Very cheap and easy mod. I used black wonton soup containers I bought from Costco in the frozen food section. Or you can find small plastic containers and paint them black. I hate seeing through the wheel wells to the other side. You could also use a thin piece of black styrene over the rear frame to hide seeing through the rear windows like in your 3rd pic.

I agree about seeing through the wheel wells. I havent had alot of time to build things for it. I would love an interior but just havent had the time. I have been meaning to do some 3d models in solidworks. A guy at work will 3d print them for me. A roof rack and rear tire carrier is at the top of my list.

Only bad thing about Vaterra is the lack of aftermarket support. That will change over time.

The best part for me was building it. Thats just the engineer in me.

Matt
 
#14 ·
#16 ·
+1 to axial deadbolt or any of the axial scx10 models. Great rigs with TONS of aftermarket parts available and many many options to customize but are not so much as a comp crawler but a good start to see if you like RC crawling. I've heard a lot of great things about the vaterra ascender as well but as mentioned not as much after market support YET. Good trial rig to see if you wanted to really get into it and build a competition style rig and could for sure take a beating from a 9 year old boy haha.
 
#17 ·
I've been doing some serious ocd reading and I'm fairly certain that the competition crawler isn't something that I think we'd have as fun with at the moment. I really don't want a RTR either. I really want to include my son in the build process. Most likely a badger/ entry level crawler.

Anyone have a good way to tell the wife that we need $500 budget to get started? hahaha
 
#19 · (Edited)
I need someone to talk me out of getting a gmade r1. (Did a bunch of reading and I'm aware of its downfalls). I'm also very aware that axial seems to be the go to brand for this type of thing but the r1 is just so cool looking - hahaha

I also need a little schooling on modern batteries, motors and esc's. If someone knows a good article or wants to type a lot. It seems like lipo is the way to go but it's not something I'm familiar with.

Edit -

Trying to catch up with a 15 years worth advances in a hobby sucks. At least there's a huge amount of info to sort through on the interwebs now. I'm completely ocding at this point.

So I guess Ive talked myself out of the r1 at this point. Mainly because of the lack of support. Thats always is a downer. Kinda rethinking the whole thing.

I'm trying to sort out the wether or not spending the extra on going brushless and using Lipos are worth it or not. The lipo seems like a no-brainier but brushless seems like overkill for newb.
 
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