RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

I am grinning big time. Wowsa! I am running used gear I picked up on rctech including stuff from our very own Doug of squarehead designs. I have an Lrp sphere competition and 3 different Speed Passion brushless motors; 17.5T, 13.5T, and 8.5T. I started with the 17.5 and was amazed by the smoothness but had to play with pinions to get it much quicker than the brushed motor I had before. Oh, the brakes are phenomenal, by the way!

I ran the 13.5 last night and thought it was ballistic until I ran the 8.5T tonight. Holy hell.

I also have made a few other changes going to a futaba 2.4ghz radio and a digital servo from Savox. On my rc10b3 I upgraded the slipper to the B4 unit thanks to the help of this board. I am glad because I can hear it squawk a bit if I gun it off the line running the 8.5T.

Nice equipment. Gotta love the quiet of brushless power. You've got a motor for every mood.

I love it as well. Brushless and Lipo is heaven. Most of the frustration and maintenence of electric are gone.

CamplinP wrote:Brushless and Lipo is heaven. Most of the frustration and maintenance of electric are gone.

There is absolutely no arguing that. Combine with 2.4gHz radio, and it's virtually maintenance free all the way around. No dumping, no cutting comms, consistent performance, no brush or spring tweaking, no discharge trays, no waiting for a frequency clip ever again. It makes you able to focus on the car setup and your driving.

The young guys in R/C racing today have no idea how good they have it.

The thing I like most about it is the way it levels many aspects of RC running/racing. Power and speed is no longer something that is only achieveable by the few who know how to skim motors and condition sub-c cells correctly. Anyone can buy a cheap brushless combo and be blasting around the streets or the track just as quick as the other guy. The racing is now more focused on set-up, and the drivers driving skills. I started club racing a few years ago and everone was already using brushless motors. I ran my first heat with a tamiya dyna-run motor, and although I wasn't as fast, it made me drive smooth and neat. It was amazing that I managed to stay mid-feild simply because I wasn't crashing, whereas most people were over-powered and simply spinning wheels and sliding all over the place. I still find this is the case with a lot of drivers, whether experienced or new to the racing scene.

I think the other major benefit of brushless tech is that it is so simple to use. It's made it more appealling for new people to try RC cars etc, as they realise that they can go really fast, from word dot, and have as much fun as anyone else.

It also means that people crash a lot more, so spend more on repairs, which keeps the hobby industry economy strong!

Great insight guys. Yes, I noticed that even though I had been out of RC for over 15 years, my driving skills after last summer getting back into it outside bashing with my son were not too bad. When I started racing, sure I had some crashes, but a lot were mistiming turns from the car pushing or traction rolling on carpet. Once I got the car set up a bit better I was consistent, but very slow. I noticed some other people who are there every weekend racing had what I thought were pretty mediocre driving skills and inconsistency. It didn't matter because they could make it up with speed and a lap or two without a crash. I still was getting lapped 3 or 4 times in a 5 minute race because the brushed motor and nihm batteries had no balls frankly.

With this setup I'm hoping to at least be on the lead lap although the guys I race against seem to be very well set up for suspension and the right traction levels PLUS running the latest brushless gear. We'll see how it goes!

Just for laughs, here's me in my first ever race. I'm running a tamiya dyna-run motor in a Kyosho ZX-5. Everyone else is on brushless....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr7jPTSVvVQ

And my first final....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9roB5Kakxtw&NR=1