Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler RC Hobby

After several references to RC toys (cars, trucks, helis, planes, boats) in other threads, I learned that there are several RC enthusiasts among us audio enthusiasts. I had a chance to play with my RC truck at a pool construction site on the weekend and caught a couple of fun pics. I thought it might be a nice way to start an RC thread by posting them. Like audio, I am still on the learning curve with RC. Just for fun:




Cheers,

I want to see the little people inside of them.

I present the little person (who was driving so I could take the pictures!)

I use to race an Associated B4, as well as a Speedmerchant 1/12th scale pan car.

I still have all of my gear and chargers/batteries ect. However, i haven't been able to race that much in the last 1 1/2 years due to school... It is a very fun hobby to me.. And MUCH less expensive than racing real cars, which is one of my other hobbies.....


At the track i use to go to. Off road would often have 2 heats of Slash trucks, they were Very popular due to their cost, as well as their indestructibility... I have a buddy who is pretty good friends of the the owner of Traxxas. He siad that when they are testing a new product, they get the secretaries to test them, they let them beat the crap out of the product to see if they can break anything, after the secretaries do their testing, then the product will go to the team drivers for their opinion... This is not the usual testing procedures of most of the companies that manufacture for this hobby, usually the team drivers get first dibs... And, since they never wreck, the weak parts are not addressed....


There were a couple times that the Traxxas team drivers were participating in a "regular" race day at the track i use to go to.. They were pretty cool guys, and were helping almost everyone with any Traxxas product. Giving them setup tips ect...

Oh boy. This is a hobby of mine too.

I've currently got 3 R/C cars, 1 R/C plane, 3 micro helis, and 1 mini heli.

Now if I just had TIME, I'd be set.

That's to much $$ for me..... that gets pretty darn expensive quick...

I'm just a basher with my Traxxas Slash. I'd love to race (real cars or RC) but don't have the time or money for that. I run mostly 2S LiPo's but have a 3S just for showing off on speed runs - the extra juice doesn't really help in the dirt.

My son and I also have the Force RC heli's (they're coaxial) for indoor flying and shooting each other, plus I am learning 'proper' flying on a Blade 120SR. My goal is to graduate to a collective pitch heli one day.

Yeah, my father-in-law has tried a couple of times with entry level foam planes. He was out $100 in about 10 minutes after 4 crashes! Pretty funny to watch though, especially when it 'landed' 30 feet up a tree! I think he may be even a bigger kid than me.

I ran a 1:10 scale Team Losi Stock back in the 90s.

Bren R.

Hmm... New tires for the car, RC heli... sigh. I need to win a lottery.

I pulled my old Tamiya F103 chassis out of the garage to play w/ my 6 yr old. I had to buy a newer replace the ESC so we could add reverse but haven't installed it yet.

We did also get 2 Losi Micro T's to play with. I figured we'd break 'em and I'd upgrade them to LiPo/brushless. I already blew an ESC running the Lipo straight w/o changing anything out...

Awesome action shots!

I hear ya Fred, things can add up awful quick. In my experience the RC trucks and planes can be quite expensive - quickly running into several hundred dollars even for entry level setups. But I was surprised how cheap entry level heli's are to get into. Here's an example of an indoor heli that is ready to go for well under $200. And when you break stuff, parts are generally $5 to $15. Just thought I'd mention it in case you're really interested in heli's. The entry level ready to fly (RTF) packages are not too bad - less than speakers anyway!

My 13 year old has a Blade Heli just a model older than the one that Dan linked above. It is so super stable inside. It is small and easy to fly. If you want something just to monkey around with that is pretty durable, look for a Syma S107. Make sure that it has the little "warning" markings on the blades as one indicator of an authentic one vs. a knock-off. These sell for about $20 on Amazon. Not as much control and features as the Blade, but a LOT cheaper for someone who just wants to mess around.

My "bigger" heli is a model that is a couple of years old. An Esky Honey Bee CP2...
This isn't my picture, but it is the same...


I've got all sorts of mods and upgrades on mine, and I don't use the stock transmitter either.

This one is just a hair over 20 inches long (not counting the diameter of the rotor blades), where the Syma S107 is about 7.5 inches, and the Blade is about 7.5 inches as well.

For size comparison, the following picture gives a reasonable representation...

The bottom yellow one is the Blade that my daughter has. The blue/white one near the top is the size (different model) of what my "biggest" one is and it is considered to be smaller...



Here is a stock photo of my plane. A Multiplex Easy Star.

Another easy thing to fly. Again, I've got mods on it like a rudder mod to make it turn sharper, and a super powerful brush-less motor and more aggressive prop. These are commonly used to mount small cameras to for taking aerial video because they are solid and almost fly themselves.

Oddly enough, my first experience was horrible. I even put a YouTube video up years ago with all of my crashes on a single day, and the thing took a licking. Found out just how much drag can be created by a simple decal on a wing. Removed the decals, and it flew very well until newbie pilot error happened and I fly it straight overhead, losing sight that as it was flying towards me, it was also flying towards the ground a bit too much. Hard to explain, but I broke the nose right off. Had it fixed, at the field, in about 10 minutes, but called it a day anyway.

I just bought this http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S107-S107G-He...8769&sr=8-5 for a whopping $20 to try out with my two and a half year old son. I've I mean he has been wanting to try a rc hellicopter for a while so I thought I ... I mean he could learn on something cheap first.

Yup. That is the Syma S107 I was talking about. Nice pick! Although a two and a half year old should be nowhere near something with fast spinning blades that takes good hand/eye coordination.

I guess the little one could dress up as a pirate the rest of their life since they will have the eye patch...

Wow, now that really is cheap! Let us know how the flying goes. It is addicting to master the remote flying. I see the cars/trucks as just plain fun, and the heli's and planes are for the personal challenge of controlling them.

So many different flavours of RC. My bro-in-law who has a Slash 4x4 (same as mine) also runs the Kyoshos Mini Z's in a dedicated on line league. They set up a new track configuration every month with transponders and electronic timing systems and the laps get uploaded to the league boards. Over the top if you have the time, but it sure is fun!

Here's a youtube of the mini z's.

And some amateur Slash driving . I am driving the blue bug that shows up at 1:15. I am a complete hack next to my bro-in-law as you can tell by the driving styles!

Actually, I was eying the One of these with build in GPS so you can do flight programming.

Trouble is, I already spend enough on other hobbies and just fell down the espresso rabbit hole. I don't need any more hobbies.

Wow, that is too cool Fred. The GPS and cola tests we're really neat. Thanks for posting that link.

Gotta go watch the Sens battle the Rangers now!

Man I love me some RC. I haven't played with my cars for years because they need a lot of work but threads like this really fan the flames. I just need time and money then I'm set! Oh wait I have neither. :P

Doh - lost track of an entire day - game is tonight, not last night. Temporal reality is now restored.

So I played around with the Syma S107 yesterday. I have to say I am very impressed with it. I can't believe that for $20 I can get a rc helicopter that actually works so well. It is so easy to fly that I think my son will be able to do it by the time he is 4. My wife on the other hand kept hitting the ceiling with it then would let off the throttle and it plumet to the ground. The thing can really take a beating and keep going. I assume these are made in china because I don't think anyone else could make something this good for so little $$.

Cool, that sounds like the Blade heli's - they take a good beatdown - but you've got that for even less cost. Nice find.

Cool pictures of you bashing!

Off-roading is so much fun. Helis are boring. Never tried boats.

There was a cottager up in Norland(Ont) who had a rather expensive RC submarine. While showing it off in the river, which has some deep spots up to 80-90 ft, he jammed it under a sunken log. Gonzo!

How do you show off a RC submarine when you can't see it?

You launch your RC controlled Harpoon Missiles, of course.

I did not know that RC subs existed. Neat stuff - not sure how exciting it would be but pretty cool anyway. Speaking of underwater, my son and I water tested the Slash 4x4 yesterday in the pool construction:

Fun video

and the submarine test below :

Spent last weekend up in Sudbury where my bro-in-law tested out a new mount for his GoPro camera on his T-REX500 heli. Video came out pretty neat. I am the dork that feels the need to dance when the camera is pointed at him.

Video link

Cool! (Except for the dancin' part! )

I very much miss my R/C stuff. I finally get the basement (almost) finished, and it is so freaking hot outside that I don't go out to fly the plane, or heli. I don't get out the cars or truck.

My wife keeps telling me that I need to sell all of it because I don't ever do anything with it any more, but nothing is new, and selling things indivually is too much of a hassle for little money, and putting it all into a pool usually yields a quick sale, but again, no money.

Maybe I should get back to my experimentation days with combining hobbies like R/C and model rocketry... Nothing like a little extra "boost"... If I crash or destroy something, I could salvage the RX and batteries, scrap the rest, have nothing to sell, but have great memories.... And maybe video...

Nick, i feel you... I have ALL of my RC stuff still, haven't used any of it in about 2 1/2 years... Like yourself, it's 100 degrees here, and the local tracks are in buildings that are not air conditioned... So, i don't know that i want to go until maybe september.. Now that i am done with school (Aug 6th) i will have time, hopefully...

Nick, hook up some rocket boosters to that essentially-finished HT and shoot it over to NH!

Kind of like the guy that tried to fly with fireworks strapped to some sort of winged contraption.... I saw it in Mythbusters a while back...


"Fireworks Man" was the name of the episode segment I believe.

Rocket engines (that is what I called them as a kid) wouldn't be so explosive at the end... Minus that "poof" that they do to pop off the nose cone on a traditional rocket to deploy the streamer or parachute...

You can purchase model rocket engines without the "poof" at the end.

Back in my model rocketry days, I had a flying saucer shaped model that flipped over due to weight distribution once the thrust was gone. It then just used the drag created by the saucer's shape to slow it down enough that it survived landing on some wire legs that doubled as antennas when upright. It didn't fly very high but was kind of cool to watch. Thanks for bringing back that memory.

In case anybody is interested, there's an big RC Air show in Maine on Sept 6-9th. http://www.usairmeet.com/ for details.

Cheers,