necronomicon

Hi Guys Sorry to be thick, but what motor can an MSC handle realistically without burning out the 3 step control or the resistor, which bit gives out first? I realise ESC is the way to go and have several cars with ESCs, but cant afford all with ESC and want a bit extra from the MSC equipped cars. thanks for any interest or replies Neil

Thanks for the link to the best movies site, but thats 2004 and 2005, its 2007 now! your welcome mr_p, you deserve it!

Hi all not sure if this has been done before, but here goes: We now have over 850 fantastic videos on the site, provided by members who have taken the time to share their adventurers with us, many with great editing, soundtracks and models in them. Ther eis a very wide variety of films on offer, from buggies, to car park bashes, giant jumps, nitro cars, racers, drifters, build videos and more!I Personally have found some of them inspiring, making me want to get right out there and join in the fun! what i propose is to reply with your favourite video or 2 which encompase good video work, great cars, and editing, I will start with my 3 top picks:- the video page is the location on the videos list to help you find them! VIDEO PAGE VIDEO NAME MEMBER 201-210 Scorchersandwich! scorchersandwich 171-180 Kento dorifto mr_pushrod 71-80 Cunning stunts mr_pushrod Scorchersandwich manages to get the video clips timed perfectly to the 'wheres your head at' soundtrack, professional titles and some brilliant jumps and sand action. mr_pushrod introduces smoke billowing from the rear of drifting RCcars, and a real sportscar at the end of 'Kento dorifto', and the sheer carnage and banging soundtrack of 'cunning stunts' has to be seen to be believed! I heartily thanks all the members who keep the videos coming, I think it helps keep the club alive.

Hi I don't know of anyone who colour matches lexan paint, theres probably just not enough demand, the way I see it you got several options: 1) Buy one of the standard lexan colours in the closest match and spray, then perhaps a few well placed decals 2) Use games workshop (or similar) acrylic brush paints, available in small pots and mix up the closest match by trial and error, Ok its not lexan paint and not as flexible, but if the surface is well prepared it should last a while. 3) Keep searching for a good lexan paint stripper, there are threads covering this on here. 4) Time for a new shell? 5) paint the OUTSIDE of the shell, and give it a few coats of laquer. hope that helped a bit Neil

Me on a hot, sunny day (rare in the UK), last year. Its been great to see everyone.

Thought I'd add my 2p worth. I both buy and sell on Ebay regularly, and never really had any bad problems, folks who take ages over posting is the usual thing that goes wrong. My tip to buyers is always clearly read and make sure you understand the prices involved, postage, any insurance which you must have etc, and add it to the final price to see if the total is what you really want to pay. Only buy from sellers with good feedback and who have been trading for a while. I 'estimate' postage based on experience, and unless you know the exact weight of the item before you post it, it difficult for the average person to quote the 'exact' postage amount. i have both over and undercharged before, although only a few pence either way though. I see the point about only having to re-imburse you the purchase cost, not the over inflated postage, and thats dishonest and wrong.

I just used Mr. muscle oven cleaner on a fully painted yellow enamel polycarbonate shell, i thought i knew better and decided spray enamel would be fine on a well prepared lexan shell- oh dear!- started chipping off after the first 10 minutes on the road. Anyway, Mr.Muscle works well, but try about 4 applications of about 30 minutes each time, rinsing and scuffing at the paint with a green scourer in between each application of oven cleaner. Mine was all done after 5 cycles- its a long winded task, but hey, shouldn't have used enamel anyway- lesson learned!- now off to but lexan paint!!

Thanks for the comments so far guys. I cannot seem to find any modern books on RC cars, other than the one I reviewed, perhaps i am looking in the wrong places. Searches on amazon etc return relatively little, unless you like RC planes and helicopters. Not sure why this is, not enough demand perhaps- I keep going back to the Tamiya RC guide for info, but there must be more out there surely. If anyone knows of any good RC books still available please let me know, as I am hungry for information! Thanks.

good choice, just purchased and built one myself- was a bit disappointed with poor speed on the kit supplied 380 motor, but a 540 with proper 18T pinion sorted that out and now ...wwwhhhooosshhh, ok, not that fast, but great fun. dont seem to be many hop ups for the grasshopper though, not meant to be improved much i suppose, the hornet type motor/ oil shocks/ lighter body are a possibility, but then you end up with a hornet, not a grasshopper!...think I'm gonna leave mine alone and enjoy it as it is (with 540 of course), got too many other over modified toys to work on. hope you enjoy yours!

Had to do a double-take on the title of this post, lol, must be my dirty mind, was thinking how have they got past the moderators???- sorry, I'll go away again now. Neil

REVIEW OF ‘ THE R/C CAR BIBLE’ Book by Robert Schleicher. Published by Voyageur press. Review by Neil Cooper January 2007. Rated: 6/10 I had great expectations of this newly published book (November 2006), and the A4 sized 192 page count seemed to promise much, along with the 'bible' title, I was expecting extensive, wide coverage of the sport of RC model car racing/ bashing/ collecting and building. I write this review with mixed feelings. The book is extensively illustrated with very large colour photos of RC cars, both electric and nitro, but there are also big 'gaps' in the text, and around pictures as if the authors couldn't find anything else to say or were filling space and upping the page count. The quality of the pictures, however, is excellent. I would not really recommend this book for beginners, as there seems to be some knowledge assumed in several areas, as for instance the section on electric motors does not even mention 'running in' a new motor and the stock, standard 27 turn Mabuchi motor gets no mention. There are no guidelines on constructing a kit car, no guidelines on avoiding radio interference no guidelines on waterproofing your car for off road/-wet use. The text assumes you are using a trigger and wheel type transmitter. The book is written with the US 'ROAR' guidelines as a major factor, and cross references to them continually (unfortunately the book lists the ROAR website as www.roadracing.com instead of www.roarracing.com). As a UK reader, I wanted a wider perspective on things, as promised by the books summary information. There are some odd mistakes in the book, for example the electric battery section shows a picture of a 7.2v racing pack wired completely wrongly with cells in parallel (giving 1.2 volts), yet the accompanying text talks (correctly) about 'series' connected cells. The section on painting lexan bodies is poor, you usually get more information supplied with a newly purchased clear body, no mention is made of pre-washing the shell to remove moulding residues, or lightly scuffing or sanding the surface to help paint adhesion either, rc users with hard styrene/ ABS shells get no mention at all!-other than to say that lots of 'toy' grade cars use polystyrene shells. 8 pages of massive pictures illustrate the basic lexan painting text. There are good sections to the book. The chassis set up chapter is very detailed and covers all aspects of chassis tuning and suspension adjustment. The sections on how to race fast are good, with info on how to take corners, when to brake etc. The section on building a race track is useful, although I would suspect not many of us are in a position to be able to do this! I do not use nitro cars, but a large portion of the book covers them,in a nitro introduction section, and later in a tuning section. It seems the author prefers nitro to electric vehicles.I cannot comment on the accuracy of information on nitro cars as I dont have one.The glossary has a sparse 37 entries, which seems a bit light for a 'bible' of the RC car. Oddly the book has no history of radio controlled cars at all, so you wont find any information on older RC kit such as mechanical speed controllers etc- which are still used and even supplied with cheaper kit. In summary, if you live in the USA, and want to seriously race under ROAR guidelines, and already know the basics, this book is for you, otherwise you may find the Tamiya R/C guide 2005 more useful and cheaper to get all the basic car setup, painting and construction information- I consider myself a relative beginner and still found the R/C car bible lacking in information and depth in some areas, and found the heavy bias towards US information frustrating. Not withstanding this slight disappointment, there are some very good sections to the book, especially the tips on racing on and off- road. Expect to pay around £15 for this book. Neil Cooper 2007.

Hi I painted my wifes blackfoot wheels, a good base for plastic is spray on 'plastic primer', for real car spoilers etc, which is more like an adhesive base really and flexible. It says on the can it is for ABS/ most hard plastics etc. Once that is on, then car body spray perhaps, or even enamel from a tin. I wouldn't think wheels would flex very much (!), but the paint surface needs to be hard to resist scuffing, so a layer of varnish would help. remember to take your time and allow spray paint layers time to cure in between coats. hope that helps neil

I had heard that an 11 turn motor was a bit 'hot' for the TL-01, but if it is well lubed and ballraced etc.............. Running a 23 turn in mine, so I would be interested to hear how you get on.

Hey Gregor, looks great. I really fancy doing a beetle of some kind myself, but can't spend the money on a scorcher. Maybe a blitzer beetle or similar would do? I like the colour scheme, maybe some decals would enhance the looks?

You may be better off lightly sanding/ keying the outer shell and painting over the top. then sealing with good varnish, than all this chemical attacking!- just a thought- how much rough treatment is it going to get?

Hi there I have a Tl-01 and have purchased HPI bodyshells. (200mm HPI ford GT and HPI Plymouth hemi Cuda) The 190mm width is best for Tl-01, but 200mm fits, but your wheels will be about 5mm inside the outer edge of the shell, as the 200mm shell is wider obviously, instead of perfectly flush as you get with a tamiya shell. Doesn't bother me personally, but for the purists out there, there is a difference. The wheelbase is perfect for TL-01 in both 190mm and 200mm shells. you could get wider wheels/ tyres, or i think some wheels have offsets, but not sure if that means they come out wider. As i say, it doesnt make any difference to me, but if your fussy go for the 190mm. hope that helped neil

In my experience servos last years, is the existing saver very worn, or are you connecting the servo without a saver straight to a white servo arm, or do you just do insane bash sessions!

MSCs on ebay for about 3.00 pounds most of the time, Mtroniks eco 20 ESC (down to 20 turn motor) about 20 pounds, not had any trouble with mine. Easy to set up too. Hth Neil

I have used water slide decal paper with good results, (for Warhammer models and airfix kits) you can get it in clear or white background (for decals with white in them), but must spray over the surface, once printed, with matt varnish, or the ink comes off as soon as you put them in water! neil

Joel, they are good for components other than LEDs, also great when seeing what components are about. Mail ordered from them loads till I found out ebay usually cheaper cheers Neil

and the rear ends!

Heres some pics anyway!

Thanks for all replies on this subject now guys, i will read the thread from 2 years ago as well, cheers. I made up one ready to fit then decided not to bother for the moment. My creative DIY focus has switched to LED kits for cars now instead! thanks Neil

I have made several LED wiring kits, and use a 9 volt battery to supply the power, adds weight, but i like to keep the power source totally seperate from the chassis battery etc, so its all enclosed on the body shell. LEDs can be purchased along with suitable resistors really cheaply in the UK on ebay (2 pounds for 10 ultra bright white LEDS, for example), for heavens sake dont buy the ones from maplins or radio shack, where an ultra bright white led cost 2.50 GBP EACH!. The chap i use supplies the resistors for your specified voltage free as well, ideal!. I would agree the proper tamiya unit is probably neater, as you do have lots of wires to tidy up, but if your on a budget, the DIY route is ideal if you can use a soldering iron and know ohms law!--I have fitted lights to 5 shells at a total cost of 10 pounds (not including the 9 volt batteries) check out my tamiya web page for a few pics: http://www.neilandannettec.co.uk/RC%20cars.htm Neil

I have made some LED light kits for tamiya cars, a 6 light kit (4 white and 2 red LEDS), and all wiring/ resistors comes out about 2.50 GBP using ebay components, i use a guy who supplies the leds and resistors for whatever voltage you like, i use a 9volt battery connector and small 9v battery. Adds weight to the car though!. Some ebay sellers also do the light kits with your choice of number/ colour of LEDS for about 6 GBP. Heres my website with some pics of a Tl-01 with LED kit. http://www.neilandannettec.co.uk/RC%20cars.htm cheers Neil