Noob With Lots Of Questions (longish)

[vanisle]

Hi All.... will try to keep it as brief as possible (not likely )

Growing up, friends had the Hornet and Grasshopper... always had a great time and wished I had one. Now "grown up" and with disposable income, I thought I would treat myself. I also think my kids will have fun going out to beaches, fields and other places to use it. (Kids are 7 and 6)

My first thought was get an XB Hornet and call it a day (not as interested in the building as much as just havin fun driving it). Further reaseach showed two newer models that seemed cool... the gravel hound and rising storm.

Further research showed people love the dark impact >> rising storm.

Here are my criteria, before spelling out my questions.

* I never intend to get too serious about this hobby (i have other hobbies, and not enough hours in the day). Save for bearings, I doubt I will ever have the interest in doing hop-ups, or other upgrades.

* I might use it a couple times per month, if that

* i basically just want a fun RC car thats better than the **** at radioshack and toys r us. this will be a casual thing for me

So my questions are as follows...

1. Will the Dark Impact be more durable than the Rising Storm? My kids will be using it with me, so some crashes are inevitable. I dont mind spending more for the DI, but only if it will bring greater durability.

2. How long/difficult will it be to build the DI? I have never built an RC Car. I am marginally functional with real cars... do my own oil changes and minor repairs. I only have so many hours in a day. How many hours might it take a total noob to build the DI? (10 hours i can accept, but I cant spare 20 hours).

3. I seem to have read that battery life on these things is about 15 minutes. Thats the same as 15 years ago when I was a kid. I thought the vast improvements in battery technology would have meant huge gains.... how long will these cars run on a 1900ma battery? what gives?

4. Is tower hobbies reputable online? Im in Canada and need to order from someone that ships internationally.

So ultimately I am trying to weigh whether the extra effort of the DI vs Rising Storm XB will be worth it for a casual hobbyist like myself. I greatly appreciate any feedback you have.

Thanks in advance.

[vanisle]

Can anyone throw the newb a bone... 20 views.. no reply.

I mean I know this is boring stuff for you hard core guys... but do I at least get a sympathy vote for wanting to come back to Tamiya after all these years instead of buying junk at Toys R Us ?

[Strontiumdog72]

Here's my take on the matter........ noob or not you won't be for long and i reckon you'll have so much fun building your first buggy that within 6 months you'll probably have built 5 more!!! I'd buy them both, then you could race against each other! With the right tools and a good read of the instructions i'd say 10 hours build time no problem Good luck. jim

[Skysaxon]

As I read in your posting you wont do any hop ups I would take the DI as it cames with ball bearings with is an essential upgrade which should be done to every car.

You ask for building time - mmmh hard to say but between 10-20 hours could be. See it this way - build one group of the manual per day and you wouldnt reconiase the time you put in.

Run time depends on manny things - battery capacity - motor - gearratio - terain - to say it easy with a 3300mah stickpack and a standart silvercan you should get runtimes around 30 min.

I couldnt say anything about towerhobbies for my own, but they seem to have a good reputation.

Greetings from Innsbruck

Michael

[vanisle]

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys...

So is there anything to be said re: durability of DI vs. Rising Storm?

[Yuley95]

Three mates and I all bought buggies about a year ago with the idea of catching up about once a month to race/bash/have a beer/laugh. 3 of us bought Dark Impacts and 1 bought a gravel hound (which is exactly the same as a rising storm with a differend shell).

Not sure how long it took to build as I did it over many nights (as SkySaxon suggests) but it would have been around ten. I don't think you would have any trouble but the best tip i could give you would be to pour the contents of the screw bags into seperate small bowls and label them well as Screw bag A, Screw bag B etc. This will save a lot of time and confusion.

My recommendation would be to go with the Dark Impact. It significantly outperforms the Gravel hound around our local dirt track. Tellingly, all the DI's clear the double jump but the gravel hound doesn't. Yet the Gravel Hound has the same top speed down the straight. It seems to not be able to put down power as effectively. It also bottoms out more often and bounces around a lot because of that.

Both as pretty resillient though. Every now and then one of us will drop out a screw or bend something but that probably has more to do with our lack of maintenance than the quality.

Our 3700 batteries last about 30 minutes. We still have stock motors. In fact everything is stock.

Hope that helps.

[TA-Mark]

Both DI and RS come with bearings. The RS however needs 8 extra 1150's for the knuckles (why Tamiya shipped with 1/2 bearings/bushes has me stumped).

The DI has higher ground clearance. The DI has the shocks mounted on the opposite side of the arm to a RS. I got hit up the rear by another car with my RS and it bent a shock shaft, on a DI the shocks are better protected.

MY RS will do about 10 more laps of my track than the DI with the same battery/ESC (I fitted those 8 bearings). The RS was a much simpler chassis to assemble having simpler components (No ball diffs). Tamiya instructions are the best there are and both are very easy if you follow the manual step by step.

The RS does come with a Tamiya 101 ESC, so it's good value for money and the cheaper option.

I find the RS tyres have more grip in the dirt but wear much faster.

It's a hard choice... I bought both.

Cheers, Mark

[WillyChang]

buy 3... since you've got 2 kids

[taliesin]

RS or DI are both great cars. buy 2-3 nimh batteries, something like 3000mah, and a decent charger. a 3000mah nimh battery and stock silver can motor should give you 30 minutes of run time. the stock set up will be fine on either and the question about durability will largely be answered by how good or bad a driver you are. neither should give you problems, but both are fast enough to break if you hit a curb / tree / parked car / friend / yourself....

if you want a hornet, by all means get one. they are great fun and pretty durable. i agree with strontiumdog72 - in 6 mos you will be hooked and have 5-6 new cars anyway. if you just want to try something out and you aren't too serious about racing or hop-ups, why not get the xb hornet that you like? i have bought several xb models and love them. i've also built several kits including the rising storm. loved that too. rising storm comes as an xb too if you want: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXJHZ5&P=7

[by the way: tower has treated me just fine and they are reputable.]

you don't have to buy what everybody else says you need. there is nothing wrong with xb models. they usually don't have bearings or oil shocks, but they are still very fun without them. if you decide to upgrade later you can. if it doesn't matter to you, why worry about it. you don't always need the absolute best money can buy. that way lies dragons and many a frustrated hobbyist who is always trying to keep up with the joneses.

i wish somebody had told me it was ok to buy what i wanted the first time; i ended up listening to the hype, bought way more car than i wanted or needed, and was unhappy with it because like you i just wanted to play. i had no idea what to do with the car and my level of expertise was, well, none. i just wanted to pull the trigger and learn to drive. my second car was exactly what i wanted and i still have it and still love it and it came RTR. since then i have upgraded some parts and left some stock. i have learned much about how rc works by hitting curbs and replacing those parts that broke.

tamiya kits are really simple to build, the manuals are excellent. run time in most tamiyas [on an average battery] is excellent compared to other manufacturers too. i wouldn't want to discourage you if you want to try your hand at building. its awesome fun and very enjoyable. but so is driving. i would bet money that after a few months of driving an xb hornet you would really love to try building something more advanced, faster, newer, etc. then you can built one from a kit. and you're hornet can be driven by one of your kids. or they can build the kit with your help. win/win.

good luck and i hope you enjoy whatever you choose to buy.

[HunterZero]

Serisouly, if you just want a fun off-road car to drive, you can't go wrong with an XB Hornet or XB Gravel Hound/Rising Storm. Both are tough as nails.

But it's fair to advise you that even with an XB car, you are going to break it, and you are going to have to learn to pull it apart to clean/repair it, so you may as well get the kit and learn how it goes together.

I would say 10 hours for a novice to build an entire kit is a bit optimistic, including painting and stickering the body shell. A Hornet, maybe. But I'd say build time for a DF-02 would be around 14 hours, and for the DF-03 Dark Impact would be longer, say around 16-20 hours.

The Dark Impact has ball differentials which are tricky to build, and the interior space is quite limited. I wouldn't recommend one as a first car for a novice unless you want a challenge. They are the best handling car of those mentioned, and are very tough. Another consideration is the DF-03 does not come with a speed controller, so that's an extra expense.

I would recommend an XB Gravel Hound/Rising Storm, or if you want the nostalgia trip, get the XB Hornet.

- James

[Mad Ax]

Just my take (as brief as I can!):

The Dark Impact is at the top-end of the "basher" market - and is a very good chassis. It's stable, easy to control, comes with all the goodies (oil shocks, bearings, ball diffs) and goes well out of the box. It is quite a long and involving build, as you have to assemble the ball-diffs, the suspension links, oil shocks, etc - if you're mechanically minded and can follow instructions you should have no problems, but do a search on adjusting ball diffs as incorrect adjustment can wear them out very quickly.

The Dark Impact is pretty robust, but remember that anything can and will break - it just takes one bad flip to snap a shock tower or one loose screw to lose a driveshaft, and this will have you going back to your hobby shop (or use ebay - usually quicker, IMO!!) to get replacement parts. This applies to ANY RC - Dark Impact, Hornet, Traxxas, HPI et al... Nothing is indestructible, but with care you should keep breakages to a minimum.

I run my DI fairly hard and in the 2 years since I've had it, I've had to replace the rear outdrives with heavy duty items (I run a very torquey BZ motor which destroyed the original diff outdrives), I've had to buy uprated driveshafts because I lost one due to a loose screw (it was cheaper to buy uprated CVDs than to order a new Tamiya screw bag) and I have had to replace the front shock tower after a flip on tarmac. This is after all the hours of serious abuse that it's received; any of the Cider Bashers can tell you just how hard I bash my RCs

HOWEVER - you may like to consider something simpler to start with. It really depends on how confident you feel with the build process. The Hornet is a much easier kit to build, and has fewer moving parts - so is more durable, especially in the hands of your youngsters. It won't handle nearly as well as the DI, it will bounce around and not drive as straight due to its primitive suspension, but it should offer lots of fun. It really depends on whether the car is for "you" or "your kids"

As others say, once you've got one, you may well want another. Racing two or three RCs at once is so much more fun than just bashing one. Also, if you do happen to break something, you'll have another to play with while you wait for parts. If you go with the DI first, you could always buy a Grasshopper for your kids to play with - it's the same as the Hornet, but comes with a slower motor, so will be easier for them to get to grips with.

Best of luck and welcome to the hobby!!

[vanisle]

Firstly, this is all great stuff. Exactly the type of feedback I was looking for.... so thank you all very much!

Being depressed last night watching the Celts pound the Lakers, I went online and downloaded the manual for the Dark Impact to start to try and wrap my head around it. I read the whole thing two times through, and that put me somewhat at ease. Not to say it looks easy... but it is very logically laid out, and I think with some careful attention to detail, common sense, and a smidge of luck, it will be within my abilities.

A few of you have made great comment about not always needing to have the very latest and greatest etc. As I alluded to in my OP, I do have some other hobbies.... and I can see where its easy to get sucked into keeping up with the Joneses (from example in photography, many amateurs want to have the best Canon f/2.8 lenses, when for their purposes the f/4 will do just nicely).

That all having been said, having looked at the DI instructions, I think building 4WD, and the suspension looks really fun. I could actually care less about the painting and decorating... I'll probably just let my kids cover it in Pokemon stickers or something

As others have mentioned, and as I have read elsewhere in researching this project, I think whatever I settle on, I will probably be better off trying to build the kit, so that I can understand whats gone wrong with it when it breaks.

Regarding buying a second... I wasnt going to for $$$/wife acceptance factor... but maybe a nice idea would be a grasshopper for the kids (smaller 380 motor which can be upgraded when they outgrow it) and the DI or Rising Storm for myself.

Ultimately the car is for me (fathers day)... but I cant imagine my kids wont be fighting over using it, leaving me to wait my turn

I'm still going to mull this over, but in the mean time, maybe you can advise on the shopping kart ive compiled. I really had no idea about what battery/charger/tools to buy.

If anyone can, have a look at the below, and let me know if you have any additions/deletions/substitutions...

Tools

- i have some of the screwdrivers at home... maybe I dont need some of this?

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXSL19&P=8

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXSL21&P=8

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXSB47&P=8

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXSB46&P=8

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXL466&P=8

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXJC82&P=8

ESC

- should I go with something other than the Tamiya? I figured the Tamiya would fit for sure...

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXGMR5&P=M

Batteries

- I found these linked in a DI thread on another site as being decent value

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXCUH3&P=C

Charger

- i was really just guessing at this one...how quick can it charge?? is it dummyproof?

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXTCJ9&P=9

Radio

- in the DI instructions, it seemed the size of the servo is important... wasnt sure if this model would work or not...

* http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...XASX277&P=M

As for the car (Rising Storm vs DI)... I'm still going to mull it over... but given the not very big price difference... I might be leaning DI

Thanks again for your advice

[vanisle]

Something else that makes no sense to me... (re a possible rtr kit for kids to use)

The RTR GRasshoper Kit is $154.99

The RTR Rising Storm Kit is $169.99

other than nostalgia... it seems the Rising Storm is a way better deal... am I missing something here?

[kgv69]

Bit of advise from a dad with two young lads 8 and 5 yr old. 39yr old big child me .

I to was like you a few months ago . after an 18yr lay off from owning rc cars . i have done a lot of research on what was the best cars to get for bashing about with the kids . i decided to steer clear of four wheel drive buggys as i figured there would be a few heavy frontal impacts . so i bought two sand vipers for me and my oldest lad and a tamtech fox for the 5 yr old . im so glad i bought two wheel drive . as kids can be very unpredictcal in the direction they go even when i have marked out and told them which direction we are going to be going . Tamiya dt02's are very strong . but head on collisions ............ mmmmmh . the kids love them and can drive them no probs . but with three cars to upkeep it does get very expensive . but great fun .

sand vipers dt02 . take about 5hours to build . and thats from someone who hasnt built a car in 18yrs. the tamtech fox 1/16 scale is ready to run. and with a sports tuned motor 5 is great fun .

i now have a full box of front ends and all the bits that break . not that the dt02 are easy broken. but kids will be kids and accidents happen ........DOH

all three cars have hopups it gets very addictive . im having more fun than the kids . and an empty wallet .

cant wait for my 17x2 motor to arrive .

[TA-Mark]

My 4 boys have a buggy each.

13yr old - Rising Storm

11yr old - Dark Impact

9yr old - Blazing Star

6yr old - Baja King (many many upgrades from my spares box)

In the 18 months since the boys chose their own car and paid for them with their own pocket money, (I did the old 'dollar for dollar' match as insentive), they have broken nothing. Only upgrade on the 3 better cars is bearings and high volt plugs on the batteries. The Baja King needed quite a bit to get it somewhere near the standard of the other 3. I think the fact they had to work for them has made them respect their value to some extent.

I did lay down a few ground rules for their operation and limited them to driving on the track in the backyard unless supervised. They love them. 6 cars running in the backyard (Wife has one too) makes for a nice family day in.

Kids will be kids though.

Cheers, Mark

[vanisle]

thanks guys

so ill keep this post quick and painless for you

I think I am going to go with the DI kit, and an RTR to use with the kids.

Forget the tools since they are generic...

Is there any reason not to choose the Tamiya 101 ESC for the DI? Will the Futaba servos fit right? Is the charger I picked ok?

And finally, seeing as there is only $15 difference... and reason not to choose the rising storm RTR over the grasshopper??

[TA-Mark]

101 ESC fits in the DF03 DI chassis on it's side with the double sided tape against the battery compartment. Futaba s3003 servo fits perfect for steering.

You'd only go the grasshopper for the nostalgia trip. If the original meant nothing to you I'd go the RS. If you need to tame it down for them leave in the silver can motor and swap out the 19T pinion for a 16T, limits top speed bigtime.

Cheers, Mark

[vanisle]

slowing it down (RS) would be great for kids.... could you be as kind as to post a link to the part i would need to buy

my best guess is this...

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXGJ67&P=7

but there were a couple other choices...

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXRLD5&P=7

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXMFY6&P=7

[TA-Mark]

Your best guess is the correct pinion set. Tamiya Alloy AV 0.6mm 16T/17T pack. The RS can take from 16T->19T. As they get better at driving you can increase speed by putting the 17T in and eventually back to the stock 19T.

[vanisle]

Thanks Mark...

Is that charger ok? or is there a compelling reason to consider something differnet?

[TA-Mark]

I havn't used that particular charger myself but from the specs it looks like it will charge almost anything Ni-Cd and Ni-MH for R/C cars, nitro and electric. LCD display is a handy thing to have, it gives you a visual indicator of battery condition. It will charge at 5A so will do the large capacity Ni-MH no probs.

Your house power supply is 110V ? Australia is 240V and I run all my AC-DC devices from the US on 12v DC using a 25A PC power supply or truck battery when in the field.

Mark

[HunterZero]

Have fun building the DI kit! They're a great kit. You will probably find you enjoy building the car more than you think. Definitely the Tamiya instructions are the clearest and best in the business, everything is laid out very well. Just go slow, analyze each picture and make sure you don't forget any parts. Take special care when assembling the diffs, and there's little else to go wrong with the car.

I will make one recommendation - don't use grease, when assembling the suspension and driveshafts to the wheels. It will just cake with dirt and wear faster. Just use a couple of drops of light sewing machine oil in the drive cups and bearings before each run, and blast them out with motor spray after each run or so.

Is that charger ok? or is there a compelling reason to consider something differnet?

Looks good to me.

As long as you get a fast charger that does at least 3A, with peak detection for both NiCD and NiMH, you will be fine. Adjustable charge rate in amps is handy. That charger runs from 110VAC mains, so no need for car battery or separate power supply, which is good. That charger you pictured looks like a good deal for the price.

It's a good point that 4WD cars have more parts to break in the front end, but I think it will be easier to get parts for the DF-02 and DF-03 compared to the Hornet.

- James

[vanisle]

Thanks everyone. Just placed my order for the DI Kit and RS RTR w/ 16T Pinion.

Weird... my order is shipping from two places... UPS Worldwide saver cost $140!! (ok i can live with that) but the bulk of the order is shipping from one location, and says it will be here in 5 days. The other says shipping from somewhere else, and includes the RTR and the batteries... but it says 1-2 weeks...

Something tells me its going to be a long wait!

I will be sure to update back on how the build goes.

Cheers

[taliesin]

Great choices and I think you will be very happy with what you get. Let us know!

[Matt_N]

Be sure to post pics of the finished articles! I do recommend having a pot of vaseline or similar around when building, it helps the screws go in alot easier so they're less prone to damage forcing them in.

Matt