Back To The Future!

[KingPin 1]

Hi everyone, i was just wondering this myself but thought i would make a post out of it.

Just been thinking of some of the modern bits and pieces available to us racers/bashers nowadays.

Chargers with a zillion functions, Brushless ESC/Motor combos, Crawlers, Multi-Function Light/Sound units, Lipo packs and any wheels/tyres you could possibly ever want.....

Kinda makes me think back to the early 90's when i bought an Astute off a school mate, all i had was my "overnight" charger and a 1400mah battery.

Bearings were common place, and "one of the lads" had a Monster Horsepower motor, but when your a kid with just a paper round, things looked bleak!

Fast forward to 2008 and the R/C business has now given us a much more varied choice in kits, radio gear and tools, with the possibility of customising your ride in endless ways.

So, is there anything that you dreamt/wished for "back in the day" that is readily available nowadays? Maybe even taken for granted?

(I nearly cried when they brought out a tool for fitting e-clips!!)

Kind Regards

KingPin

[Saito 5]

Two that come to mind immediately are bearings and ESCs. Bearings are cheap nowadays. Ballracing a 4wd like a Hot Shot or Clod Buster was a very expensive undertaking back in the day. The old "two servos and an MSC" were the norm back then. Now we get ESCs stock in Tamiya kits! I think brushless technology is the next big thing of course. I've steadily watched the prices come down (as all technology does, neat isn't it? ) and will soon hop aboard this trend. Imagine telling a racer back then that brush replacement, comm skimming etc. would all go out the window in time.

[grizy 12]

I nearly cried when they brought out a tool for fitting e-clips!!

You mean ther's a tool for fitting them? I always thought a flat blade screwdriver was the fit/removal tool?

Grizy

[Cinnamon 2]

I never done any serious racing but me and my friends loved to just bash around on weekends and having FUN back in the days. One thing we always nagged about was battery life span. You had to have a stack of 5,6or 7 1200 mh packs to get some runtime. Now adays you charge 2 3600mh packs and you can run till you puke. And if not you just charge the first pack from your car with a charger that is doing all the "thinking" for you. Same thing with rx batteries, just have a second set with rechargable in the toolbox and your good. This together with the much affordable ESC:s is what I think have made RC:ing so easy and enjoyable.

[94eg! 834]

You mean ther's a tool for fitting them? I always thought a flat blade screwdriver was the fit/removal tool?

Grizy

I remember the very moment I first realized that gold-colored flat blade tool that's included Tamiya kits for install & removal of e-clips. I nearly cried as I'de had one from my Vanquish kit for about 15 years sitting in my tool box...

As for my personal ideal, I always wanted a runtime longer than 5 minutes. Now the batteries out-last me (or the motor temp) in each of my cars...

[Novastar 241]

The gear we have today is truly amazing and will keep getting better. One thing I wish we had in the past was online R/C catalogues and ordering, it makes it so easy to get this incredible R/C stuff. Or maybe that should be "too easy"

[Jonny Retro 12]

The thing I wished for back in the day is something that's still not available - realistically deformable bodywork - so when you hit something, it doesn't just scuff the paintwork or crack a bumper, the whole panel folds up.

We used to make our own out of very thin metal & cloth tape and go "banger racing", which I seem to recall involve driving into things (and head on into other cars) very fast. The bodywork used to get very crunched, which was the idea, but sometimes the chassis underneath did too. I destroyed a Frog and (gulp) a Willy's Wheeler that way

[jozza 1]

I always wished for radio gear which didn't need crystals so that you could play with your mates without the fear of interference, and that you could have more than 6 people running at a time.

Now we have the Spektrum, Acoms, and Futaba 2.4gig systems looks like one of my dreams came true.

ESCs and fast battery chargers which are more sophisticated than the old ceramic resistor on an aluminium heatsink, which you connected directly to the 1:1 car battery and hoped that your cells didn't explode within the 5 minute charge time are also a couple of wonderful inventions which are now taken for granted, but in the 80s were just not available.

[civilguy 1]

I think the new battery technology really does it for me. I took a couple buggies over to my sister's house today -- it was trick-or-treat where she lives this afternoon. 2 of my nephews, my son, my dad and myslef all had a go at my Slash before the battery gave out. In 1987 I would have had 5 batteries cycling on my 15 minute timer at least once to get that same runtime. It's insane!!

Oh- and I had my brushless stadium truck and could pull 3/4 throttle wheelies at will.... puts a smile on your face every time!

[fabolousRC 0]

I always wished for radio gear which didn't need crystals so that you could play with your mates without the fear of interference, and that you could have more than 6 people running at a time.

Now we have the Spektrum, Acoms, and Futaba 2.4gig systems looks like one of my dreams came true.

ESCs and fast battery chargers which are more sophisticated than the old ceramic resistor on an aluminium heatsink, which you connected directly to the 1:1 car battery and hoped that your cells didn't explode within the 5 minute charge time are also a couple of wonderful inventions which are now taken for granted, but in the 80s were just not available.

Or you meant the charger that doesn't melt when you tried to charge your battery after a (less than) 5 minute run on your 1200?

Or the "how many times 15 minutes do I have to turn this sucker on to charge my battery fully"? How times has changed.

For me was definitely the ESC because it was so cost prohibitive. Machine Wound was cheap compared to do that. I believe I picked Speedworks 17T for about 20 US bucks in 1992 and that's at LHS. Now you cannot even get the same quality motor for the same price, unless you are talking about the Venom Group motors. I remember drooling over my competitior cars because they have TEKIN and NOVAKs whilst all I had was MSC *tears* Motors were mainly either Trinity Monster Horsepower/Reedy/Peak Performance. I only had a Kyosho 240S that came with my Turbo Optima or Tamiya Technigold that came with my Porsche 959. Fourth is battery. I mean could you imagine with today's motor technology that a high performance motor can last almost as long as a silver can with probably the same kind of battery?