Your shortest RC run?

[Mad Ax]

Not sure if we've had a thread like this before - maybe now's the time for a fresh list of funny to get everyone excited about the forthcoming season (at least up here in the northern hemisphere )

Today I just had what was probably the shortest bash of the last 8 years.

Now, I often get complained at on other forums for writing excessively long posts, so if you just want the punchline, skip on down to "short version"

Long Version

This particular chain of events probably begins several weeks ago when I bought a restored King Blackfoot chassis from another member here, but doesn't really get going until last Friday when I committed to attending the Iconic meet at Broxtowe this coming Sunday. The meet is a minimum of 3 hours travel each way, so I want to be sure I can take a huge number of cars with me and really make the most of the day.

With that in mind, I wanted to spend most of the weekend going over all my runners and making sure they're ready to go. Unfortunately the wife had other ideas, and we spent the weekend ripping apart the garden and draining our pond. I even (foolishly) agreed to take all my regular runners out of their clear plastic transport boxes, so we could use them to transport in excess of 40 goldfish across the county to donate them to a friend. You may think I'm digressing here, but this is all relevant - because when I finally managed to grab a few hours to myself last night, I spent most of it washing all the pond slime, leaves, snails and fish scales out of my soggy boxes. I've now got very limited time to get everything ready and reboxed - so I figured I'd be really creative with my time, and use a whole week of lunchbreaks to prep and test my fleet.

The King Blackfoot was the first to get my attention, since it's the only one that hasn't been used since I bought it. It had a servo and silvercan but no other electrics, and I'd fitted a Subaru Brat shell and some HPI wheels - but it needed a better motor and some electrics and most of all, a test-run before I dared take it all the way to Broxtowe for a bash.

This morning I threw it into a cardboard box, along with a Super Stock BZ motor attached to a Tamiya ESC and an Orange receiver. In went a Tamiya screwdriver set, scissors, 3M heavy duty hook & loop roll (for attaching the electrics), and a half-eaten pot of leftover soup from the weekend that would have to suffice as my lunch.

My lunchbreak began at 12:30 with me opening the boot of the family runaround and hastily tearing out the silvercan. It's amazing how long simple stuff like this can take, especially when I'm rushing. Fortunately everything went smoothly and there was nothing missing, although on a brief test-run the standard Acoms servo seemed (somewhat predictably) to lack the power required to turn those big truck wheels with any degree of accuracy. I'll have to blag an uprated servo from a shelfer for the weekend. Still, never mind, this is why we do these test runs before making long journeys!

With the car proving to be driveable, I figured I'd best set off for my favourite local bashing ground before my lunchbreak ended. It's best part of 15 minutes from the office, which would only give me about 15 minute bashing time when I arrived - but I realised right then that I hadn't brought a LiPo alarm. So 15 minutes was about all I could risk anyway. No bother, any test is better than no test.

The bashing ground is a little corner of a wide open expanse that regularly gets churned up by 4x4s. It leads smoothly onto a long stretch of stony tarmac, there's bumps, dips, gravel, and short, firm grass. And lots of compacted dirt. It's great for testing buggies, but this is the first time I'd tried a monster truck.

In short, it was awesome. The truck handled great on the Tamiya oil shocks taken from my spares bin. The Brat shell looks good and fits well. The HPI wheels give it a really mean stance. Even the basic servo was handling the terrain without too much trouble - I was taking it steady, but it was turning when and where I wanted it to.

The only problem was the tyres. You see, when I fitted the wheels, I wasn't sure if I'd stick with them, or if I'd go back to the stock wheels. So I never bothered to glue the tyres. First attempt at pulling away and the wheels were spinning in the tyres.

Natch. Never mind, at least it runs. I can have a quick bash, then head back. I got a few top speed (ish) runs, attempted some jumps, then ran over to the longer grass to see how it handled. Heading back towards where I was parked, I noticed a big puddle.

"Better stay out of that," I thought, "I don't want to get it filthy already."

It was here that the basic servo came back to haunt me. The car went off line and started to head for the puddle. I stopped it in time, but the tyre was up against a hard lump of mud. I should have known better, but I tried to steer off the bump. The servo was having none of it, the truck went right over it and dumped itself square in the puddle, and...

Short version

Water soaked in between wheel and tyre, and they began to spin freely. After a good minute of revving and spinning, it was obvious that they were never going to dry out in time for more running.

Total prep time: 15 min

Total travel time: 28 min

Total run time: 90 seconds...

This is why I do these test-runs before I go away. Having said that, if I go to a big meet on the other side of the country, I take a toolbox full of useful things like tyre glue. I didn't bother on this little local run, and that was my mistake - it might have been a local run, but I still spent nearly 30 minutes driving there and more time besides preparing. I didn't bother to bring glue, pliers, snips, knife, cable ties, tape, or any of the other things that are so incredible useful for getting to the end of a bash with a broken car.

I'd also not bothered to take a second car. If I had, I could have spent the remainder of my lunchbreak playing with something else.

This isn't the first time I've done this, but I thought I'd learnt - many years ago I set out for a bash with a restored grasshopper. It managed about 3 lengths of the bashing area before the pinion span off. I had every tool to remove the motor but no hex wrench to tighten it up!

And this has just prompted me to recall from my childhood, a trip with the family to what I had always assumed would be an awesome bashing venue but never, in all my childhood, managed to get a working RC car there. This time I was sure I'd have a great time: a Tamiya King Cab, freshly-charged battery, all working and tested. My dad put it in the boot and off we went.

We got there an hour later, took it from the boot, to discover the transmitter had been knocked on the way and had turned itself on. The batteries (which by then were probably months old anyway) were totally depleted by the time we got there.

How many other disastrous runs can we add to this list?

[Pablo68]

After many years out of RC I got back into it by buying a couple Tamiya kits for my two sons.

This made me nostalgic for my old Hornet, so I got a few bits and bobs to get that going again. One of the things I'd bought was a 4000mah Nimh battery.
I got it all together and started running it with my boys buggys, slow and bouncy compared to theirs but fun I guess.
Buggy stopped after about two minutes. Hmmm, motor wire has un-soldered itself. No worry, out the back and a quick re-solder and going again.
Minute or so it happens again. WTH? Ok then check the old MSC and resistor, seem ok, re-solder with silver solder.
Take it out again and next thing smoke is coming out of the motor as well as sparks and the occasional flame. Not good.

Still not sure what happened but I replaced the motor with a torque tuned and got a TEU101.

And then the full restore started. A different story but my old Hornet really is a Grandfathers axe.

[steelo]

I once had a bad experience when I drove to the local park for a bashing session. I realized that the batteries were fully depleted in my transmitter. Luckily, it wasn’t too far from home so I just threw in a fresh set and (thought) everything was good. Within 2 minutes of driving, I hear an awful grinding sound….I came to realize that the spur gear was shot. No big deal, I had my toolbox with me and a spare spur gear. After about 5 more minutes of running it, I began smelling something burning. Apparently, the motor got dirt or mud in it and was smoking.

After that, I gave up for the day and spent the next hour replacing the motor and the caked on mud off of the car.

So…about 7-8 minutes of running and over an hour of fixing.

Fun..times.

[Gruntfuggly]

TL;DR

(only kidding!)

My own worst experience - packed up my Stadium Thunder for fun in the sun (in France) and ran it for about five minutes before snapping a dogbone. The last thing I had thought about bringing a spare for. Still, it gave me two weeks to strip it down and clean it all...

When I was a kid, by friend was given a Rough Rider kit for Christmas. Nobody got a brand new kit back then (I was hugely jealous). He spent a couple of months meticulously building it with his dad - it looked amazing - box art perfection! We took it to our local green and he put batteries in and switched the car on before the transmitter... it took off, crossed a road and smashed itself into the kerb 100 yards away. He was gutted to say the least. Must have lasted all of 7 or 8 seconds...

[Ian_Gsi16V]

In January this year...

Hadn't ran a car for a few months but had the urge to get the Hornet out to the beach, spent about an hour faffing, taking the electrics and the Super Stock BZ out of my Monster Beetle and fitting them in the Hornet but it didn't want to play ball, eventually got it working and headed out to a cold deserted beach (only 10 minutes away).

So, Hornet takes off and is flying along, I hit a mini rock which launches it through the air and it lands upside down in a nice deep puddle, LiPO alarm was going crazy and nothing was working so that was less than a minutes run time.

Hornet is now desperate for a full tear down and clean as I haven't touched it since then

[Klausen]

Once packed my E-maxx up, and drove to a great bashing spot. Threw in the batteries, made sure servo worked properly, and got ready to a great bashingsession. Turned out I somehow missed to install the pinion

[TWINSET]

2003, First tank after running-in engine in new Savage.

Got bored, made ramp, left body off...

[GregM]

I had one ridiculously short run.

Here's the story, some of you guys know it yet. The Hornet was my first R/C, and my better half got hooked building and driving it, too, so I bought her a DT-02 Holiday Buggy. We went out and started with a drag race to see which car was faster (the HB had a 540, too). After 10 or 20 meters, my Hornet was in front and I decided to take a U-turn. Silly me, the Hornet crashed right into the Holiday Buggy, ripping the HB's fragile bodyshell apart. Bummer!

I also remember the other day were we took the Sand Viper (former HB) and the Mad Bull out for a run and suddenly the Mad Bull stopped and made weird noises. The pinion got loose thanks to a non-loctited grub screw. D'oh! Of course I had no tools with me, unlike the other times were I always brought my little Tamiya R/C toolset with me.

Another run with the Sand Viper I forgot to bring the second dogbone driveshaft with me, which still was left at home on the kitchen table from repairs. Oh man... I made sure nobody noticed me when I tucked the car away into my bag, in shame. Just imagine that a few seconds before I was full of excitement for the upcoming run.

[Gruntfuggly]

@TWINSET Took me a moment to spot the damage in the second pic. Took an involuntary intake of breath when I did...

[Flerbizky]

Back in the late 80s, we'd get 5 minutes of run-time on a 1200mah battery on a 16 hour charge. We didn't have expensive quick chargers or more than one battery (:

[Grastens]

The first time I ran my Lancia Rally after finishing it, I went to the bashing grounds only for the car to not work! I found out that I had begun my meticulous waterproofing (really just using balloons) after plugging in the receiver lead the wrong way. The car did not even roll, yet I made the trip out there just to go back...

The shortest runs I had when the car actually moved were when:

- I forgot to check the gearbox on my Audi Quattro and got to enjoy the pleasure of running for a full 5 seconds before the gears stripped themselves completely

- I attempted to run my Lancia Rally in -30 degrees Celsius and ran for about 20 seconds before the batteries quit completely

- any run where I found out I was using dead batteries (average of about 4 seconds running time) - depressingly common!

Happily, my other bash sessions have at least taken me several minutes!

[Mad Ax]

Back in the late 80s, we'd get 5 minutes of run-time on a 1200mah battery on a 16 hour charge. We didn't have expensive quick chargers or more than one battery (:

I remember this - having just one Tamiya battery pack that was long past its best, I remember staying in a caravan with my parents on holiday, absolutely loving my second-hand (and very must used and abused) King Cab for about 5 minutes until the battery died. I think the charger took about two hours to recharge the battery. I left it charging on the side and my dad unplugged it to boil the kettle. I didn't notice until the 2 hours was up, and had to wait all over again.

Then on the next run it stripped the spline on the rear hex. Back in those days, parts were telephone order only from Riko and usually had a 6 week lead time.

[firefoxussr]

I've had good luck with my cars with one exception. Don't ever test a failsafe in uncontrolled conditions. I'd just reprogrammed the no-radio throttle cutoff for my Lancia Stratos (HPI Cup Racer). While running in the apartment complex lot at half throttle I turned off the transmitter. It took the transmitter about 20 seconds to re-link once I realized the failsafe wasn't operative.

It kept going.... right over a 1:1 speed bump, did a nice dive and roll then slid on its roof for about 30 feet. Destroyed the roof paintwork as it was pavement. Not to worry though, HPI has a lot of Stratos bodies it can't sell because they quit making the only m-chassis it fits properly. Getting a body is so cheap and in ready supply... unlike a 1:1 Stratos.

[Wooders28]

Took my RB5 to a local bmx track on the way home from work (almost a year ago!) to take an aerial shot for the 'launched' thread on here.

Lifted it out of the boot,gave it the mandatory full throttle blip in the car park,then another wee blip up the first jump.

That was that.

[Shodog]

This was my shortest run car. It was ran over by an SUV on its first run

[firefoxussr]

This was my shortest run car. It was ran over by an SUV on its first run

That looks like an XRay T1! Tough car. Can't wait to race mine this weekend!

[Pablo68]

I have another one.

After having run my Hornet(s) for a while and a Monster Beetle as well I finally got a real racing buggy from a mate.

It was a flouro pink Ultima (it was the eighties ok). It had a Le Mans motor of some kind in it and I never could get it running right. It was slow, and really fast in reverse.
I tried all sorts of things to fix it and managed to kill a set of servos doing it. Back in a time when Radio sets were just not interchangeable and it was actually more expensive to buy a single servo that to get a whole new radio set.
I (from memory) did get another radio set, installed it, got the car going, it for some reason picked up radio interference, shot off and hit a large kerb and blew out those servos too.

That was about a seven second run for a hundred or so bucks of damage.

I stopped RC-ing for maybe a year after that.

[Wooders28]

It was a flouro pink Ultima (it was the eighties ok). It had a Le Mans motor of some kind in it

That reminds me,

Same car (but not pink 😛),my first indoor race on carpet,running Schumacher mini spikes all round,holeshot at the start,first into the first corner,then proceeded to cartwheel all the way across the track into the coke machine,snapping the front wishbone,bending the shock tower and chassis and breaking the upper deck (tbh,a nudge used to bend/break those!),I knew then why I'd got to the corner first! lol

[Mad Ax]

they quit making the only m-chassis it fits properly

what really stings is that I actually had an NIB Cup Racer with the 240Z shell, one of my favourite classic Japanese cars. And in a fit of "I've got too many projects and it's not the right scale for my shelf" I sold it.

It turns out that, compared to Tamiya 1:10 touring cars, it is actually quite close to perfect scale.

Can I find another NIB to enjoy now? No

[firefoxussr]

what really stings is that I actually had an NIB Cup Racer with the 240Z shell, one of my favourite classic Japanese cars. And in a fit of "I've got too many projects and it's not the right scale for my shelf" I sold it.

It turns out that, compared to Tamiya 1:10 touring cars, it is actually quite close to perfect scale.

Can I find another NIB to enjoy now? No

I wish HPI would just sell the rights & tooling or rebrand it. It happened with the Nanda NRX-12... which is now available as the BSR M.Rage

And after a google... yes you can fit the 240Z shell to the chassis.... see here http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196800&page=4

Now that I see the clear body pic... i think it could work for the Stratos too (even though there's a hugely flat/sloping nose)

[Nitomor]

I wish my memory was that good. I've had plenty of ruined bashes but I couldn't say which one was shortest and can't remember how far into the bash it went bad. I don't think I've had any non starters though.

[Theibault]

I've told this story here before. My shortest run was my very first car. I received a Hornet for my 12th birthday in '85. Spent 2-3 days meticulously building and painting it. Made the rookie mistake of turning the car on before the Tx. It shot forward, but I caught it with my foot. This resulted in the resistor for the mechanical speedo to go up in smoke. Not even 1 seconds into my first ever run with a hobby grade RC, and I'm done. Dad takes me to the LHS for a replacement only to find out they are out of stock. That was the longest 2 weeks of my life just waiting for it to come in. I've never made that mistake again.

[Mad Ax]

I'm often surprised at how often I'm forced to cringe when I read on here about people turning on their cars before turning on the transmitter.

And I'm surprised even more often at how regularly I do this myself...

[firefoxussr]

I'm often surprised at how often I'm forced to cringe when I read on here about people turning on their cars before turning on the transmitter.

And I'm surprised even more often at how regularly I do this myself...

I almost always turn on the remote afterwards. And I have the expectation that the vehicle may try to take off.

[Sayer]

I almost always turn on the remote afterwards. And I have the expectation that the vehicle may try to take off.

2.4ghz seems to mitigate this somewhat.