ASK Cubby, A Weekly Q&A Session, Version 05.27.2010

We get letters, all kinds of letters here at BigSquid….

==========

“Just an FYI, in todays CUB report you wrote “Jess Alessi” when its
actually Jeff Alessi. The JBRL race was at ARC Raceway in SoCal… I was
sitting next to Jeff in the pits on sat and hes a good driver for sure.
Anyways, just thought id let you know about the typo!

-Doug”

Cubby- Thanks for the heads up on the typo, it seems the 85 year old former school teacher that we use to edit our columns is blind in her left eye and can’t see out of the right. But hey, she’s got a nice rack for her age, so she can keep the job.

But seriously, you pitted next to Jeff, yet you didn’t fill us in on if he’s gonna race any nationals this year (moto or rc)? Is he still dialed with the MotoConcepts crew? Where’s the pics? Where did he finish? What was he driving? Whoops, wait a minute, you aren’t on the payroll, LOL, but feel free to shoot us more info if you have it.

==========

“I would like to invite you to our track in Ohio. This track has been around for 18 years. It is in a city park, open to the public 6 days a week and on Saturday we have organized racing. We are the home track for Tamiya’s Ryan Lutz (when he’s not in California). This is also home to
one of your sponsors, JGBRC, he has supplied us with batteries for years. I go to your site everyday just to keep up with news and current events and it would be great if you could stop by and make some laps. I know you don’t like to race that much but if you are in the area I am sure you will have fun.
BIG STEVE FORESTER
RACE DIRECTOR
www.medinarcraceway.com”

Cubby- Ya, thanks for the invite Big Steve, and good to see you spreading the word about your track. Most of the BigSquid crew (ok, everyone except for me) pretty much considers formal tracks to be Kryptonite, but out next trip out your way we’ll have to drop by and bust out some laps.

==========

That’s it for this edition of “ASK Cubby”. Send your questions, hate mail, and lightly used underwear to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter

“Are hobby prices going up because of lack of workers in China? I read that on a messae board.
Erwin”
————————
Cubby- Ya know, there is no doubt there are some weird things going on in that wonderful communist country called the People’s Republic of China. In recent months there have been 5 incidents of men grabbing knives/hatchets and going after school kids, which reminds me a bit of the period when our postal workers were wound a bit too tight. They’ve got a lot of people living there in China (over 1.3 billion, America only has around 300 million), and plenty of stressors as well. But of course that’s no reason for the prices of their goods to go up.

But, there is some truth to the rumor you heard. China pretty much makes everything for everyone in the world now days, and even their 1.3 billion people aren’t enough to make it all. Yes, China is starting to suffer a labor shortage (due in part to their governments stimulus package), and as that happens, wages go up, and when wages go up, the price of the finished products must go up as well.

So will this mean increased prices at your LHS? Perhaps not, and I’ll tell you why. It’s quite obvious a very large percentage of all our hobby goods come from China (ok, that was a massive understatement… LOL), but just like every other product in this world, there is always another supplier. The buyers from our large rc companies are a Very savvy group, if they can get the same build quality but source it cheaper from Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, etc, they will change suppliers just to keep your costs low.

==========

That’s it for this week ya bunch of crazy animals. Submit your questions, love letters, naked photos of your x(women only), and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter

“Hey guys. I’ve had this idea for many years now. Why don’t you see if you can team up with the X games to get some e-monster trucks (no oil spills now) going off the mega ramp. You could mount cameras on them and trail the competitors off the jump or you could use them as entertainment between events. You would reach a huge number of young to middle aged men. Perfect exposure for our sport!
Keep up the great work with the website!
Regards
Billy”
———————-
Well hello Billy, thanks for the kind words.

I like how you think. While some in our hobby prefer for it to stay small, I’d much rather see it go mainstream. Maybe it’s because I like to dream big, maybe it’s because I hate seeing my friends in the industry not getting paid jack for working their asses off. Maybe it’s because I just want to see more people enjoy the hobby I love.

X Games is as corporate/commercial as they come. It is, and has always been, nothing more than a great marketing tool for companies into “xtreme” sports. With that said, ESPN is very critical about what makes it on air. If you’ve watched it over the years, gone are many sports, while all the “big air” comps pretty much rule the evening prime time slots. Mommy and daddy mainstream are glued to their sets for one reason- they might be lucky enough to watch someone die tonight! The problem for us rc guys is- jumping a 6S HPI Savage Flux over an 80 foot gap isn’t going to result in any fatalities. No potential fatalities = bad ratings = no chance of rc making the big show.

In years past rc’ers have organized events in the parking lots at X Games. That was cool and all, and even exposed our hobby to thousands upon thousands of prime audience, but it’s nowhere near the exposure of being in the stadium and being broadcast into the mainstream living rooms. While X Games would be fantastic to be a part of, I think the ESPN people aren’t too keen on rc going prime time, at least not quite yet.

BigSquidRC has talked with the people from MTV, OLN, and ESPN about possible rc projects for their networks, and I’m certain we aren’t the only ones. HPI has been working with SPIKE TV for a while now, which is fantastic exposure for our hobby and they deserve huge props for that. As our hobby moves closer and closer to the mainstream I think you’ll start seeing unprecedented coverage of our hobby on tv, I think it’s just a matter of time. HPI, Traxxas, Associated, Losi, Axial and others are working their asses off to get tv coverage of our hobby, so it will happen, it’s just a matter of when and which channel.

(Click here to read the next question about ESC’s and batteries!)
Read the rest of this entry »

“Dear Brian,
First let me take the time to say, I really enjoyed the two battery shootouts. They were well written and I think by the second one you really have it nailed down with good testing criteria for each battery and being able to replicate situations so the testing for each is equal. One thing that really kind of bummed me out was that you DIDN’T test the Max Amps batteries. I know you stated in the article why you didn’t, however I just don’t think those were good enough reasons to leave them out of testing. Over time you’ve proved that your tests and product reviews are unbiased. I don’t think any of your readers would accuse you of being biased if they did well. I imagine that you guys didn’t want to include them because if they didn’t perform well that they may pull from being a sponsor. I know that’s a tough choice to make, but in the end, by NOT testing them, you may have done them an even bigger injustice because now people will run out and get the batteries that did well in your tests because they have hard evidence to base their purchase off of.
(continued…)
Ok, now I’m rambling lol but PLEASE include Max Amps in your next shootout and PLEASE do a Premium Battery Shootout so we can see if it really is worth buying one of these high priced, high mAh battery packs as opposed to the lesser 4000mAh and lower type of packs. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my email and take it into consideration. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.

Sincerely,
Scott K”
———————————-
I’ve omitted a large part of the email just to shorten it down a bit for our readers, and while it was addressed to our editor Brian, I think it makes a good “ASK Cubby” email.

First off, thanks for the props Scott, they are few and far between. Now to get to the crux of your email. Having a MaxAmps battery in one of our battery shootouts would be ratings gold. Out of all the emails we get, MaxAmps and Zippy are by far the two most requested brands that people want to see tested. MaxAmps is the biggest name in Lipo, and we’d love to see them in a future shootout. From speaking to the guys at MaxAmps, they put a tremendous amount of time into testing and building their batteries, and their reputation for customer service is a good one, all of which equals a great contender in a shootout. At BigSquid we have a great deal of respect for the crew at MaxAmps and we will not include them in a shootout without their permission. To the people that want to see MaxAmps in a shootout I would recommend giving them a call to let them know. They are good people there and I’m sure they’d like to hear your feedback.

The best thing about shootouts is that there are so many to do, many more than time allows. We’d like to do a 4S shootout for 8th scales, we’d like to do a shootout between sub $50 packs, and I’d especially like to see a shootout between former winners.

We’ve got lots of shootouts coming, with the next one being our charger shootout. It’s well underway and should be hitting the front page in about another week. Not only will we be testing how easy each charger is to use and it’s features, but also how long it takes to charge a pack (some are a LOT faster than others!) and the actual performance of the batteries afterwords. It should be groundbreaking and a good read.

Thanks for reading and submit your questions/comments and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

“Cub Reporter, What is better a Traxxas Summit or a Traxxas E-Revo? Thanks.
Roger Blakely”

Oh yes, the age old question of what is better. Well both are Traxxas, meaning they’ll have good customer support, will be tough as nails, and most importantly, most hobby shops will stock plenty of replacement parts. The Summit is better suited to low speed action, can crawl up a snot covered water slide, and is fairly waterproof. The E-Revo, especially the brushless version, is a freak’n animal. It handles as well on track as it does blasting around a baseball diamond. To boil it down, if you are looking for 30 mph plus action, get the E-Revo, if you like driving in the mud and crawling over tough obstacles, get the Summit. And yes, you’re welcome.
———————————
“What weight of oil should I use in the center diff of an RC8E?
Eddy The Slayer”

You have no idea how many times we get asked that question and the writer does not include what type of car they own, so congrats, you are above the curve on the RC evolutionary chart.

Ok, here’s the scoop. The weight you use will depend on how you like your buggy to handle, how much power you have, and how much traction is available. If you like pulling wheelies, the heavier the better, but you can’t steer while your front tires are staring at the sky. Too heavy of oil will also lead to your buggy being overly sensitive to throttle inputs while in the air. If you use too light of oil, when you punch it your front tires will turn into pizza cutters and you won’t accelerate very fast. If you are using huge 6S power you’ll need heavier oil, if you are using a softer power set-up, you’ll want to go lighter. If your track has a lot of traction you’ll want to go slightly heavier. So to finally give you an answer to your question, start with what your manual recommends then adjust accordingly. If you don’t have the manual, start with 5,000 and go from there.

That’s it for this week, submit your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

“What are the max. charge rates for the batteries used for this competition? 1C? 2C? 5C? Recharging time is a consideration for many users and may be the deciding factor between similar-performing brands.

Regards..
Bob”

We shot Bob a personal reply, but his is a good question that perhaps other readers would like the answer to. During the Big Squid RC Lipo Battery Shootout 2, the max charge rates for each brand were…

Hyperion- 5C
Common Sense- 2C
Ace- 2C
CheckPoint- 1C
Venom- 1C
JGB- 1C
Winforce- 1C
Zippy-1C

For those that may not know- assuming a Lipo pack is fully discharged, a 1C rate will take slightly over one hour to fully charge the battery, 2C slightly over 30 minutes and 5C slightly over 12 minutes (depends on your chargers CV rate).

That’s it for this week, shoot your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

“A friend sent this link and asked if I could make the lead for him. I can make the leads BUT is it safe to charge 6 lipo of different capacities at the same time at 20a in parallel
Craig” link/video: Youtube Vid
——
What’s up Craig? The politically correct answer to your question is- contact your battery suppliers to see what they say, and do what they recommend.

The official Cubby answer is- I wouldn’t do it. In a perfect world we’d all have a stack of Hyperion 720iNet3’s and a 24v 100 amp power supply to play with. In that perfect world we could connect each of our uber new battery packs to an individual 720 and balance charge them to perfection. Now, parallel charging may work just fine- if each of the packs is in relatively the same state of discharge and each has nearly the same internal resistance, but I have not tried it first hand, so therefore I can not recommend it. Perhaps the best “real world” testing of parallel charging that I’ve seen on the net can be found HERE in a thread on RC Groups. In that thread, it looks like parallel charging is no big deal, but due to the potential downside of a thermal runaway, I’d pick safety over convenience and stick to a traditional one pack/one charger routine.
—————————-

“My local hobby shop sucks they dont stock sh*t and when I place an order with them they always screw it up I dont like buy off the internet what should I do

Adam Kay”
—–
Hey Adam, ever heard of a comma or period before? LOL

There are a lot of hobby shops out there that aren’t “optimal” for the typical rc hobbyist. But, of course there are things you can do. First off, when you place an order at your LHS, be sure and give them an exact part number. If you go in and say “Hey Goober can ye get me one of dem dare a-arms fer me Traxxas?” don’t expect a good end result. All the part numbers for your rc can be found in the owners manual, if you don’t have one, download one off the net.

Your LHS stocks what they sell the most of. Ok, so maybe right now they don’t stock the parts you need, but if you and a few of your buddies all buy new Losi 8’s and come in looking for parts every week, they WILL take the hint, they are in the business to make money. If you sit at home and buy off the net they won’t see the demand, hence they will not have the parts you need when you break.

That’s it for this week, submit your questions/drivel to Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter

This week instead of posting questions that readers have submitted, I’ll be doing things a bit differently. The Big Squid RC Second Lipo Battery Shootout has been a ginormous hit, and with it’s success comes questions from those pesky message board pundits. So here’s some of the criticism off the message boards, and the reasons for why we conducted the shootout like we did.

“they (BigSquidRC) did not compare similar C rated packs”

The primary reason why we didn’t compare packs of the same “C” rating is because we tested what the companies sent us. When we approached all the battery companies we told them “look, here are our testing criteria, send us the battery that you think will do the best”. So while the C ratings of the packs are different between companies, it’s what they decided to send us (with 2 exceptions, more on that later). But to really boil it down, it doesn’t matter what the sticker on the outside of the packs says that its C rating is, as anyone can print “20C, 30C, or 80C” on their pack (and you’d be surprised how many battery sellers print whatever C rating they think will sell best on their packs, not what they were designed to do), what really matters is the end performance. It still amazes me how some consumers think the C rating printed on the outside of the pack is more important than the actual pack performance.

“we wanted to see higher discharge rates tested to see if the C ratings were true or not”

Anyone that wants to see a 30C labeled pack discharged at 30C has never done it before. LOL The reason why we didn’t do it is very self explanatory if you’ve ever done it. The packs in the shootout were mostly 2S 5000 mah packs, ranging from 20C to 40C. So lets say we wanted to do a 40C discharge, that’s a 200 amp continuous load. A 200 amp load isn’t hard to accomplish, anybody can go down to the local Pep Boys and buy a bunch of automotive headlights and 0 gauge wire. What inevitably happens is that you burn off a tab on the cell, lose connection, and party over. Packs that don’t burn off tabs skyrocket in temp and head straight for thermal runaway. For those that just “must” see what happens when you throw enormous C discharge rates on a battery pack, that will be an upcoming feature on BigSquid, but it’s really just a waste of a perfectly good battery pack. Look for the video and accompanying article in the next few weeks.

“the Zippy was actually the pack that won the price category because the Winforce pack you tested cost $50 not $7″

We get a lot of email here at BigSquid, and we got a LOT of email asking that Zippy be included in the next shootout. So we approached Zippy to send us a pack, but they did not. So we did what to magazines would be unthinkable, we bought the Zippy pack because we know how much our readers wanted to see it reviewed. After buying the Zippy, we had heard rumors of a pack that was better than Zippy but cost a third less. After a little research, we found the Winforce pack, which we also purchased because we just knew our readers wanted to see how a $7 pack would stack up. So if you think the Winforce pack really costs $50, you are looking at the wrong pack, because we’ve got the receipt for the Winforce to prove otherwise. Now we contemplated listing “in hand” prices instead of the “street” price, but that opens a huge new can of worms that include wildly varying shipping costs, taxes, and possible coupon use. In the end, it’s up to the consumer to get the best “in hand” price that they can.

“Three drivers is not enough to make an accurate driving test”

Ya know, we’d love to have had hundreds of test drivers evaluate the packs, as that would have provided more accurate results. But, let’s take into account time. Just how long would it take 3 test drivers to drive 8 packs? We had 8 ICE Chargers, so to fully charge all 8 packs only took 1 hour. So one hour charge time for 1 driver, 3 hours charge time for all 3 drivers. Now let’s say each driver drove each pack for only one full run. Let’s assume we got roughly 15 minutes of run time on each pack. For one driver that would be 2 hours of on track time, multiply that by 3 drivers, and that’s 6 hours continuous running on track. Let’s say you let the motor cool down to a standardized temp between each run (which we did, the motor started each run at 110 F), and let’s say the cool down period is only 10 minutes. For 3 drivers to run all 8 packs, that’s 24 total runs, 10 minutes between each run equals 240 minutes, right at 4 hours. At this point the test is sitting right at 13 hours, and that doesn’t include the occasional blown spur, busted shock cap, etc. So how long would it take if we’d have used 20 drivers, or 50 drivers? I don’t know, all I know is the entire battery shootout takes long enough the way it is. LOL

“driving the cars outdoors is not a good high speed test, as there are too many variables”

LOL If anyone would like to build BigSquidRC an immaculate 400 foot long indoor facility, please feel free. LOL But to be serious, the vast, Vast majority of people running high speed, or even just a basher blasting up and down the block, are doing it in worse conditions than we had during out shootout. We had a huge, pristine, freshly built, and not even open to the public highway to do our test on. We were very lucky to have such a great area to conduct our high speed runs on. We live in the real world, so we test in the real world just like an end consumer would.

“look at the voltage under load numbers compared to the top speed numbers, there should be a direct correlation there, if not then something is flawed. The voltage under load is the voltage put out when the car is running, which has a direct correlation to motor rpm and the overall vehicle speed.”

Eureka! That’s the real beauty of real world testing. The test bench says one thing, but can it really do it in the real world? Certainly the pack that got the highest top speed, the JGB pack, was putting out the highest voltage while under the load that was being supplied by the truck used in high speed testing. The JGB did not put out the highest voltage under a 30 amp continuous load on the Competition Electronics Turbo 35. We did not use an on board data recorder to find out exactly what load was being seen during the high speed tests, but whatever load it was, the JGB kicked a$$ on. If running up and down your street and kicking your neighbors butt is a priority, then the JGB should be at the top of your buying list. On the same order, the Hyperion did not win the voltage under load test, yet it handily won the on track driving test. On track driving really tests a packs ability to put out good voltage under a nearly infinite variance of loads, something that no discharge manufacture can come close to simulating at this time. Combine that with the human mind, the most powerful “computer/data recorder” known to exist in the universe, and you’ve got an ultimate test combo to simulate real world conditions, the only realm that the vast majority of buyers care about. The entire shootout is really geared towards the vast majority of users that don’t know what voltage under load even means, instead they just want to know what goes fast. There are plenty of hard core CBA heads out there, but this shootout wasn’t geared toward that minority.

“testing a 20c pack against 40c packs is like testing a 6 cylinder 2.0 litre engine against 6 cylinder 5 litre engines- pretty obvious which one is gonna develop more power”

I guess someone forgot to tell the Venom it was only a 20C pack then. Hah! But really, when you test a LOT of cells, you’ll find out that supplier A’s 20C’s might kick supplier B’s 50C packs a$$, and supplier D’s 30C packs are better than suppliers A’s 40C packs. That’s why the testing is a whole lot more important that the C rating on the side. Those that think that a 30C pack is always faster than a 20C pack haven’t tested very many battery packs.

“it didn’t sound like they had more than 10 cycles on each battery pack, would want to see how they preform after a summer of use not a few weeks of regulated testing”

I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps the most elite test of a Lipo battery is how it holds up 100 cycles down the road. But, once again, that darn time thing gets in our way. At a 1C charge rate, and 10C discharge rate, plus some cool down time between cycles, you’d be looking at 150 hours per pack for 100 cycles. We have 8 chargers, so we could do 100 cycles on all 8 in that 150 hours, but we simply don’t have that much time to sit around and monitor the packs. We are BigSquidRC, and we have a lot more testing than just batteries to do. The actual sellers of the packs should be the ones testing out to 100 cycles to ensure they are putting out reliable cells.

That’s it for this edition. Submit your questions and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com! We do appreciate your questions, so send’em in!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Cubby, I am your BIGGEST fan! I can’t get enough of your Cub Reports!
XOXOXO,
Dawn S.
—————-
It’s always nice to get compliments Dawn S., especially those with lots of “XOXO’s” attached, but I must admit you have to be in the minority. You’d be amazed at all the hate that comes our way from sanctioning bodies, manufactures, distribs, stealth mag types, and well, pretty much anyone with a computer.

==========
Any truth to the rumor BSRC is going to do a magazine shootout?
Stephen B.
———
Actually, I was tossing around the idea right before iHobby, but due to problems locating all 4 of the print mags, and more so, just pure laziness, I never got it done. Perhaps I can be persuaded into getting off my lazy arse and busting one out (I would think pretty much any Richard Geoffroy Dom would get the job done, but the 98′ Rose would be particularly effective, thanks in advance!). Perhaps categories of the mag shootout could be- 1. number of pages (adverts don’t count towards the total), 2. quality of pics, 3. quality of editorials, 4. accuracy of tests, 5. styling of layout, 6. who has the hottest sales reps, etc. But to digress, don’t hold your breathe on this one, as I’ve a got a few other really cool article ideas coming down the pike, that will certainly be better reads than a mag shootout.

==========
Cubby, I live in Florida and tend to sunburn easily, mostly around my sensitive thong areas. Know of any good suntan lotions?

Shawn P.
———–
Well Shawn, like most Americans, a sunburn in the thong area can sure be a PITA, so I highly recommend a combo such as this- A good sunblock like Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch SPF 55 for your more “sensitive” areas, with a good sunscreen like Banana Boat Sport Performance Dri-Block SPF 30 for your arms, legs, face etc. The areas sporting the sunscreen will tan to a buttery majestic gold color over the beach months, while the sunblocked areas will not burn, but slowly brown from their former pale white status, and will remain pain free all summer. Enjoy!

==========

That’s it for this weeks edition of “ASK CUBBY”. Send your questions (no matter how ridiculous) to Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Dear Cubby,

I enjoy reading your columns every week, but now I have a question for you. I have a VXL system in my Slash and after landing from a jump it doesn’t want to go forward anymore. What do you think is wrong?

Trans-Am Man
==========

I had a Pontiac Trans Am one time. Mine was a bright red 95 version. I gotta give props to GM on that car, I drove that car like I stole it for 2 whole years with no problems (unless you consider balding tires a “problem”). Life was good with the t-tops off, just cruising down the highway listening to that glorious V-8 engine. Everyone should own some American muscle at some point in their life.

Oh, I guess you did ask an r/c related question. So you have a Slash and it rips hard with a way super dope brushless system in it. Or well, it used to rip, now it just sits. There are very few weak links on the Slash. The only truly nagging glitches are-

1. the shock caps love to pop off and coat the inside of the body with oil and
2. the stock spur gear likes to spit out teeth faster than Rufus The Stunt Bum.

Most likely you landed rear wheels first from a jump and knocked some teeth off your spur. Remove the screws that hold on the gear cover and have a look to see that I have certainly guessed correctly on this one. Lucky for you Slash spur gears are dirt cheap, so be sure and buy at least one spare while you are at your friendly LHS.

==========

That’s it for this edition of “ASK Cub Reporter”. Submit your questions to cubby at
BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

“I recently bought a Slash 4×4 and hear guys are running a center diff.
Whats the benefits?”
(name and address withheld by request)

Cubby- The Slash 4×4 is a great truck, congrats on your new fly ride. So about that fancy dancy center diff, what’s the real scoop? If you dig pulling massive wheelies,
the center diff is not for you. With the center diff installed, the moment the front wheels come off the ground, the diff will transfer power away from the rear wheels to the front wheels, resulting in the front end coming back down to terra firma in a hurry. The trade off is the center diff will make your truck easier to drive from a dead stop, and will also make your truck more controllable in the air. My final verdict- if you are bashing, just running the stock slipper is great, if you do a lot of track driving and/or jumping, at least give the center diff a try.

==========

Cubby,
I wanna ask this girl Ashley to prom, what’s the best way to do it?
J.D.

Cubby- Yes indeed J.D., it’s that time of year again, prom season. First piece of advice, don’t just drop a bomb out of left field. By this I mean make sure the chick knows you exist. If you are already fairly close to her great, and you can skip too piece of advice number two. If aren’t “close” with her, at least a couple weeks before you intend on asking her, you need to be talking to her at least once a day. I mean, if some chic you didn’t know at all came up and asked you to prom, you’d assume she was psycho. Once you’ve talked to her enough that she knows you exist, you just gotta show some stones and ask. Don’t beat around the bush, don’t candy coat it, just be clear and concise. Exactly what you need to say is “Will you go to
prom with me?”. If she says yes, you are dialed (and I expect a full report after your prom).If she says no, be a man, hold your head high, and move on to greener pastures. There are over 3 BILLION women on this planet, trust me, there IS one out there for you.

That’s it for this week. Submit your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter

“Hey Cubby,
My son wants to get into fuel powered r.c. cars. Is there anything i should know before jumping in? Are they worth it over electric? Thanks.
Dylan S.”

Hi Dylan, and thanks for submitting a question that we get about ten times a week here. First off, I hate nitro with a passion that borders on zeal. With that in mind, I do know of people who totally enjoy the sounds and smells of nitro rc cars. Personally, I think they are a pain in the rear and that nitro technology just isn’t quite here yet for a reliably running engine. Nitro engines simply take too much time and effort to tune correctly for a normal Joe Blow. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of nitro noobs I’ve seen down at the track only ONCE. Those noobs certainly get frustrated and just pitch their gear in a closet when they get home. But to each their own, if nitro floats your boat, go for it. If it’s too much of a pain for you, sell it and get into electric.
—————————————————

“I want to get into racing, whats the big class rite now?” (name and address withheld by request)

That’s actually a hard question, as that really varies on what part of the country you live in. But in general, if you are into on-road cars, I’d have to say the VTA Class (Vintage Trans-Am) is one of the most popular at many tracks. The VTA class features very realistic looking car bodies, and the racing is set up to be fairly economical. Most other on road classes are a real mess right now, and very little fun to race in. If you are into off road (like the majority of racers are) then I’d say the Stock/Spec Short Course Class is the biggest class at the moment. Stock Short Course racing also features very scale appearance, and when a local track does the rules correctly, it’s also very economical. 8th scale nitro buggies are also huge in most parts of the country, but the cost to compete in that class is easily ten fold that of Stock Short Course.

Submit your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Hey Cub-ster,
I know you guys are all about bashing and so am I (hence the reason I bought a Savage X as my first RC in twenty years and is my first nitro truck, I love it!). However, I am thinking about getting into RC racing and I think a good place to begin would be 2WD stock CORR events at a local track. Which truck is better between the Associated SC10, Traxxas Slash and the HPI Blitz? How about a shoot-out between the three?

Also, I know batteries have come a long way since I was a kid with a Tamiya Hornet but the batteries out now are making me nervous about making the jump from nitro to electric. The battery performance that I remember as a kid (run for 20 minutes then back in the house for four hours to recharge) and the cost of extra batteries are keeping me from plunking down my hard earned cashola! Please help!

Thanks,
Dean T. (aka- Captain Khaos)
—–
Well hello Captain Khaos, that’s a true bashers handle right there. I think my wife might call me that at times after jumping my Revo off the roof of my house and accidentally landing on top of her Audi. But such is life……

Btw, CORR died a very sad death. The CORR sanctioning body folded before they even got to hold there season finale event a couple years ago, which left a lot of driver, spectators, and sponsors with a bad taste in their mouths. Two new sanction bodies have picked up the flag since then, The Lucas Oil Series (that AE is involved with) and the TORC Series (that Traxxas is Huge into). So instead of using the CORR label, using the term short course works a lot better.

The 2wd short course class is a great class to get into. All the trucks are pretty durable and you just can’t beat how damn cool they look going around the track. So what’s the best SC truck to race with?

If your local track has very low traction and is fairly rough, the Slash is still a great bet. Traxxas really hit a sweet set-up right out of the box. The progressive springs and light compression and rebound damping work great right out of the box on the slick stuff. The only weak spot are those pesky shock caps that like to come off at the worst possible moment, but that is easily fixed by putting metal caps on (assuming your local track allows that mod, most tracks do).

If your local track is high bite and smooth, or you plan on racing mod, the HPI Blitz is the truck to get. The Blitz has class leading mechanical grip in the corners, and it’s a lot easier to get a good set-up on it than the AE SC10. To boil it down, it’s super easy to drive, and it’s just plain fast. Races are won in the corners, and the Blitz has class leading corner speed on high bite tracks. The main downside to the Blitz is the steering. If someone is a total noob, the stock steering is awesome as it’s set up to not steer too quickly. If you are an experienced driver, you’ll be looking for a higher torque servo and a tighter turning radius. Throw in a servo with at least 100 oz/in of torque, and do a little grinding on the front hubs and hub carriers to gain more turning radius, and you are dialed.

A short course shootout would be awesome. We already have a test Slash, Blitz and SC10. However, I think my constant bashing of Horizon and Kyosho are preventing the BigSquid crew from acquiring a Losi Strike and a Kyosho Ultima SC. That or those two simply don’t have the balls to see how their trucks stack up.

About today’s batteries- they are no joke. Good packs aren’t cheap, and all of the packs out there can be dangerous if not used properly. Go too cheap on a pack and the cells are prone to early failure and are just plain slow. If I had to recommend one pack to you, it’d be a Ni-mh 5000 mah pack like this ONE. There are tons of chargers on the market that will charge Ni-mh cells (and Ni-mh’s are not prone to thermal runaway like some of the Lithium based cells), and with 5000 mah of capacity on tap, you’ll have get a ton of run time. Enjoy.

That’s it for this session of Ask Cub Reporter. Send your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com.

YOUR Cub Reporter

Hello Cub Reporter I have a question I stripped out the heads of two screws in the front skidplate on my T-Max how do I get them out?

John Denver
—————
Hey now John, how’s that Rocky Mountain high going for ya? I didn’t realize they had email where you are now days. Or is your name John and you just live in Denver? Either way, getting out a screw with a stripped head isn’t hard. There are a few options here, with the most popular being a Dremel rotary tool with a cutting wheel used to cut a straight slot into the head of your screw, then you can use a straight slot screwdriver to remove it. If that won’t work in your case, another option is to use a left handed drill bit (with your cordless drill set to rotate counterclockwise) to back the screw out. The last “normal” option is to Dremel enough material away from around the head of the screw to where you can get a set of Vise-Grips on the head. Good luck, and remember- they call some planes experimental for good reason.

==========

Bigsquid,

Guys I am looking for information on the best way to tune the engine in my Ofna Ultra LX One nitro buggy. It’s a @#$%^ pain in the a$$ to start.

SlikPuppy
————–
SlikPuppy (I don’t even wanna know where you came up with that nicname), let me do you a HUGE favor. There is only one best way to tune your nitro engine- you hit it with a heavy sledge hammer that has been pre-tuned to resonate at 80 hz. Once the nitro engine has been crushed to bits, convert your buggy over to electric. There I’ve done it again, saved the world from another gashole. Have a nice day with a buggy that starts easily every single time, and you can thank me later.

YOUR Cub Reporter
Send your questions to cubby (at) bigsquidrc (dot) com!

Dear Cub Reporter, Audi R8 V-10 or Ferrari 458?
Elliott Sheak

Hey Elliott, thanks for writing in. Ya know, the Audi sure is an awesome piece of machinery no doubt, but it’s not a Ferrari, nothing else is, so if you have an extra quarter mill sitting in the bank, there isn’t really a choice. To buy anything other than the prancing horse would be just plain asinine.

==========

Cubby
The brushless motor I put in my Strike runs around 200 degrees, what pinion should I put on to run cooler?
Mista James

What’s up “Mista”? LOL. Gearing is so much fun! Here’s Cubby’s golden rule on gearing- start with the smallest pinion you have, monitor temps, and work your way up in pinion size without going over 160 degrees. Unfortunately for you, this rule won’t work. Why? Because if you’ve been shooting the temp on your motor, and it’s 200 degrees on the outside of the can, it’s gonna be much hotter than that on the inside. And because your motor has most likely been well over 200 degrees your rotor/magnet has gotten too hot and has been ruined. When you get the magnet inside your motor too hot, the kv of your motor will actually go up, but your motor efficiency goes way down. What that means to you is that your motor will pull more current for the same amount of power, and no matter how you gear it, it’s going to run too hot. Use your current motor for a nice paperweight (or replace the magnet if possible) and buy a new one. Oh and, don’t forget Cubby’s golden rule of gearing when you install your new motor.

YOUR Cub Reporter