Anybody else tired of blue colored anodized parts? Goodness knows I am. What made one-off works parts look so trick a decade ago, is standard equipment on every Chinese knock-off entering America. Ever notice the first hundred times you listened to “Come On Eilene” by Dexys Midnight Runners was ok, but the 101st time you wanted to stick a hot soldering iron into your eardrums? Same can be said for blue anodizing. Please, please industry, put this one to rest, it’s not 1998 anymore.

Which brings me to the new X-Ray T2‘ 009 touring cars. Plenty of anodizing on these remote control works of art, but it’s hard to describe the color other than “trick”. Seems Juraj Hudy is sick of blue as well, and decided to set the new standard on what high-end looks like now days. Props to him, props to X-ray.

So when is an American high end chassis manufacture going to pop up? There is lots of American talent around, and a need from the racing crowd for an elite/luxury race oriented chassis company. Maybe pull Gary Owens back into the scene for sales, Mike Ogle back out of the midwest for marketing, and grab a couple 20 something “wet behind the ears” engineering rc gear-heads for some “fresh to the industry” race platforms? Just say’n, there is a niche for uber trick race cars that weren’t engineered overseas and built in China.

And yes, I have to go there- the Novak press release. For those of you that didn’t see it this week, I’ll boil it down for you. If you run their motors above 175 degrees F, they will not warranty them. Now, for long time hobbyist, I doubt they expect any piece of electronics to have any real warranty to start with, as they’ve been taught over the years that nearly anything rc comes with a 50/50 warranty. Meaning the item is warrantied for 50 feet out of the store, or for 50 seconds from time of purchase, whichever is longer.

Now personally, I have a lot of respect for Bob Novak, not only for his leading edge electronics over the years, but mainly because he was the first “mainstream” electronic manufacture to jump into the brushless game. He jumped in head first, while all the other main-streamers wouldn’t touch the “new” technology. It took balls to do that, props to him.

So why issue a press release on not warrantying the motors? Can any good come out of it? That “term” of the warranty is probably already in the manual. So why issue what is essentially a negative press release?

Seems the guys at Novak are having some problems, problems with consumers using their motor with speedo’s that do not use a motor temp sensor, and consumers disabling the temp sensor on their Novak controllers. Why would a consumer want to do that? I blame ROAR, at least for the second scenario.

Brushless motors are a huge advancement in technology over brushed. It’s not really a fair fight. Yet, the brain surgeons at ROAR think it’s a good idea to include brushless motors in “stock” classes. The “stock” classes have been a deep belly laugh joke for nearly two decades now. Established as a way of keeping costs down, a class for beginning racers, and a way to “even out” the power output for racers, it’s nothing more than time and money intensive now days. And while a few noobs might race stock, it’s filled with far more 20 year experts than 2 week noobs.

So brushless motors hit the scene. ROAR, our most beloved of sanctioning bodies come up with the great idea that brushless “needs” to be allowed in stock racing. At first, they imply that 13.5 brushless winds is “equal” to a stock 27 turn brushed motor. Local racers gear the crap out of their 13.5’s and easily pwn every brushed motor on the track. Then ROAR decides that 17.5 brushless winds is “equal” to stock. Then racers are forced to gear even higher to make their ultra low kv brushless motors out-yank the brushed counterparts. Absolutely insane gear ratios must be used to get the 17.5’s up to speed with the brushed motors, such tall gearing that racers have to disable the temp sensor to have enough speed (even if it does end up ruining the motor). If you know anything about electrics, gearing anything to the moon is going to cause the motors to run really, really, really hot. Way hotter than 175 degrees, and easily hot enough to de-mag the rotor and ruin it. I equate what ROAR has done here to this- cars are much faster than horses, yet, there is no place on the planet where you take the tires off a car to slow it down to race “head to head” against a horse. Brushless is simply that much more advanced than brushed.

Can we face some facts here? The stock class isn’t doing what it was intended to do anymore. Old school hard-core racers will bitch and complain if it’s eliminated (let’s just clean house and ditch 19 turn as well), but at some point the sport must evolve if it is to grow. Use new rules/classes to highlight the good points of brushless like longer run times and nearly no maintenance. Done properly, even those hard, old school farts will have more fun than ever racing. Don’t force people to gear their under kv’ed brushless motors to death competing in an obsolete class, which in turn will keep Bob and the rest of the boys in orange from having to deal with needless warranty issues.

To change subjects- there was some interest in the blurb from Caster Racing about their new 8th scale brushless buggy, so the BigSquidRC test and head cheese at BSRC are going to try and work with the guys at Caster to show the world how well, and at what price point, an 8th scale brushless buggy can work. Can a good working BL buggy be done for under $800, $500, or less? Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the full test.

That’s it for this week, thanks for reading, support your LHS’s and tracks, and of course, forget your daily dose of BigSquidRC.

Your Cub Reporter

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Where is the 8th scale brushless revolution? Has that “trend of the day” already been surpassed?

The technology has been available to make this work for at least a year now, but there are only two non-conversion 8th scale electric buggies out on the market right now, the Caster EX-1R, and the Losi Eight-E. It’s been more than 2 years that all the internet forum fanatics have been screaming at the top of their lungs that each new 8th scale released should have been electric. Some industry insiders are still amazed that as each major trade show passes, there aren’t larger amounts of new 8th scales BL’s being shown. So what’s the freak’n hold up?

Some “in the know” say it’s strictly price point. Let’s look at the Horizon/Losi Eight E. Most hobby shops are selling it for $829. To actually get it on the road, it’ll take another $200 for a battery, at least $50 for a charger, and add another $150 dollars for a transmitter, receiver, and steering servo. That brings the total up to over $1200. This price is not Horizon’s attempt to rob every rc enthusiast in America, it’s simply a fair price for the technology needed to do a proper 8th scale electric buggy.

Others in the industry say the technology is not quite there yet. The Castle Monster speedo is now on a third revision to fix gremlins, while Novak’s HV Pro has also shown more issues than it’s 10th scale baby brothers. Both companies have relatively rock solid 18th and 10th scale systems, but it seems that all that extra weight, rotating mass, and current draw of 8th scale requires a large leap in technology. Lithium based batteries are also seeing problems when used in the big rigs. Vented/puffed cells, burnt tabs, and low cycle life is more the norm than the exception when used in 8th scalers. This is no small problem, as the typical 8th scale set-up requires at least $200 worth of cells to achieve decent performance.

My opinion? Probably a bit of both of the above, plus the fact that 8th scale buggies and truggies are nearly track specific. They are awesome at getting around a bombed out dirt track, but aren’t the preferred bashing weapon. This really leads to a limited crowd to sell to. Take that limited crowd and see if they are willing to cut the check for over a grand to get in, and that limits the field even more so.

It seems the people that really want to see 8th scale electric succeed are the guys that love electric, and drive weekly on bombed out 8th scale dirt tracks. If the industry can come out with a more 10th scale size/weighted vehicle that can get around easily on these tracks, yet can use 10th scale type BL/Li-po systems (and price point!), then that’s where the real cash will start rolling in.

On a different note, the head Squid here is looking for a Cub Report sponsor. It seems the 3 readers I have must re-read my babbling thousands of times a week. So if you are a manufacture and are looking for a good value for your advertising bucks, email Brian at Bigsquidrc dot com and jump on board. No, it won’t save your company from being blasted if you decided to start selling junky equipment, but it will go a long ways towards your brands name recognition (at least for 3 readers).

Also, if you are a manufacture, shoot Brian products for revue. You’ll be given a good honest review, and with the view numbers BigSquidRC is getting these days, you’ll get your product in front of a more core audience than any typical print rag. The reviews here really seem to matter! Most google searches bring up BSRC reviews first!

Till next week, support your LHS, your local track, and read your BigSquid every single day.

Your Cub Reporter

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