Tamiya and other R/C vehicles (not just for Christmas)

I’m not the best person to ask for specific charger recommendations. My kit is all quite old now but in the 90’s I spent a lot of money on very high end chargers which would be total overkill for your purposes. Some of my chargers had PC interfaces!

In your situation I’d be looking for a moderately priced charger with adjustable settings from a reputable brand. That would probably be £30-40. Most are designed to work from 12v supplies, so you need either a car battery, or you can adapt an old PC power supply.

Avoid cheap chinese knock off chargers on ebay. Quality of the internal electronics is highly variable. I once bought one to use for lipos and the voltage calibration was way off. I was fortunate that the battery did not catch fire.

The other option is to look at the classified sections of some rc forums. e.g. oople .com

Virtually any charger from the last 15 years will be an improvement over what you currently have.

I bought a WL Toys A999 that was quite good fun but the battery life was just too low to have any real fun with it.

I’ve just dropped a load of cash on a new toy, I mean model – Hobbytech Revolt

Spent about an hour on the phone to my local model shop asking for advice, the owner was really helpful. It’s a bit of a minefield but he was very good at explaining it all, very impressed at the help to be honest. I was originally looking to buy an FTX Carnage or Vantage but went for this in the end. And the shop carries loads of spares for this and it’s one of their more popular models. Bought a proper charger for it and some spare batteries.

He recommended this charger – https://www.dms-racing.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=31957&virtuemart_category_id=528

Exciting Battery Experiment Update!

Battery#2 came off charge when I calculated it would and was warm. Therefore I think I was causing problems by not “resetting” the charger when I swapped them over.

Cool.

I bought an Overlander charger, about £30.
Works brilliantly, a good investment.
Sorry.

Will be starting the 2CV next week if I can find a cheap radio and decent servo in stock anywhere.
Not keen on the box art for either body, probably go yellow on the rally shell and something classic for the standard body – maybe red.
It’s getting a Sport Tuned and some alloy shocks, might turn it into a bit of a racer.

I think I’ve killed the servo in the buggy too, a kerb incident……might stick a slightly crazy motor in it whilst I’m at it….🙂

I bought a Skyrc 680

The difference for me was that the batteries got warm and lasted ages! (It also tells you how much charge it’s put into a battery)

You can set discharge and charge cycles, to leave it to recondition batteries overnight

Best of all it does all types of batteries, NiMH, nicad, life, lipo, etc.

Another Sky RC680 owner here too, a lot of charger for the money. I can remember spending £200+ back in the 90’s for a decent charger.

May I be the first person ever to sing the praises of Tamiya friction shocks or at least make them a bit better? I had Googled the subject, but all I could find was people saying to replace them.

I have just finished building up a Holiday Buggy and followed the instructions to build up the shocks including putting a bit of grease in them. To be fair, the instructions are just a little picture with no indication as to how much to put in. The results were completely rubbish. Two of them hardly returned at all after being compressed. I had already decided to buy the Tamiya oil shocks but they are going to take a while to arrive, so I decided to try to improve what I had.

All I did was take them off, take the top cap up and fill the rubber tube with bike grease completely. For what it’s worth, I used Weldtite TF2 Teflon grease. I put the top back on and compressed each shock. Grease came out around the top and bottom of the shock. I wiped that off but afterwards, they are miles better and seem to damp nearly as well as the oil shocks I have on another model. Who knows how long that will last but for now it seems to be doing the job. I suppose the amount of damping would depend on the thickness of the grease used.

New battery arrived and on charge. Old batteries behaving if I leave the charger to “rest” for a few minutes. Job done (hopefully).

In other news I’ve been home schooling my boy with the aid if RC cars. Double Win!

We weighed and measured the Grasshopper and Mad Bull then drew Force Vector diagrams to calculate why the Grasshopper flips and the Mad Bull doesn’t. Our findings were that it would take a load due to centripetal acceleration of 19N to roll one and 32.6N to roll the other, a 70% difference.

I think I lost him there. However, if he is really interested we could measure the turning radius of both cars and calculate the speed required to achieve this.

Who said that I wasted my time at University by getting pissed every night with Calderdale’s highest profile purveyor of bikes and trousers eh?!

Waiting on the Servo and RX still.
But it looks goooood.

Nice one.

I’ll get a picture of my lad with the Mad Bull. They have the same haircut.

Well I’ve just ordered a mad bull. For the kids of course….

What ball joints for the steering mod

and

can you put oil in the shocks? Or do I need to order new ones.

Need to pillage the electrics out of the sonic fighter for now but I’ll get both going at some point.

The mad bull will be able to deal with my reluctant approach to lawn mowing better. Hopefully!

Kit supplied suspension is just springs and the steering is fine when you consider the massive tyres.

Having just built one myself I wouldn’t go for anything more than the a set of bearings just yet. The crazy handling is part of it’s charm, as is the way it shakes like a s***ting dog under acceleration.

My existing car has dubious handling so the mad bull won’t be odd at all.

I wanted something more monster trucky for the rough and ready bit of garden. Hopefully this will be ok.

I was gonna get a rtr car (as the chassis and suspension is soooo much better for the money) but the kids were disappointed there would be no building involved!

I’ll defo get oil dampers as it makes a big difference when jumping etc.

The Mad Bull has managed pretty much everything that we’ve tried it on, but I’ve never played with a monster truck so have no frame of reference.

It will even drive straight over the Grasshopper like something out of a Top Gear stylie video.

A combination of lockdown money saving and following this thread has lead to me pulling the pin on an Associated Rival MT10. Currently out of stock but pre-ordered and looks great for the price.

https://www.tjdmodels.com/team-associated-rival-mt10-rtr-truck-brushless23s-rated-p-32733.html?cPath=14_66&fltAssembly%5B%5D=RTR%20%28Ready%20to%20Run%29&fltManufacturer%5B%5D=Team%20Associated

If anyone wants an old 1/10th nitro 4wd car as a project for free let me know…

Bullet, that’s are very kind offer, where are you based?

@HTS,

Curious, now you mention Uni, did you happen to work from the design studio on the top floor with the arched windows? Does the name Keith Sherwin send a shiver down your spine?

@diz – I’m in Bedfordshire. The thing ran the last time I used it about 10 years ago. Engine still turns using the pull start, shocks still bounce and the wheels still turn. It’s just really dirty, tyres are shot and the Impreza bodyshell is mullered. Have the old school stick transmitter, glo plug heater etc all in the box.

@Rockhopper70, Yep 1988-92.

I quite liked Sherwin, it was Simon Barrans that used to tie my head in knots.

You too?

HTS, small world!

Simon Barrans ended up, I believe, courting one of the very few female students on the course. I saw them together at Hawkstone Park for a world trials championship round, so it must be true. He still had a mullet!

What year were you?

A bit of both, I was able to skip the industrial placement year as I did an apprenticeship so already had oily hands. Graduated in 94, I “think” . Does the name Steve Bowskill ring a bell? That’s not me BTW, but might have been one of the regulars on your year throughout if you fraternised with Zak Tempest.

Doesn’t ring a bell.

Maybe I was later, started as you finished. Went back to take the daughter for a look around, the place has certainly changed. St Peters student union is no more.

Coming along…

Just plumbing in the electrics. The antenna seems incredibly short. It’s going to come about half way up the antenna pole. Is that as expected or am I meant to extend it myself?

If you use 2.4ghz the aerials are generally much shorter than for the old 40mhz and 27mhz receivers

It’s 17 cm (~6.6”), which sounds more than it looks on real life!

Which sounds fine for 2.4 ghz, but too short for 27mhz or 40mhz.

Is your radio 2.4ghz?

Yes it is 2.4 ghz. Must be right, just going to look very silly to my old school eyes I guess with only 4 inches sticking out.

@timmys I just run mine inside the car. Mine is modern car kit right enough. Shell was marked where you could drill but haven’t had any issues running it in the range I’m comfortable with.

My 2.4 gHz aerial is only about 50mm long and it works fine with a range further than I can see.

And we are done.

That looks fast just sat still 🙂

Do they do them with side pods to protect the wiring as it looks slightly vulnerable?

That Hotshot looks great.

I always wanted a Boomerang (or an Avante, of course) growing up, which I think was the same car with a different body.

Edit – just had a look and the rear suspension was a bit more conventional on the Boomerang.

Loving thid thread.
I had a couple of Tamiyas when I was a kid, and they could possibly still be in my Mum and Dads attic. A Sand Scorcher and a Cheetah. Both git rather battered and many layers of paint.

Took ours for a walk yesterday, Neo Scorcher and Bigwig, batteries lasted for over 2km, best way of getting my youngest out. Plenty of bone dry offroad footpaths around here. had them out in the mud and snow as well, dusty and dry is the best, donuts for the win.

Any chance of pics of the Bigwig? That was my mid-eighties ultimate crush.

re. my Hotshot battery cable mess, I guess I can easily shorten with this?;
https://www.modelsport.co.uk/mtroniks-tamiya-style-connector-female-/rc-car-products/28848

Stumpy01 – The Boomerang and the Avante were totally different. The Boomerang was perhaps the pinnacle of the hotshot-type chassis, superseded only by the Bigwig (which was heavier, slightly more cumbersome and had a more complex steering mechanism).

The Avante was a preposterously complex, overengineered from the ground up masterpiece. Fragile, too heavy and not competitive without some pretty substantial mods, it was also utterly lovely, beautiful to build and look at, and a joy to drive (carefully). The modern rerelease address some of the most glaring issues of the original – it’s not as fragile, and modern running gear means that the weight isn’t nearly as much of an problem. They fixed more of the issues at the time as hopups, and released the kit as the Egress.

OK, I’ll un-nerd now.

timmys just for you.
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