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

solarider
Full Member

In a strange change of direction, we are now considering the Carisma Range Rover. Can’t quite justify the Traxxis R4 Defender as a first car but this looks decent and a cut above the FTX stuff.

In reality we will probably use the car outside on walks and the 24th scale stuff seems better suited to inside.

It’s a bit more money, but is it a bit more car or are we just better off sticking with the FTX type stuff?

It’s very good tbh. Not sure why but it and the pickup seem to be a popular “first crawler for the kid” when one of the parents is really into it. Self rights pretty well and seems durable, and really nice to look at It’s a nice inbetweeny size because of the smaller wheels, you get massively more capability than a mini crawler but without it seeming massive.

The size is a plus and minus though, it does have much less ground clearance which can lead to getting annoyingly stuck more often (this drives me crazy, it’s very suspension-of-disbelief breaking for me when you get the diff stuck on a root or something and it just stops dead, or when you’re having fun crawling some tech feature and it gets high centred much easier than other trucks… But not everyone would feel the same, and kids are generally more up for dealing with stuff by wheel speed, ramming, etc). But the flipside is being a bit more managable, easier to carry, and often more fun on smaller stuff.

But, pound for pound it’s not as good a buy as the newer FTX/RGT/etcs, though they have different strengths. The Fury is cheaper, less scale but a much more capable crawler (partly because it’s a fair bit bigger, but it’ll go places that the Carisma just can’t attempt- or a TRX4 for that matter). Parts availability is generally good (though i don’t know how brexit and covid’s affected that) and interchangability with the SCX10 for axles and the like is also decent. Reliability went up loads over the earlier FTXs, they literally just looked at the stuff that was breaking and upgraded it. Worth shopping around as you can get literally the same truck under different brands at different prices, and also some interesting variations.

(The Outback 2 is just slightly too far on the cheap side to recommend now, it’s great fun but breaks parts just a bit too easily- a few generations old basically. The parts are generally easy to find and cheap but it still spoils your drive, and downtime is irritating. Also you end up paying £3.50 for modelsport postage on a £6 part which is always infuriating.)

Thanks Northwind. That’s really helpful. Carisma Range Rover RTR on its way! Seems like Modelsport is the default in this new world?

@chrioffer , nowt wrong with that. Looks fine for a driver. First drive on anything remotely gravelly and it’ll be chipped to hell anyway, mine certainly were.

Merak’s shells look amazing but I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to drive them.

@clubby – looks better on the pic to be fair, I obviously didn’t do enough coats of white as the yellow has bled through. But you’re spot on, as soon as it’s been rolled on tarmac a few times it’ll be reet!

Started the 2CV M-05 ra build last night, going to have a great time building the chassis I think.

I recently bought my 5yr old daughter one of these:

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t up to the standard of my Neo Fighter or anything like that, but it’s bloody good for £12.
It’s basic radio control so not digital proportional, but it is a 2.4GHz controller.

It takes 4AA batteries in the car, so we’ve bought some rechargeables. They seem to be lasting well.
It isn’t a very fast car, so it perfect for her to get the hang of controlling. She’s tried my Neo Fighter, but it’s just way too much. This is small enough to trundle around the house & easy to control.

The only slightly annoying thing is that the steering servo is quite noisy & keeps making the noise all the time that the steering is being used. It’s a bit odd, but for £12 I really can’t grumble.

I thought it might be worth mentioning in case there are others looking for a small easily controllable car for a youngster.
Most of the cars irrespective of price just seem to focus on speed, which we’re not too interested in at this stage.

@chrispoffer

That Renault looks great! I think it’s acknowledged that’s one of the trickiest modern Tamiya shells to paint!

The shells I do are pretty straightforward nothing too difficult. I don’t use them just a hobby to sell on eBay.

I’ve got a brusheless lipo stadium truck for kicks that I dont mind the odd scratch on. Didn’t stop me gaffa taping the whole underside to keep it safe. Really good tip I got from a model shop guy.👍

This guy does some amazing work, his accent is great too.

£12…..! That looks like great fun, a good intro.

That guy’s great, accent is worth watching for.

I couldn’t find a Tamiya Maxi 5 shell so I got an equivalent from Arion. The Tamiya shell looks better – but this one’s really to keep the 2CV shell ‘nice’ so doesn’t really matter. Once I get the 2CV finished. Might watch a few vids before I start it, when I did my first one I didn’t even realise that soapy water was the best way to clean the shell before painting and between coats etc.

@timmys Thanks for that vid. Couple hours research and that has been bought. Its for my sons 5th birthday. Honestly….. 4 weeks on a slow boat from China but under 75 quid.

Its for my sons 5th birthday

ooh 5. I know I said it was tough, but I’d recommend you look for a very big open space with absolutely no hard objects around! Or buy a second one for spares now.

Like I said. Honesty its for him…..

Another MkII!

Fantastic, but I fear for the headlights!

Got a few MkIIs on my Scalextric. Only for the grown-ups.

@Stumpy, I think that’s the exact car I blame for getting me into crawlers. Had a lot of fun with it then blew up the stock electronics while experimenting with voltage.

@northwind – hopefully my daughter won’t wreck it too quickly! It’s basic but pretty good. Not really had a proper go of it round the garden yet.

I know I smashed it down the stairs a few times and it didn’t seem to mind- it’s so light that it doesn’t have the momentum destroying it like bigger stuff has.

Just had a good morning in the shed, built a cheap crawler for my 7 year old lad. And it’s way better than mine🤔
We got him a £40 1/16 scale army truck a while ago and it was pants (was going to send it back to shop). It got shelved for months. I did not realise how gutted he was about it till recently.
So I got some 1/10 crawler axles and gearbox off Amazon. And built them onto the original chassis, it’s just straight steel rails. So wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Success. He will beat me on anything now though. Weird how things work. He was so happy he gave me a big hug.
Might try copying it for me

.

After a week with the Carisma SCA1E Range Rover, it’s flipping’ brilliant! Never owned a ‘proper’ RC so to me it’s mind blowing. Now I really want a Traxxis Defender! I pride myself on being able to handle any bike maintenance job, but this is a whole new world of fat fingered challenge. Fitted some LEDs which entailed removing 4 x 1.5mm bolts and cabling a tiny plug into the receiver – haven’t sweated like that even on a strenuous ride for years!!!

Got solarider jnr an Outback Ranger XC (1/16th) and apart from the short lived dedicated battery (only available in low MHA, so we got a couple spare) it’s equally brilliant.

I partly blame this thread but thanks!

That Range Rover looks like the start of a spending habit….. Which seems to have infected us too.

My son loved playing with my Unimog so much that he’s bought his own crawler from his pocket money and savings –

DSC_0151 by Chrispoffer Lawrence[/url], on Flickr

DSC_0156 by Chrispoffer Lawrence[/url], on Flickr

It’s an FTX Kanyon. Looks good doesn’t it? It’s physically massive. Very slow after the Unimog but will climb anything and of course much less chance of rolling or flipping it too. A definite hit.

Meanwhile, in the faster end of the car park I give you –

DSC_0149 by Chrispoffer Lawrence[/url], on Flickr

DSC_0143 by Chrispoffer Lawrence[/url], on Flickr

So this is the M05-ra 2CV with my ‘practice’ Renault 5 Maxi Turbo shell. The kit’s standard apart from steel bearings instead of plastic and the Tamiya Sport motor instead of the standard one. It’s quick enough to make you dizzy and crashes well over the jumps at the scoot park. Really stable, the weight’s really low down. Corners as fast as you like. Going to start the 2CV body over the bank holiday weekend I think but might save it for best.

Where’s that like button?

I think I’m about to add my voice to people cursing this thread! Having equipped the family with various bits of RC Lego at Christmas, I now find myself tempted by some proper RC. Looking at fast and off-road as there are few spots nearby which I think would work well. I’m currently looking at a Traxxas Rustler 4×4 VXL, but would be interested in other suggestions for similar sort of spec/price.

I’ve just googled that Traxxas and it looks awesome, you should have great fun with that. You’ll not have the fun of building it of course (like the Tamiya stuff) but it should be ready to go straight out of the box.

I had Tamiya stuff as a kid, although sadly I’ve got no idea whose attic my old Thunder Shot ended up in.

I quite enjoy building, but actively dislike painting the shell (I’m in awe of some of the efforts on this thread!) and am happy to go with something pre-built this time around.

The Arrma 3s range is a very good alternative to the Traxxas stuff.

Seems to be just as tough, a bit more modern and a little cheaper.

Very impressed with my Big Rock.
3s is crazily fast, but I usually run it at 50% power, selectable on the controller.

Gents, bought the car in the link for my son and whilst its a fantastic car, the little tyke has managed to break one of the suspension arms. Have gone back to where I bought it ( RC Geeks) and they don’t do spares although say they are available. My google skill seem to be lacking in this instance but would appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction?

https://www.rcgeeks.co.uk/collections/rc-cars-kids/products/rcg-racing-1-14-rc-car-green

Just ordered another tank!

T34/85 in the post. Should have it for weekend when me and my lad will be re-enacting The Battle of Kursk in the woods behind my house.

@mmcd the Q901 I have for our five year old looks like it has some very similar parts on it to the ones in the pictures of the model you linked to. Cant say if they would actually fit but might be worth a try if you can’t find anything else; there is normally a fair selection up on eBay but most of it may take a while to arrive as I think it all comes straight from China.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393101423553

New Tank!

The decals failed to adhere, so I hand painted it. As the decals were basically hand painted slogans and numbers anyway and the real tanks were a bit “Rattey” I didn’t mind. Would have been annoyed if it was on a sharper looking tank though.

Heng Long T34 / 85

With the Tiger.

Rattey? WTF? Ratty.

Carry on.

Hand-painted looks authentic! 🙂

Thanks, I was really pissed off so I started looking for after market decals and they nearly all depicted really bad paint jobs, so I had a look at images of the real thing and they looked terrible!

Gah. Just dropped the radio of the first tank and broke it.

£30 gone.

When reading Harry’s thread about his tanks and their bb’s it reminded me that I had a tank just like his, given to me for my lad by an elderly neighbor.
Tanks are not really that interesting for a kid of today and I’m quite sorry to say it’s never been out of the box and is unlikely to ever!
Ron our elderly neighbor was a model train enthusiast and we helped him build a track so his engines could go around his garden and back into his shed which had amazing scenery and buildings and stations and sidings and probably everything an enthusiast would want. I don’t think tanks were his thing.
Unfortunately Ron passed last year but I know he would want his tank to go to someone like him. If any of STW’s model enthusiast would like it please shout. I’m sorry but I’m too technophobe to contemplate pictures but I’m happy to email any photos.

@Harry_The_Spider hand painted is win!👌

Yet more Escort. I’ve done a Colin McRae replica. Painted the spots to look like Cibie covers.

May yet have a go at the long black stripe the last incarnation of the car had.

That Escort looks fantastic.

A Russian colleague corrected the slogan for me as originally it just said Stalin! Now it has For Stalin! on one side and For The Motherland! on the other.

Hand painted looks better than the decals. A happy accident.

With improved Russian.

Only had about 5 minutes of IR “Scuffle Mode” before one of the radios got dropped and broken. When the new radio arrives we’ll have them out in the woods making noises and smoke.

RTR and they cost about the same as a Tamiya Grasshopper/Mad Bull bundle should anyone be tempted.

Discovered a great little car park in the village where we live – the overflow carpark of the golf club isn’t tarmac and the surface is brilliantly drifty and slidey, some very small shingle, some sand, some loam. Had a play last night and then the buggy died, not sure what’s up. Steering still moves but no drive, think the motor may have gone. Need to have a proper look at it. Was disappointed as I still had another battery to run through it

Stop it Harry………🙂

@benp1

Unplug the steering servo from the ESC and see if the motor works ok then.

Had the same symptom in my boys Rising Fighter. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to find it was the steering servo had shorted internally. I had changed the motor, receiver and ESC before I figured it out.