otrcman

Hey guys,

I'm an RC airplane flyer. No experience with cars other than watching my kids run off-road when they were teenagers back in the 1980's. I have been involved in supporting some soldiers in Afganistan to get them RC airplane stuff for recreation in their off hours. This has been well received all around, and now I'm starting to think about adding RC cars to the mix. They certainly don't have a lack of dirt !

My problem is this: I need some ideas on the sort of products that would best serve the soldiers. Here are some of the considerations.

1. Needs to be electric due to problems shipping fuel.

2. Needs to be plenty durable (at the cost of performance) due to the 3 week delay time in shipping replacement parts.

3. Can't take too much support equipment to assemble or maintain. Soldering, for instance, may be prohibitive.

4. Cost should be reasonable. We don't want to send junk that breaks right away, but need to keep things affordable.

5. I could use suggestions on the type of cars that would fit the above limitations and also what support equipment and replacement parts should be included up-front.


My vision is to get the guys set up with at least two cars. The way we did this with the planes was to set up an online "gift registry", much like a bridal registry where people buy towels & toasters & dishes for newlyweds. Our contact soldier in Afganistan listed out the airplane stuff that his guys would need and anyone in the states could go to the registry site, pick out something within his budget, buy it and have it sent to the soldiers. Each time something is purchased, it is automatically noted on the registry so that duplicate purchases are not made.

In the case of the airplane stuff, we used Hobby Lobby as the primary source because they offered free shipping to military APO addresses. It takes about 3 weeks from the time a purchase is made until it arrives at the base in Afganistan. Our contact soldier posts pictures of his guys with their new toys on the RCU forum page. You can see what has been done with the RC planes by going to:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10..._1/key_/tm.htm


Thanks in advance for any ideas, Dick

LewAshby

Rock crawling sounds to be the ideal solution.

Link119

My Feedback: (1)

Or some traxxas 2wd xl5s.
Monster truck ish http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...=LXNJJ0**&P=SM
Stadium Truck http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...=LXNJH9**&P=SM

deviltrigger529

A budget would be very helpful, but I agree with the above about any of the Traxxas 2wd, or even the VXL models if its in the budget which we dont know.

otrcman

Thanks for the responses. As far as budget goes, I don't know what the costs are in the RC car business. For the airplanes, there seemed to be sufficient donations to buy a Ready To Fly plane at $180, a radio at $100 and a charger at $100. Five LIPOs have ben donated at about $25 each. So that gives some idea of what people have been willing to donate.

Dick

SyCo_VeNoM

RC cars are cheaper than planes

Traxxas XL-5 RTR is $180. Could use another battery, and a decent charger. Chargers are $20-$40 or so for one that will charge any battery chemistry. Lipos are $20ish a pop from certain manufacturers.

There are other RC's in that ballpark too. Just traxxas is usually the favorite for lower cost RC's that will take a beating

ThunderbirdJunkie

My Feedback: (3)

ThunderbirdJunkie will see what he can do with donating a charger to the cause. Are we going lipo or sticking with NiMh? If any soldering needs to be done, ThunderbirdJunkie will volunteer that, too.

To anybody that's in the sandbox, keep your head down and get home safe.

LewAshby

With all the posts about how people have problems with Traxxas just on the first page alone, is it really a wise idea to go with one?

otrcman

Thank you for your willingness to help. Right now I'm just putting out the feelers to see what way to go. For instance, I note that the radio that comes with the XL-5 RTR is on 27 mhz. I will need to find out whether that frequency can be used in Afganistan. Once all those sorts of questions are worked out I'll post a notice here that donations will be accepted. We just started the airplane project at Christmas time and need to let that activity settle out before moving into cars. But I really think cars have more potential than airplanes in the long run because novices can have at least some success driving right away as compared to flying an airplane.

Dick

john01374

I too would suggest Traxxas. Specifically the 2WD stampede. In the RC world it doesn't get much simpler or much more durable than The Pede.

The stock Electronics are great. The only thing I would recommend is a couple of spare titan motors, couple of extra batteries and a good charger.