I have an 8-year old that is in love with all things remote control. The kid has a real basic (cheap, maybe 1/18?) car that he races around and loves a RC helicopter an uncle got him. I'm thinking of a bigger RC car kit, something we can wrench on together and help him understand how it all works. BUT, I don't know how they work. I have basic mechanic skills, but I'm confused on the terminology and what I need to add to the kit. I'm looking at a Tamiya Grasshopper, and it looks like it comes with an ESC, but some places say the one it comes with doesn't work with the kit. I know I need to add a transmitter, and receiver, but which receivers will work with the kit? And which servos? (And I know I need a battery and charger.) Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I think I'll be out the door between $200 - 250, which is stretching the budget, but it'll be totally worth it. Any other setups I should look at?

Are there any online tutorials or youtube videos anyone can point me to? I'm not even sure what the right google search would be to get started.

Ur looking for a kit only?
Ur could get an rtr redcat racing vehicle. They r cheap and entry level so wrenching on them will come. I started with a redcat tornado s30 and an rs10 I loved them both. Only thing I had problems with was servos.

I hAve a grasshopper with the electronic speed controller or (ESC) as most call it . it works great its easy to work on and a ball to drive . down side the shocks suck I would get a Tamiya hornet over the grass hopper its the same care but with a few upgrades. as for a radio check out this one http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXAVSY&P=0 and get s s3003 futABA SERVO and a 6 cell battery and chrager. and your good to go. there are cheeper radios but I would get a pistol grip radio in two channel cause that's what you need 1 channel for sterring and 1 for gas.

most common servos and radio receivers are plug & play.
Most any Tamiya kit is a good first vehicle to build. Me and my 11 year old daughter built a Tamiya lunch box together.
Tamiya kits do have very good manuals.


the futaba 3003 servos will do the job. I prefer Tower Pro MG996r servos that can be found on ebay for about $10-$15. They have metal gears and more torque. Not really needed in a light 2wd buggy, but nice to have.

The kit's ESC is just fine. There are many much better ones and it would be nice if Tamiya upgraded the one in the kits to a more modern ESC. But it does the job just fine.

You have the terminology pretty much down. ESC, Radio, Receiver, battery (NIMH for now...no need to go lipo) 540 motor (standard size motor for 1/10 scale models) and standard size servo.
Grab the grasshopper or hornet kit, any cheap 2.4ghz radio and a cheap 7.2v battery that is at least 3000mah (mah=capacity, more equals more runtime) and make sure that the battery has the white Tamiya (also called molex) plug which will match the plug on the kit's ESC. You can buy a male and female deans or traxxas plug to put on the ESC and battery....they are higher quality plugs. Again, nice to have but the stock plugs do the job.

This is a good tutorial. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-c...ead-first.html
And this forum has a lot of folks with lots of experience, so ask away.

Tower Hobbies is the Big Supplier online. But some real good stuff can also be had at places like HobbyPartz.com. They carry Chinese-made stuff that is really decent and the prices are a lot less. There are only certain things I would buy there, I wouldn't buy vehicles, but if you're looking for motor systems, LiPos and chargers, or radio systems, you can get good stuff for a lot less. For example, you could get that Futaba radio for $69 , or you could get this FlySky Radio with ten car memory, large display, and more adjustments like end-points for even less! (I have that radio and love it) I'd also recommend this charger. Can't beat it for the price. The Gens Ace LiPos are great and decently priced. They are also highly rated by Big Squid in a LiPo shootout. But for now, NiMhs are probably your speed.

EXT2rob, I was actually surprised last spring when I bought my SC10 off towerhobbies that they had 2s 5000mah lipos for $45. a similar pack on hobbypartz would be about $30. but factor in that I got free shipping on towerhobbies and the price is pretty close. But with towerhobbies you get a better warranty.

That said, I have bought maybe 8 or 10 lipos (cars and planes) off hobbypartz. They all worked well and are certainly low cost. Only downside is that hobbypartz is often out of stock on the best stuff.

towerhobbies does have Onyx 3000mah nimh battery packs for $20. That is a pretty decent price. The 5000mah pack for $35 would be better tho.

The thunder AC6 or Imex B6 chargers are good cheap chargers. My thunder AC6 is over a year old...with how many trucks I have that must be 100's of charges on it. It does well for a $50 charger. It will charge nimh packs....and when in the future you upgrade to lipo batteries you can also charge lipos on it.

Hmm...they warranty their BATTERIES? How does that work?

The thing about other batteries, Lipos, made by say Onyx or Traxxas, is that they only seem to offer 25C packs for that $45. For the same price, I can get a 50C pack from HPz. But yeah, you have to catch them while they're in stock. 8^/ That's their only downfall. And now, we've got the FAA looking into fires and explosions that are caused by LiPo batteries during flight, we might have a harder time getting them?

Has anyone ever even DONE experiments with Lipo batteries as to how they behave in high-altitude low-temp environments? I doubt it. We all know that a damaged Lipo pack is dangerous. I suspect that these Lipo fires on planes are caused by cells getting damaged in handling. If the cheap, cereal-box-like, cardboard box with a little bubble wrap around the battery inside is any indication of how they are shipped, that could be a problem! But what will the FAA do? Require proper packaging? Vacuum chamber "altitude" tests to screen out defective packs at the factory? No. They will probably just BAN them from all airplanes. Just like they will probably ban "drones" because some people are too stupid to realize that flying a large-ish quad-copter next to an airport might be a problem.

But I digress....

well, when a I say warranty, I mean that if it should come DOA I doubt you would have any trouble getting it replaced.

Hobbypartz did replace a GT3b radio for me without any issues tho. They are better than buying direct from china via ebay.

I am not sure that lipos on a plane (even at altitude) are an issue. I would think if anything, low temps would help prevent them for rupturing a cell.

RC planes and helis having lipos catching on fire often has to do with a lipo that is not up to the task (a 20c lipo when you should have used a 30 or 40c pack)
Poor quality cells can become unbalanced, but any time that has happened to my packs there is not enough juice left in them to cause a fire.
Ive had a pack go bad (3s, 1 dead cell) were the good cells only had 3v. beat it with a bat....did see a puff of smoke and that was it. A lipo has to have a decent amount of charge and be either stressed (overdrawn or overcharged) or punctured in order to get the fire.

I have heard of NIMH cells catching fire too. And even a decent NIMH pack can get fairly hot at the end of a race or bash session.

woops, off topic