RC Cars: Introduction

Hello everyone, today I would like to tell you about RC Cars, radio-controlled cars. This is a hobby and quite fun. For myself, I find in him at least some fraction of reality. Sitting for days riveting buttons on Backbone and React has become a routine and you need to somehow dilute this business. I was always drawn to iron, robots to design. Of course, this somehow overlaps with the development, but a bit dry. It is difficult to say why I bought raspberry pi almost 4-5 years ago and did nothing on it except for simple hello worlds. And I have two of them.

But anyway, now I have a real piece of iron, not only from silicon but also from aluminum, carbon fiber and plastic weighing + 5 kg, which wears faster than I even wanted. This is the first article in a short cycle, in which I will briefly walk around the world of RC cars. Further, it will be specifically on the details, their properties, how to collect, handle and store your creation.

The power element of the machines can be an electric motor or internal combustion engine.

ICE are on nitro and it seems on gasoline. From the pros - bother to the fullest with maintenance and tuning, sound, flooded the fuel and forward another circle. Of the minuses - all those pluses that you do not like.

Electric motors, in turn, are of two main designs - Brushed and Brushless. The first in fact is simply the last century, and the second is modern. Of the pros lack the minuses of ICE engines. Of the minuses - the batteries need to be charged in order to ride. And at first you will be soared for a very long time with the selection of parameters. But we will discuss this in the following articles, everything is actually not so complicated. Of the minuses, you can still add handling with batteries. We will also discuss in more detail in a separate article on batteries.

Car classes

There are many different classes, but since we are adults, consider the most boring.

Buggy

This class is designed for a fairly fast ride on the highway. Very often it is this class that is popular in competitions. On such machines you can jump and confidently go into a turn. I didn’t ride this class, but I saw it more than once - it looks very convincing :) If you want competitions, then this class is for you.

Short course

As for me, the class is aesthetically beautiful and very similar in feeling, the speakers are with real short course cars, especially on a large scale on an internal combustion engine. Ideal for dusty trails and beaches. Also often take part in competitions.

Truggy

In the photo, my handsome. The hat has a bare chassis. This is my favorite at the moment. By belonging it is a kind of cross between a Buggy and a monster. This class has large wheels which are similar in their parameters to those used on monster models but at the same time have a stiffer suspension. This is the perfect class if you cannot choose between JUMP !!! and drive !!! With this class, you get both of them, a kind of Fullstack. Such cars can also take part in competitions, in principle, I caught myself thinking that with any class you can arrange competitions. Just with this class it will be less likely to have an official look.

There is the concept of Bashing in the translator; an explanation is given such - violent physical assault. Which basically corresponds to the description. To bash is to jump, to land high, and not always successfully land at high speeds. The chassis of the model must be strong. Anything can fly off :)

Drift

These cars really drift. They are beautiful, as a rule they are exact copies of various car models. Lights and all kinds of piu-piu shine. The only negative is that they need good tracks. Since it’s a pleasure to drift on asphalt with solid wheels. But from the pluses, if such a route is in your city, then it is most likely year-round.

Crawlers

Communities joke that this is for older people. Typically, crawlers are mini copies of real cars to ride slowly and tinker with in the mud. And just as the name implies - to climb.

There are many more classes, these were the main ones. Alternatively, an interesting class would be Drag. These are models for drag racing and there are no modeling limits. For them, even the tracks are appropriate.

Scale

Sizes of cars are different. The most popular ones are 1:10, 1: 8, 1: 5 in ascending order. I understand that 1: 1 is the real size?

The larger the scale, the more components and the more powerful and correspondingly more expensive.

My tragedy on a 1: 8 scale cost me about:

Chassis $ 240

Regulator and motor: ~ $ 150

Servo Drive: ~ $ 55

Battery: ~ $ 60

Radio Control: $ 50

Total: $ 550, not counting the battery charge, which is also about $ 60

We will talk more about components in the following parts.

Where to buy

It is about the same as with computers. You want something special and your own, especially if you like to collect things yourself, then the machine can be assembled in parts. To do this, there are stores both international and local. Do not count for advertising. For informational purposes only. Perhaps the most famous is hobbyking.com, but it really isn’t such a great choice. On it I bought my chassis. On such international sites have to take into account tax. RC cars are not the cheapest, especially when it comes to scales from 1: 8. Therefore, for starters, it’s worth looking for local sellers.

As a life hack, I recommend finding lovers in your city and chatting with them. It is quite possible to meet people who not only love this hobby, but also try to organize something around this topic, and with a non-zero probability they can get you good discounts from local dealers.

Where to drive

For the most part, you can drive wherever you want. But try to search for tracks in your city. There is a considerable chance that someone rents cars to children and a good track is equipped on the spot. Open air tracks are usually seasonal. Spring Summer Autumn. And in winter, amateurs gather in the gyms of schools. In principle, nothing prevents you from skiing in the winter, but you should take into account the features of the batteries and the generally unpleasant cold :) The second life hack in this article can be awarded the following advice - if you like dusty tracks with jumps, but there aren’t such cars in the city for RC cars, then Find fans of motorcycling, downhill or bmx and drive on their tracks. Only you yourself understand - be careful with this :) You do not want to fly into someone or scare them.

Next will be ...

• RC Cars: Electric Motors
• RC Cars: ESC Regulators
• RC Cars: Chassis and Servo Drives
• RC Cars: Batteries
• RC Cars: How I put together my car expectations and reality

Ask questions, I will be happy to answer them :)

Thanks Capacitor10n corrected a typo

Thanks mtkachowA for a bunch of edits :))

Thanks wernisag corrected a typo