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The End of An Era: Novak Closing After 38 Years


53HRA

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Oh well, I've never rated their electrics anyway, I remember the very expensive (in its day) brushed esc I had about 10 years ago and it smoked the first time it had a battery connected, ever since then Ive steered well clear :lol: 

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1 hour ago, .AJ. said:

Oh well, I've never rated their electrics anyway, I remember the very expensive (in its day) brushed esc I had about 10 years ago and it smoked the first time it had a battery connected, ever since then Ive steered well clear :lol: 

 

I know someone who bought one of their ESCs from a shop in the US as no where in the UK sold it.

Took ages to turn up and went pop the first time they turned it on,I was warned away from them by him.

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Had loads of novak stuff when i was racing never any issues.  A mate got a broken one from a pro driver. He sent it to the US and got it fixed for about £15 lol

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Yeah, I used their Rooster ESCs as well. They were beasts! Took a ridiculous amount of power. Also, I still use their 40mhz receiver, in one of my cars. Doesn't use crystals, instead, you adjust dials on the face of the receiver, to match the crystal frequency of the transmitter. Pretty neat.

 

This news saddens me. :(

 

Goodbye, Novak!

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I wonder if the havoc pro did them in   as i had the original havoc and it was better than a castle setup.  but the pro didn't seem to sell very well.

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when i first got into the hobby, this was a big name in the industry, never owned any products myself, so dont have any personal experience, but its always sad to hear another company shutting down

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For me, their first 'failure' was the HV Maxx - kept blowing them up - cost me money!!

I did go for the 4.5, not the 5.5 as recommended for the E-Maxx ...

Never forget that 'I wonder how it revs' moment before I fitted the pinion, until I realised I was potentially making a 50k maximum revs motor go at 85k, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that it went 'pop'!!

 

I always used the Super Roosters - powering stop lights as well ... early days.

 

Still have a Mongoose on my 1/18 Raminator - goes fine.

 

Al.

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Had a few of their HV systems, all vented. Shame, there weren't many large sensored systems available. I did always wonder if the orange colour scheme was there to disguise the inevitable flames? 

 

Still a shame though. 

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Really sad to see them go. But in the business of RC, there are few small operations that can survive forever. Tekin went out of business many years ago but come back in recent years. In the 90s', Tekin and Novak basically monopolised the ESC scene with Reedy and Monster being the main power plants. I had the Novak 410-M5 and Tempest which were excellent and my Mongoose is still running strong. I guess it is difficult to compete with cheap electronics from China these days with disposable prices. We will miss those red little cases in our RC cars for certain.

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Novak made some great receivers, and many iconic Escs (410 and Cyclone especially) but they never really got brushless right. Their Escs weren't reliable and the motors whilst effective were always a little different and hence not that popular. The old lite series brushless motors were great to drive but a pain when the (built in) sensor wire broke. Likewise the newer Vulcans with their swappable winds ended up expensive for a feature few used. Meanwhile 2.4ghz made there awesome 27 and 40mhz receivers obsolete and since they never made transmitters they couldn't enter this field.

 

A once great company that has died because it fell behind the times.

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Novak IMO came across as one of the best in the late 90's & early to mid 2000's, my assumptions based on price and a lot of teams had them in their touring cars. Unfortunately, a little over priced for my requirements so I went with Reedy motors and LRP speedos.

 

Fair do's to Novak :rc_car:

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I thought they went years ago to be fair! They just disappeared off the radar. I sometimes wonder how much of an impact the Chinese/Asian companies have had on the traditional RC companies - I mean, I buy most of my ESC's/motors/combo's etc from funshobby etc nowadays - just seems better VFM.

 

In my eyes Novak always targeted the racing scene - did they offer much for bashers?

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They only made the definitive esc for twin motor monster trucks, plus a range of bashing Escs too. Over in the US most bashers used Novaks back in the day, but only the racing ones sold much over here.

It wasn't the rise of the Chinese brands killed them so much as the poor quality of recent products. 

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7 hours ago, evssv said:

both r.....:yes:...I use novak pinnys in my bl 1/8th`s....3x for 13-15 quid delivered from the usa...bargain!:good:!

 

Link please Mike?  My usual supplier has hiked the price over the import limit... I need another set.

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