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Put the decals on.

Painted up a shell for the touring car.

Put some decals on it .

FIRST IMPRESSIONS REVIEW - (Scroll to the first image if you want to avoid my waffle.) So I have been looking for a new transmitter for a while. I wanted something 'Nice' that I could use for all my models, RX's were cheap and easy to get and, I will freely admit, I am a massive tech nerd and a bit of a geek when it comes to anything 'techy' (Yes, I have a man cave with lots of consoles, gaming figures and Star Wars stuff - but NO. I'm not a 45 year old man living in my mothers basement). My main usage is racing. I'm an ok racer. Not about to set the world on fire or be part of "Team Xray" anytime soon and nor do I expect a fancy TX will make me better - Only I can make me better. Secondary is bashing. And lastly - I want a boat as I am 20 yards away from a beautiful still lake. The hobby is growing for me and at some point I would like to have a crack at on-road racing and I quite fancy a crawler at some time. So it needs to be something that will support me along the way. After looking around at various options and seeing the vast price ranges the Noble Nb4 (Not the Pro) just shone out over all the others - even the £700+ high end radios. There appeared just so much going for it for such a low (I say low, what I mean is "what you get for the money") price point. I could pick apart the other TX's in the price range which made me feel like I would have to compromise one over the other, whereas the Noble just had everything. This review will just touch on the package contents and not the features and use of the TX till a later date. Then why the Pro? The Noble NB4 was the radio I wanted. I'll be honest with you, I got it because I am a Magpie and attracted to shiny things. Plus it has the case (which cases can cost a bit) and a few other nice to have things...but mainly because its shiny and I am weak. The box The box is REALLY nice. Well made too and aluminium with a carbon fibre effect printed over it. Very sturdy but lightweight and does not wobble around or anything. Inside the box Nice dense foam holds all the bits and pieces together (quite tightly too). The top is nice spongey protective foam. I have removed the phone holder as I have no need for it but that would slot into the top left) What's in the box?? WHAT'S IN THE BOX!!! Noble NB4 Pro Base battery Box of bits Larger control wheel Control wheel foam Wireless charger. Have noticed they have changed the design of the charger as the old one looked like a vinyl record, which I actually didn't like the look of as it bore no relation to RC but some people thought it was cool though. This one now has a simple rubberised top. What's in the box of bits? FGr4B 4 channel receiver FGr8B 8 channel receiver Lanyard 2 x power leads 2x screen protectors Larger grip Quick start manual Tension springs Customisation box containing various trigger sizes (S, M, L), a go pro mount, back frame (which I have used to replace the phone mount), different knobs for replacing the switches, a control wheel brake adjustment and allen keys Look and feel Now this is going to sound odd. I don't think the TX looks that nice if I'm honest. What I will say is it seems more function over form. There is a reason for the loop on the bottom - if you drop it the screen wont hit the deck. There is a frame of aluminium that goes around the screen - again for extra protection. Obviously you have the wheel out on the directional arm - which is great to swap over for a leftie or someone who wants a non-90 degree position. The battery base is there to charge the main battery in the TX. It has all been thought about. Everything about the TX feels quality. All the controls feel smooth and have a nice tension (which can all be adjusted). I know this is going to sound silly but it reminds me of the quality of materials you get in something like a VW Passat. Nice, solid, functional with chunky controls that feel smooth. Whereas some TX's feel like those really cheap car interiors with clicky switches and loose knobs. So much of it is aluminium including the control wheel. The rest that is not silver is a really nice feeling plastic. There is a rubber strip at the front of the hand control too. Ton's and ton's of buttons - I can see the NB4 being AMAZING for crawlers and anything that needs multiple functions over different channels. The TX has a back LED and you can change it from a choice of 8 colours and you can make it as dim or bright as you like or you can have it as a battery indicator. The battery base also has an LED light but this cannot be changed from green. Interface This area I can say I am a bit of an expert in and anything funky I can spot a mile off. I have been a designer for 25+ years and 18 of those as user experience and user interface design on software, mobile apps (if any of you have electric charge point apps - its likely I did some design work there!), web apps and web sites. I cannot fault the Noble. It's simple stupid. Nice and easy to get around, simple to change settings and there is always help if you need it. The TX will beep and vibrate when you make a selection or change - this may or may not drive you nuts but you can turn it off at anytime. Things I don't like I don't like the phone mount - but I'm glad you can take it off. When you rotate the wheel around from the default position it can move up and scratch the underside of the screen - I can see this being marked over time. Overall thoughts for now This is initial thoughts and I have not taken it for a spin yet. I will update later. But so far I am blown away by the Noble. It is a really stunning bit of kit and I honestly think it is a game changer in the pistol grip TX world. I cannot see how the other major players cannot look at the Noble and feel threatened. Its like when everyone had Nokia's and then over night everyone had an Iphone. Unless the big players in the TX industry do something, they are going to be left behind.

Started to put the electrics into the TL-01 The pair

Back on with the Cobra... Fitted a new battery tray from an FTX model, the original one was just too tight for the new Nimh battery, guess the original Nicads were slightly smaller. Replaced the flex I'd used with proper silicon cable and replaced the iffy connectors with Wago connectors from the sparks at work (anyone else use these or am I doing something I shouldn't?) Put new shock oil in. Now waiting for servo tape. Once it is running going to address the speed issue. Now going to go and tinker with the Big Rock...prepare for more questions!

I've got myself a CBF1000 2013 - Lovely (but basic) bike. Got full panniers and backbox, me and my brother are off to the NC500 in June. Can't wait! I'll get some pics up of the bike soon.

Got as far as finishing step 4 on the Tamiya Rock Socker, it's taking me a while to build it, but I'm in no rush and would rather take my time cutting parts off of trees and sanding smooth the stubs and any mold seems. Also a mate gave me an extra 1/8 scale truggy he had and didn't want anymore, all it needs is wheels, tires, servo, receiver and engine and it's ready to thrash about, no real assembly required, so I've been looking for what parts to get to get it running.

It’s an old racing livery for Porsche

First shot is with the 1/10 scale Losi Lasernut (big for a 1/10th), then with the 1/14 scale LC Racing EMB1.

God good I had one if this when I was 8 don’t remember the brand of it but if I remember correctly it played hiphop music and not quite sure but I think it bounced up and down 😆

No idea but had to have a look just because of your title. Half expected to see a photo of you holding a half bear, half goldfish thing on a Pets at Home lead.

I have ordered an MN D90 bumper, will find a way to make it fit, also need a trip to modelsport for some paint as i will paint inside Bullet grey so as the exterior paint chips and marks so the grey will show through like a primer coat

Been a while, but back into RC - with my 6 year old lad. 1/10 2wd buggy indoor carpet racing. Love it. He has a Schumacher Cougar KC and I have the TA B6.2. Addictive - and expensive! Hope you're all well.

Hi all. an old newbi here. just want to say hi from bury grater manchester. Had my first RC car back in 1979 now i know a lot of you guys on here dont know when that was lol. I had a mardave stock car i was given by a good friend and then years later i had a blitzer beatle and a grasshopper + a nitro mini and a nitro ford F40 from the US . Had a deviorce and sold all th cars as you do. And now just thought i fancy a re visit to the hobby and i now have an FTX Vantage 2.0 and an FTX Carnage 2.0 + a Maverick ion XT all brushed im old school in afraid. good to see a site dedicated to RC cars in the UK. John

Had a bit more time. Here’s the motor with the optional dust cover. Its a lovely bit of kit. I love Tamiya packaging Got it in with a RW 19T steel pinion. Took me a while to get it meshed. I have the speed tuned gears and the mesh feels rough to me? Im guessing I still mesh in the 19t pinion slot? Even though the spur is different? HOWEVER. Got an issue… Theres a split in in the shock tower (as someone mentioned they noticed on TC). I could glue this but Ideally I want to sort it. I believe its part of the chassis though, so would need a new chassis. The servo is shot, so Ill look for a new one (only servo I have free is an all metal 60kg one, bit over kill haha). But it did run and work in my spare room. Pic with the newbie which Ive not got round too.

KV is no way to judge speed. All KV tells you is unloaded motor revolutions per volt. If you run a 2000KV motor on 6s ..... and compare it to a 5700Kv on 2S ....you get about the same revs. The amount of power generated though, is hugely different. The 1/8 buggies are usually running ESC's rated to 100-150A. Wheels are easy. It's not like a 1/10 touring car, where many options are available to fit under the shell. Monster truck and truggy wheels come in 2 varieties. Half or zero offset. Your manual isn't specifying wheel dimensions, as it doesn;t really need to. You can see from the pictures of hte stock wheels that the wheel nut is recessed. Zero offset wheels have the wheel nut sitting proud. You DO NOT want zero offeset, they will come too far in, foul the steering and cause issues. Any of the others will be fine. 2200Kv is about as far as you can reliably go with a 6S setup. It's on the limits. 8S would be pretty much undriveable, and unreliable. It's not worth it. More is just not better unless you can get teh traction, and want to have the diffs usable for more than one run. Did it once...slapped the biggest motor I could fit into a Hyper St truggy, planned to run 6S. Couldn;t keep the diffs together, tyres ballooned so badly I couldn;t keep them on the rims and all it did was wheely and crash when it did run. Then it cooked the ESC. Probably from over-revving when the diffs failed.

youl treat it with kid gloves till its 1st tip over lol

Porsche just know how to do a race car. The 919 is incredible too

someone in this forum is possessed by an owl.

Cheers Freddy, i will have to make do with what i have got, i am also over doing this truck, it was meant to be a basher of a crawler and at this rate i wont want to damage it

I have. Badly. Reckon your D90 bumpers will look way better tbh. Did something simpler for the Element…. Aluminium rod cut to length. Used a heavier rod for the actual bumper. Drilled and tapped the ends of the smaller rods that slide in where the stock bumper fitted. Highly recommend Macc Models https://maccmodels.co.uk/product-category/materials/aluminium-sections/ as a source for raw materials. A thread tapping tool would be useful if you go this way.

this should be a good combo for it https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/hobbywing-cml-ezrun-max8-with-2200kv-motor-combo-397267 possibly with a 17 tooth pinion and it should go well on 4s the esc will take 6s but prob better sticking to 4s to start with

Looks like a New Bright 1/6th rc brother ford f350 super duty toy grade but the shell details are awesome used to grab them at carboots as the shells are super tough 👍

Man, great diary of the project, looks like it's been a fun challenge with brilliant looking results! 👏🏻

Had a spare 20 minutes this morning. First easy jobs, re mount new Rally Blocks as the old stock tyres were cracked. Not glued as Ive not got inserts yet. Also flipped the quick release battery tray round Ive bought an extra RX for my Noble NB4. The plan was to put this NB4 RX in my Traxxas XRT and use the Traxxas Tx Rx in this, but decided to keep TSM with my XRT. So I appreciate this is over kill, but look how small everything is! Means I can mount everything on the stock Rx Plate. No Antenna means I can lose the Aerial mount too. A Nice new profile for the TL-01 Powered up with a new shotgun shaped HPI Plazma Lipo, however Im having servo issues so may need a new one Maybe the servo in it dosnt like my space aged TX/RX?

Yes. I’m really chuffed. It’s just been sat on the shelf for about a year. I’d made it pretty unusable 🤦‍♂️ 4000kv brushless system on 3s with slick tyres. Needed lots of space and the slightest bump would see it cart wheeling at 35mph. Now it’s much easier to use and it’s a giggle

Fairly sure it’s on all orders now @BigGinge slightly annoying as it puts the prices up but things are still cheap enough most of the time. Banggood is another option though and they have a uk warehouse. I don’t think they deal with the tax on import goods so that’s still down to luck 😉

normal car uses 2 channels ie throttle and steering if you get 3 or more channels it allows you to run other things on the car like winches , lights etc from the tx im using 5 channels on my crawlers

Gave this thing a clean. note to self - use the dust cover! (If it would have helped)

Well you can all breathe a sigh of relief...this is the last of the XB4 work so you can finally not see it anymore (at least for a bit). Bodies trimmed, stickers added and all ready to go.

Fixed the broken winch routing kit on the Cragsman

Fitted the injora brass links plus I replaced all of the bushings with bearings. I've still got one or two more items to arrive this week so I'm not fully putting everything back together, I've also replaced all the screws with cap head ones, I've read that the traxxas bolts are know for stripping.

Meanwhile..... in the chill of the garage ( so glad to have a roof over hte bikes now ) the daily Harley developed a weepy fork seal. As the roads have been gritty and saltry of late, that needed sorting as the grit sticks to the oil smears, and turns into grinding paste. Now...Harley liked shiny covers on the fork seals, with dust caps underneath. Muck trap!!! When I drifted off the covers....I found this: The dust cap had gone rotten, and there was a lot of moisture trapped in there too. Bought a complete seal kit with new clips, seals, drain screws, o-rings...everything. £25. Bargain. Was a pretty simple strip down, Fresh fork oil, plus a good chance to clean and tidy. Also took the opportunity to copper grease the mudguard bolts etc. Finally..I treated myself to a set of fork gaiters. Harley went to this layout for the Iron Sportys in 2010...so I did the same. Looks a lot better and keeps the muck off the fork tubes. Put a new set of front pads in as well. While it was all apart. Next job is to relocate the ECU from under the seat. Prevents fitting different seats. Not room under the side panel on these. Harley went to a smaller oil tank to make room on 2010 models..,.. but I have a plan. If there isn;t room under the side panel..make room! I now have a pattern side panel which I am widening by about 20mm to make room. Panel is made of 1mm steel, so it;s a cut and weld job.

my rustler has a 6000kv motor and that is ten scale and 2s and it gets burnt off by my hypers that are 8 scale on 4s with 2000kv range motors 🙂 the bigger and heavier the car the bigger the motor and lower the kv is but needs 4s to shift it 🙂 i would be scared to use 6s on my 8 scales and u see from our vids im not scared to thrash em 🙂

heres my kronos with a rebranded max 8 system 2000kv if i recall on 4s 6s would be too insane never mind 8 2 hyper vse's 8 scale buggys 2000kv 4s and my blue one was going slow as i forgot to recalibrate the end points when i changed my radio gear 😛 heres dads hyper 7 converted to leccy with a max 8 2200kv motor on 4s

what "S" will your mate run his on ?

95% of the time this will be run in the dry so I'm not overly worried. Also the price for a whole new kit isn't a great deal so I'd rather put less strain on the motor and replace the odd bearing.

hobbywing max 8 bud, good bit of kit i have the 2200kv combo in my hyper 7, and my corally kronos has a rebranded max 8 combo. hobbywing max 10 is 10 scale and hobbywing max 8 is 8 scale etc i have a few of the ten scale ones as well and they never skip a beat, pure quality 🙂 https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/hobbywing-ezrun-max8-g2-esc-combo-with-4278sd-2250kv-motor-1347107 something like that 🙂 yeh the heavyness of 8 scales is why the kv looks low more torque but they run on 4-6s so more voltage and gets the speed up,plus the sheer size of the motors 🙂 5 scale ones are the size of coke cans lol

it can go in any channel your not using as its just for power to work fan sure it works fan as in top pic theres a 2 wire lead into a wee plug from the fan

That wouldn't be a bad idea considering if it doesn't work out a 1200xl rebuild kit with the end caps is only $15 (#3492).

Servo https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/power-hd-lw20-waterproof-high-torque-metal-gear-servo-blue-404890

Yep. Sounds like it's faulty. I'd contact Hobbywing about sending in the ESC for their try out & trade program. Not sure where you're located cause it's only valid for US customers only. This is directly from the Hobbywing website: Our mission is to reach more customers so that they can experience our products without breaking banks. TryOut / Trade-in program Send your ESC back to us and you will receive a brand new HOBBYWING ESC at a special price. The upgrade fee of HOBBYWING ESC will be provided via email. You can send any ESC. a damaged ESC or working, even other brands. We don't care : ) The offer is valid for North America online store customers only (HobbywingDirect.com) Email your request to [email protected] . Subject line: Request of HOBBYWING Upgrade program You will receive a return authorization number along with the return shipping guideline once pre-approved.

Youll struggle to get traction full stop this time of year outdoors. The tyres just dont get into working tempreture

Hi fella they might just squeeze in there, this said you could easily modify the tray for a few more mil so they’re not so tight . I doubt you’d get any more than say an extra 5mm from the stock 170 so maximum your looking at is 175 after modifying them 👍

Swapped the brushless motor for a brushed one and took it for a test drive. Handled really well and had me grinning like an idiot. So much more useable than it was before. Slower obviously but there’s something quite relaxing about 2S on a brushed motor, didn’t crash once.😁 Really pleased with the Kamtec chassis cover I got. Kept everything nice and clean. Will shorten those motor/ESC wires (maybe solder them direct?) and put a deans plug on instead of that adaptor. Tidy everything up a bit. But basically, for a relatively small outlay, it feels like I have a new car. Really pleased. 👍

Stickered up the MT10 bodyshell

Finished, have used the standard Orlandoo servo, so far so good (esc voltage is higher than the servo max). Two issues so far, wheel nuts come off very easily, so I have replaced with M2 Nylocks, so far seems to have sorted it and I managed to break a bit of the cage off where the fuel tank sits. Other wise this is a really great little kit, takes a fair bit of patience but it’s really well engineered, if you like building then I recommend it. Now just need to paint the body. https://www.flickr.com/photos/minley1/shares/zg6nLa8N2j