wade7575

My very first car was a Grasshopper,I almost ended up getting a Clod Buster but in the end it was the Grasshopper.

This one is not cheap but it does work really well it has a slipper built into it and they make really good strong stuff,it may not be cheap but it will work. http://www.rc-monster.com/proddetail.php?prod=Slipperential%99+1%2F8++Center+Slipper+Diff+%28patented%29

I have never had 1/8th scale but I'am getting into it,I had an E-Maxx with a Hue 1515 1y and ran it on 14.8 and it would around 12 minute runs times at least with a 5000Mah Lipo and I think a bit longer. I would get 5000Mah to 6500Mah Lipo's if you can,the SMC Lipo's are supposed to be really good for the money and the same with Magnum's. I would think you should get 15 to 16 Minutes out of 6500Mah if not longer. Keep in mind I'm only guessing and I have ben in the Hobby for 20 years plus and I'm not bad at guessing these thing's but I can not say 100% for sure,I do think however if you got something around 5400Mah to 6500Mah you'll be happy,just make sure to see if the pack will fit the Car most packs have their size listed online in MM's.

Don't get me wrong guys I'm not saying that Spectrum can't put out radio's that work in each batch,but from what I always heard back in the day from guys on the HPI Baja forum if someone had a Spectrum in their Baja and had range problems and they were told to change it and if they did they come back saying that they changed out their Spectrum to Futaba they always said they got great range,I'm not saying this is this case with every Spectrum. I honestly think the Spectrums look great and have a lot going for them I just had them at the bottom of my list because I don't want to have to send it back if I have a range problem with it,I know I posted a Spectrum as well but it was more of a last pick if everything I heard about Airtronics was worse.

Well I seen this one at a good price and pulled the trigger pun intended. I liked the price plus I was not sure about the Spectrums I know the first Spectrum that looed like or maybe they were the DX2.0's but ask anyone that ever used one in a Baja they could never get much more then 50 to 100 feet of range,I seen the newer Spectrums and thought maybe they fixed them but I guess not from what I read on 10 differnet forums,plus I was not to keen on the Futaba systems don't get me wrong they truly are great but I really hate the trigger and my 3PMX always hurt my finger. I read nothing bad to say about Airtronics and thought why not my XL2P was a great Radio back in the plus lot's of top level guys are still running Airtonics,I just never thought to look them up they don't seem to advertise to much anymore and fly under the radar. http://www.ebay.com/itm/191129378810?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2648&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Do you find the Spectrum you have glitchs at all or have you heard anyone complain about this. My Futaba used to hurt my finger it was so tight.

I'm going to be getting a new Radio in the near future and I need advice on one thing. I had a Futaba 3PMX and hated it more then any other radio I have ever had because I found for my trigger finger that the gap was to tight and I really did not like it at all and most of my friends with smaller finders said the same thing,I had a 2 Tatic radios that come with the Aquacraft boat's and the trigger was a dream compared to my Futaba. I'm looking at getting a Spectrum DX4C and I was wondering if the gap is as small on it as it is on the Futaba. https://www.spektrumrc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdId=SPM4200 I'm also looking at an Airtronics MV-X I'm not looking to get anything to fancy I don't to buy a radio from HobbyKing more because by the time I have it shipped I can get on here for about 10 bucks more. http://www.airtronics.net/index.php/airtronics-mx-v-pistol-grip-with-w-p-receiver-3ch-2-4ghz-fh2-radio.html

One thing with me is I always like to share new stuff I have found and new ways of doing thing's that make thing's easier. I have been into the hobby for 20 year's and I'm still learning,just like getting back into it after being out for 4 year's and I finding out SMC Dinogy Lipo's just to name a few say set your LVC so it cut's off at 3.6 volt's per-cell to get max life out of your lipo's.

I'm just a Hobbyist like you guy's and I just wanted to share a plug that I really like.

I don't think most people will pull 120 Amp's constant if anyone for that matter have never sat down and done the math. If you guys want to read a really good thread read both link's the first one is about a battery load comparison test done by a really good guy who does not BS people or have any favorite brands just the numbers is all he goes by. He has a really nice test rig he made himself where he pulls major amps threw it and test's only 6S Lipo's for his jet's,the guy who started the thread told me at a true 40C load held for to long the plastic on the connector's start to melt and the solder start's to melt. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0c7289a09f88648d2459690f41f3dd7e&t=1767093 This next thread is from user's on the same forum but in this thread they are trying to keep it smaller by having a result's thread and a discussion thread,what they are doing is using their charger's if they have a IR tester built in and also a device by Wayne Giles from the UK I think that can also test the Internal Resistance of your pack.They try to keep track of how many charge's they have on their pack as well and then test it to see if the Internal Resistance has gone up and by how much,the low the IR the better the pack and the better the life you'll get out of it if properly cared for. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1578001

Also these are not as tight as the Castle bullet's witch most people complain about being to tight,these are tight but not so tight they are really hard to plug in and unplug.

The link is fixed now and these ones are 6mm not 4mm they will handle a lot of power going threw them even the most demanding 1/8th scale set up is going to have a hard time trying to max these out. You can also use this product number in their search 258000002 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__20353__HXT_6mm_Gold_Connector_w_Protector_10pcs_set_.html?strSearch=hxt

I just wanted to share these with you guys,I started using these because a friend was placing an order to HobbyKing and I seen them when he was making up his order and said can you throw a bag of those in your order for me to and I like them so much after I got my first bag I got another 7 to do me for along time plus at $5.75 Canadian you can't wrong. The reason I figured I would try them is because I don't have a LHS and it always cost's so much money in Canada for some of the small stuff like EC-3's 4.99 to 5.99 for one female and male plug plus shipping that's 10 bucks of more for me. So I get the connectors and started using them on everything like a boat a had that was 4S and another that was 6S that I ran Wide open throttle and the packs were still warm but the new plug's never got warm and worked great the motors in the boat's I had to were very power hungry and set up to run 65 and 95 MPH. You'll find these plug's to be of good quality and not like other stuff from China the bullet's themselves do not loosen up over time and they are 6mm and the plastic housing's fit really well to and the gold plating does not wear off fast at all mine still look new in that respect. The other great thing about these is that I always had the worst luck when I would need a plug and know I only had one left of course I would need a male and have a female plug,I don't have that problem anymore because they are unisex so now I don't have to place an order with a Hobby Shop in Canada just to get a pack of Connectors. http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__20353__HXT_6mm_Gold_Connector_w_Protector_10pcs_set_.html?strSearch=hxt 6

If your Iron is still working well and it still has a good bit of the Tip left there is a simple trick you can to make it as good as new,I went threw a lot of tip's as everyone I knew in RC always brought me their stuff to solder and I liked it so I could threw between 3 to 5 tip's a year and it got very pricey after a while. The trick is a simple one just remove the tip from the iron and then use a dremel tool with a sanding drum and refinish the tip to the same angle it was or whatever angle you it but here is where it must been exactly this way or it won't work,next put the tip back in the iron and then turn it on then hold some solder against the tip until it melts and take a peace of paper towel and spread it around quickly doing both side's. How I learned this trick was I had always seen cheaper Weller tip's for my iron that were not pre-tinned just bare Copper so I could never understand why it would never work for me when I went to refinish a tip it would never work for me and here was my problem if you let the iron get up to it's max temperature then try and apply new solder it won't stick and the problem is from what I was told is that the copper oxides and the solder won't stick. I was told this from a guy a Weller one time when I got a bad iron and the store I got it from had no more to replace my faulty one.

I would have to disagree with that,if a person is going to be I the Hobby for a while it will pay for itself over time,plus buy AA and tossing them each cost's enough as well I pay around 6 to 7 dollars in Canada just for good ones like energizer. I should have also mentioned that the Maha Chargers are to last and when I got mine I did not know that they had been making chargers for years and they build them to many many years,plus why keep tossing more stuff into the landfill then you need to. The other thing I like about rechargeable's is that if I'm short on cash and have no batteries laying around I don't have to worry about it.

I'm looking at getting a Mugen MBX7T-eco Truggy and I was not sure about a few things with that truck so I called Mugen and also asked them about their shock oil and they said it is different from Losi and Team Associated's it is a silicone oil and is rated different like you said. The at Mugen claims that there oil is better from batch to batch where Losi and Team Associated isn't and I have heard this before and the Mugen oil is supposed to be better for not being affected by heat.I have also heard that Mugen shock oil is also better at not making a lot of air bubbles in the shock when you build and rebuild them. I know Team Associated and Losi oils are close from weight to weight but there is a slight difference between a Team Associated and a Losi 30 weight oil and so on but are still very close.

I remember when green slime first came out and it was Cliff Lett one of their drivers and designer's who is now President of Team Associated that used to race dirt bikes and brought it over to RC cars. I don't hate green slime and found it does what Cliff said in an article for Car Action and he said until the green slime swells the O-rings the shock will leak a bit and you just need to top them off,I like the diff oil as it tends to not have the same effect and the shocks don't leak for the first few runs.I myself have never seen the O-rings swell from to make a better fit like they used to claim but it does work as a lube to put the shocks together with.

I was over at my friends house today and he was rebuilding his shocks and won't listen to advice no matter who it comes from and he told me grab a shock if you want and start rebuilding so did and we were on his last 2 shocks and everyone he built had air in them and he could not work it out by pumping the shock shaft up and down and then wanted to know why mine did not have the squishing of air like his so I told him and I thought I would share this tip as I know a lot who build them the way the manual say's. What I do is attach the piston to the shock shaft's and then drop it into the shock body and the lube the O-rings and the shock shaft with shock oil and sometimes really thick diff oil if I know the shocks are prone to leak a bit by design but will stop after they settle in,next I slide on an O-ring then a spacer then the last O-ring then the bottom ends of the shock shaft and the reason for doing it this way is because now I don't need to worry if the shock shaft is straight and possibly nicking an O-ring. The next step and this is the important part to get air free shocks,alot of the manuals say fill the shock body up all the way and move the shock shaft up and down slowly and I feel this is 100% the wrong way to do it why I'll explain later,what I do is fill the shock up at the most half way and then move the shock shaft up as slow as possible and all the bubbles for me shoot right to the top but slow as the key as well the slower the better. Here is what I feel is wrong with the way manual teaches,you are dealing with an oil that is thick and when the Air bubbles come to the top in the way I prefer to do it are very large and break apart right away,but now when you fill the shock all the way up with oil the air bubbles break apart into smaller air bubbles and you can see even when not working the piston up and down the air just hang's in the oil and have had it so bad the pumping the shock shaft was completely useless then I stopped one day and thought about it and said there's got to be a better way then this. After all the air has come to the top just lower the shock shaft and fill the shock up the rest of the way and bleed out any extra. I hope this tip works as well for you as it does for me because I know it won't help my friend at all as even when he see's something that works better then his way is to Pigheaded to change his ways and ask's me to fix it for him Oh my God is all I can say. All I have ever used is Team Associated and Team Losi oil but I have heard that Mugen and Kyosho is better but I do not know what it's like for getting air bubbles out.

Just wondering what paint have you used in the past,I have used Tamiya but people have told me their rattle cans work good. I have used Pactra and it never really sticks that good and chips off when you roll the truck,I have found Parma Faskolor works great and never chips off what so ever and only comes off when the body rub's the chassis,I have also found a Badger Airbrush does not work that well with this paint as it's thicker even if you fill the bottle to the top with water I use a Paasche VL with the medium tip and it spray really nice and the needles don't bends like the badgers as everyone is always bent and is a big joke at most Hobby Shop's in Canada about how badger is only going to release 1 needle that is perfect and if the person turns it in they will 1 million dollars.

I know I use CRTL V all the time and it would not work on with Internet Explorer or FireFox until I turned off the switch in the upper right hand corner.

You can buy it with a UK style plug to from what I understand,contact the guy in the link I know they have different plug type's,also you can always get a 2 Amp or even Amp wall charger off of ebay for that matter that uses the same style plug that you use and just check the Maha's plug end I think center hole is positive and outer body is negative and just cut them both off and solder the Maha plug end that goes into the Maha charger itself onto your new wall charger and don't forget to heat shrink. I live in Canada and had a 3 Amp Laptop PowerSupply laying around and I wanted a longer cord that comes with the Maha not that it is short just not long enough for what I wanted and it work's good for me,just check the Maha wall adapter at the plug with a voltmeter and if you have to buy another wall adapter just twist the wires together and check it at the end again nd make sure it's the same and if it is just Solder it up and heat sharink it and you'll be fine,I know the wall adapter can be gotten from ebay for 5 to 8 dollars Canadian.

If you are going to Mod the windshield I would not cut a hole like the Racer's do you see in the mag's it makes them weak as was already stated,I prefer to drill or if you have a reamer just makes big holes across the top of the window shield in a row then do another row below that and stagger and holes and keep going downward staggering the holes until you get to bottom and you'll find the windshield will stay a lot stronger.

I find the Energizer's that are 2000Mah or above hold their charge pretty well but I know what you are talking about as some brands don't hold a charge very well at all and some need a few charge's put threw them to get them to hold a charge.

Like I said I was not trying to make a big deal about this charger,I just had problems with a lot of the AA and AAA chargers I got a while back and was getting fed up with them not working well or at all for that matter with a few of them and my problems was I did not want to use one of my Thunder Power AC-6 chargers because at the time I hade 3 boats and 3 Transmitters and allmy boats took 2 packs so charging everything for me would have taken a long time.

I picked this charger up about 6 months ago and I thought I would share it here with you guys here,I got it to charge my AA cells for my Transmitter's as most of the 2.4GHZ Transmitters let you use 4 AA cells and I was getting fed up with my Energizer charger that was not working proper everytime. This charger has more mode's and feature's then you can shake a stick at it does everything it claims to do rather well. It has a Charge and discharge mode matching and cycling mode as well and a refresh mode and might have more I forgot to mention. I really like the discharge mode and the matching mode to check my cells,I know what your thinking big whoopee who really needs to match their AA cells and for that matter no one,but when I tried it I really found it useful I had 30 Presidents Choice Battery's laying around that were brand new and had never been charged and they were all 2000Mah it should be noted I know this for sure they are just a relabeled Energizer 2000Mah cell that Zehrs Loblaws and a few other of their chain Grocery stores sell under their Presidents choice brand.Also when it discharge's your cells it takes them all down to .90 volt's witch is the industry standard. What I found when I test the President's Choice 2000Mah cells was that all but 2 were with in 150 to 200Mah of each other and the 2 bad ones were 650 and 823Mah off and that was on the low side and some were also 100 to 150Mah above the 2000Mah.The matching process discharge's the cells and then let's them rest for 1 to 2 hours I forget what it is then charge's them back up but what I did to speed up the matching process was discharge 4 cells and when they had all finished take them out put them to the side to rest and discharged another 4 until they were all done and then charged them all back up and it should be noted the 4 that got discharged together got charge together. Also another nice feature about this charger is that each slot has it's own charge circuit and that means each cell is being charged separately from one another unlike others where it can only charge 2 cells or 4 cells not 1 2 3 or 4 like the Maha,the Maha MH-C9000 can charge each cell at 2 Amp's and is bigtime overkill for a AAA or AA cell and I charge at 700 to 800 with my 800Mah cells.It comes with a 2 Amp powersupply and I know what your thinking that means it's not really charging each slot at 2 Amp's but it is if you know how to figure it out with math and Watt's it is,it takes 1 hour and 15 to 20 Minutes on 800Mah to charge 4 2000Mah AA cells if it was just dividing the 2 Amp's by 4 it would be giving 500Mah to each slot and the charge times would longer.Also if wanted to charge a 1800 2000 2450 and 2300Mah MiMH or NiCad or NiCads and NiMH at the same time you can and you can also set the charge current different for each slot,you can also charge and discharge cells at the same time and you are still free to choose whatever current you want each slot to charge or discharge at independently of each other. Another thing I found interesting and I can not find where I read it I think it was in the Manual or on the ebay link or on the Maha Powerex Canada site but they say they use a Low heat generating Algorithm and I trusted them because I know a friend online that had one and said it really works well but I can understand how most would say Ya right just another marketing ploy and gimmick.When I charged 4 of my 2000Mah cells at 900Mah and then charged the same cells again after discharging them with a Energizer charger that charge's 2 cell's at 600Mah between the 2 so each were being charged at 300Mah the cells were 15 degree's cooler when charged with the Maha. I'm not trying to make it sound like a big deal with this charger because I know it can only charge AA and AAA cells but at the same time if someone like me who was fed up with their Energizer charger and looking for something that is quality may over look it as just another crappy 4 cell charger,also you can set the Mah charge from200Mah to 2000Mah in 100Mah increments and I think for discharge it's 200Mah to 1000Mah at 100Mah Increments. I have also found this charger to be very accurate with NIMH cells and does not false peak like other charger's. I also I do not sell this charger I'm just doing a review and if you look at the ebay ad I linked you can that there is a box there of different battery's they have tested to check capacity in Mah and they tested a lot of brands and I mean a lot and if you scroll down you can see the BTY AA 3000Mah cells they tested they only took back 459Mah what a rip off.Also LSD means Low Self Discharge and they hold a charge better over time if they are left sitting but there draw back is the Mah rating is not as high as a standard NiMH. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Powerex-MH-C9000-Battery-Charger-Analyzer-Tester-NiMH-NiCd-AA-AAA-Maha-Energy-/320832968741?pt=Battery_Chargers&hash=item4ab3229825