Buying for Young Adults
The next class is more geared towards teenagers, These take skill to control and a fair bit of practice is needed before you feel comfortable with the controls. You can adjust your setup, change motors and gearing and generally have a lot more fun. We don't refer to these as toys anymore, they are commonly know as Hobby RC.
There are two main choices with it comes to this, the pre-built ready to race kits (RTR) or the build it yourself kit which can be a lot of fun and really helps teach you about the insides of the car, this can be invaluable when it comes to install hopups and upgrades.
I've reviewed a few RTR kits, and while they do come ready to race out the box, I find there are often "factory installed" problems, so they still require a fair bit of tweaking before they are up to spec. If you want to have a flawless you need to do it yourself.
Before you rush and buy a kit, make sure you understand what is involved, besides the kit there are a few extra`s you need before the car will even move.
- Electronics
You will need an electronic speed control and a receive- A Motor
Make sure that the motor you get will work with your speed controller, these are rated by the "turns" of the motor. So for example a speed controller might be a 17T limit, you can only run 17 turns and up. Unless you plan to race it's unlikely you will need more than the standard silver can motor which is 27T, you can go down to 23T for a bit more power, but lower than that takes a lot of work with gear ratio's.- Deans Clips
Not really needed at first, but the standard connection that come with most cars will eventually melt and start to give bad connections.- A pack battery for your car
The bigger the battery the more runtime you get. Running a RC for an extended period of time is not advisable as motors can over hear, as can esc's.- Battery Charger
- Need to recharge the batteries, getting a decent one can save you a lot in the long run as battery life if affected the way it's charged and looked after.
- Transmitter / Remote
- See my Transmitter guide.
- Transmitter Batteries (Rechargeable are best)
- These are normally AA batteries, but it's best to have them fully charged when you use then, if they run out when your racing you could lose control of your car
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