Radio Control! RC trucks, cars, planes, boats, whatever tickles your pickle!

Tomorrow I have some plans with all the rain haha

 

20 seconds before hitting the only lamp pole on the left side of the field... Good thing I have all this epoxy
(Carbon Cub S2)

 

How much are those things? I’ld like to shoot one with my 12 gauge?

 

JK I’m going to the range to shoot skeet.

 

Back in the day I used to do some flying, not so much now. Nowadays I’m ripping rc trucks with my son.
https://youtu.be/YDy0ATsELJA

 

A bottle of epoxy and she is back up in the air!

 

I got these Kyosho First Mini Z cars yesterday. They're new 2022 versions of the previous Initial D First Mini Z cars that have lights! I'm keeping the Mazda RX7 cars because I want the bodies, and I'm going to give the Toyota AE86 Trueno to the neighbor kid for birthday/Christmas. These are the kids versions of the Mini Z platform. They're not as fully featured and as fast as the hobby grade Mini Z cars, but they're fun little things for a more affordable price. The bodies can be transferred to the hobby grade Mini Z chassis, too. I've already driven my RX7 cars. They can go. The motor's not very torquey, but it's not bad for a toy. The steering is not ultra precise, but it is impressively quick. Throttle and steering are fully proportional, though you don't get quite the degree of control as you'd get with the hobby grade chassis. The car goes straight into reverse instead of braking like with the hobby grade chassis. The transmitter is where it's obvious that this is the kids platform. The trigger is tiny! I can't fit my finger into it! One nice thing that this transmitter has that the hobby grade transmitter doesn't have is a built in timer so you can measure your lap times!

 

I went out for a somewhat brief outing at Frost Woods today with my TRX4 2021 Bronco. I didn't touch the high speed and unlock the diffs very much. I just did the cursory test to make sure they didn't seize up from being in one position too much. Is this even a thing? I don't know. I went all over the unmarked trails. I found the challenging vertical spot that I couldn't even nose up last time I was there with the fake winch mount, but my Bronco made quick work of it this time. Removing that fake winch mount was definitely the way to go. I challenged this fallen branch. I made it nearly all the way down without falling, but I couldn't pull it off as the branch got thinner. I bet an SCX24 would make quick work of this spot, or maybe even one of those 1/18 scale trucks. I also happened to pass by a cul de sac where Santa on top of the fire truck happened to be driving by. Besides that, it was a pretty regular outing, and I'm looking forward to a bigger outing tomorrow morning.








And here's a video of the Bronco making it up the vertical obstacle: https://flic.kr/p/2o6pZBw

 

What's good one (4Runner) for a beginner?

 

Maybe the Enduro 24 Trailrunner? It's got solid front axle, so it's probably pretty durable. I don't have one myself, though. Also note that it's a 1/24 scale rig. https://www.amainhobbies.com/elemen...scale-mini-trail-truck-grey-asc20182/p1287276

The Enduro Trailrunner, the original 1/10 scale rig, is very good. It's scale-accurate with IFS. Mechanically it's not too crazy. It's probably one of the better 1/10 scale hobby grade trucks to start on. It's where I started. The IFS takes some love to keep running, though. A combo with a battery and charger is available in white and red. https://www.amainhobbies.com/elemen...10-rock-crawler-combo-fire-asc40106c/p1271201

The Kyosho Mini Z 4X4 first generation 4Runner is super sexy, but it's one of the more challenging platforms to get into. On top of it being roughly 1/28 scale, it's got lots of quirks. Its biggest failing is the underpowered steering servo. It can be mitigated, as I've found with the recently released Interco tires. Kyosho may rerelease the 4Runner with these Interco tires in the future. They already did so for the Jeep Wrangler. The 4Runner is available in multiple colors, though it's sold out on Amain Hobbies right now. You can find it elsewhere. https://www.amainhobbies.com/kyosho-mx01-miniz-4x4-readyset-w-4runner-body-red-kyo32522mr/p1171460 It looks like Kyosho USA has the Interco tires in stock. https://kyoshoamerica.com/newitem/premounted-tire-wheel-2pcs-interco-tire-mxth003.html

 

Thanks. Have B'day coming up in spring=something to hint to the wife!

 

You're welcome! If you get the 1/10 scale Trailrunner then get out there and use it! If you get the smaller ones, then have fun inside or in your back yard or wherever.

 

I went out for a mega hike at Jamesburg Park Conservation Area this morning. I went the longest distance northeast. I took the southern fork of the big trail towards the east and then took the northern fork back. That's the opposite of what I did last time. I was out for almost exactly three hours and covered about six miles. I changed the battery once. I was able to get through most of it without issue. It starts getting to me in about the last 15 minutes, though. I also tried taking one spur back, but I turned wrong somewhere and had to turn around and take the main trail. The trail blazes for that spur are hard for me to see to begin with. They blend into the tree trunks too much for my eyes. I went out so early that the ground was quite solid. The sand in one spot was pretty much frozen. It was thawed out some more on my way back. We're coming close to the solstice, but even then, with the way daylight savings time or whatever works, the sun was setting at 11AM! What's up with that? I also saw a deer on the trail before it ran away. That was cool.

 

Went out to the RC airfield today and got to see some talented guys with some good planes!

 

I haven't had a single free weekend or decent weather to fly since late October so not much going on here. I did however get my SCX10 motor back from Holmes Hobby - turned out the fault was the one thing I didn't think to check, a bad sensor wire!

oops.

Well, anyway I got it back together and figured I should give the entire truck an annual maintenance work over. Started with rebuilding the shocks (and good thing they where all about half empty of oil). Next up clean and re-grease the (locked) diffs and portal gears.

 

Nice! It's just a chassis, but it looks good! Locked diffs? Like, permanently locked with no real differential in there? Or you just like to run it locked all the time? Did you have to modify it to be whatever it is?

I'm thinking about getting an SCX10 Jeep Wrangler builder's kit. I'm curious about the differential situation. I think I'd like to build it as fully locked if I'm going to build it. Unlocking the diffs on my TRX4 Bronco is nice, but I pretty much never do it anymore. I'm thinking about the Wrangler because I want to pop on a spare tire mount on it. I love running my crawlers with the spare tire. It's saved my bacon a couple of times.

 

Look back at page 7 you can see the body. Its the Axial SCX10 Jeep JLU builders kit. Its meant to be a rock crawler and everything is locked, just spools front and rear.

It was a really fun build - lots of really neat scale details. First time I ever airbrushed a body.

 

Nice! I'll go look. The biggest thing I'm worried about if I get the kit is painting the body. I haaaaaaaaaaaaate painting. I have multiple painting projects that are still incomplete.

 

On today's episode of Ice Road Truckers... watch me regret my life decisions! Nah, it wasn't quite that bad, but it got kind of bad at times. I took my TRX4 2021 Bronco out for a winter morning trail outing at Julian L. Capik Nature Preserve. If you know about New Jersey weather lately, it's cold, icy, and cold. So what did I do? I went out early in the morning when it was 9 degrees Fahrenheit, feeling like -11 with the wind, and hit the trails with my Bronco! What could go wrong? Well, I forgot my controller at home. Twenty minutes later, I'm back at the parking lot and go to start driving the Bronco. It's doing nothing. It did work in the trunk of my 4Runner, but between locking my 4Runner and beginning to drive the RC Bronco, it died. I disconnected the battery, reconnected it, turned on the ESC again, and lifted it in the air while I ran it for a minute. I think this helped to get the ESC up to operating temperature. It didn't cut out again. Getting me up to operating temperature was another story. It was still frigid and windy. I don't like wearing gloves, but I'm going to have to start wearing some light gloves on these super cold and windy days. My hands were getting very cold. So was my face. I was wearing my heaviest coat, so what I did was I used its face shielding portion. That helped my face, but it fogged my glasses. It also didn't help keep my eyeballs from freezing. At one point I turned around and started taking a rarely used side trail back to the parking lot, but it got a bit nicer during that portion. I decided to turn around again and go back into the woods. I guess the wind calmed down and the sun came up a little bit more because it wasn't quite as bad this time. I'm glad I went back because it was a nice outing around the main loop. I think someone even went through and picked up the horse poop! They didn't quite get all of it, but I only saw one or two piles. It was nice! The thick woods kept me from getting too much wind, so I was rather comfortable once I got into the main trail network. The ground was frozen solid. The sand portions were very solid. I would have had no problem driving on them with my Enduro Trailrunner and its IFS. I got to the point with the picnic tables, took a little break, and decided to head back to my 4Runner via the lowlands. If course, it rained a whole lot yesterday, so the lowlands were frozen. The trails were simply wet and frozen over. There were some areas where I could only see ice on the ground in front of me as far as the eye could see. My boots do a nice job of giving me grip on the ice, though. It's not like I can do Riverdance on the ice or anything like that, but I didn't really slip. While I wasn't doing anything crazy like walking over frozen lakes, it was still a little unnerving to have the ice crack under my feet and have little geysers of water shooting up from areas near where I was stepping. It turned my quick lowland way back into a long and careful trudge. There was one huge spot that was frozen that was largely smooth and let me put the Bronco into high gear and do some drifting. I was giggling like a kid at that spot. I eventually got back to the parking lot and packed up. All in all, it was one of my more interesting outings. I'd do it again, but definitely with gloves.















Here I am letting out my inner Drift King: https://flic.kr/p/2o7FS4X

 

I did a somewhat more brief outing at the woods behind Walter D. Faith Memorial Field this morning. It's across the street from where I went last Saturday, but it's also a bit higher, so there's not as much in the way of ice when it gets cold. I mostly went on the main trails, but I went deeper towards the high school behind houses and along the power lines. I found a trail that went back a ways to a weird spot that I don't really know, but I could tell that there wasn't much hiking to be done past the point I went. I did find a stack of firewood alongside the trail that I popped my TRX4 Bronco onto to change batteries. Considering how there was a fence away from the trail, I doubt I was trespassing. I did find some ice, though. I was able to set down my phone on this random bench in the middle of the woods next to the ice and capture some Tokyo Drifting. I went off camera for some of it, unfortunately. I think I saw someone on my way back, but they disappeared. Spooky.









And here's a link to some Tokyo Drifting: https://flic.kr/p/2o81QTL

 

I had a big morning doing RC stuff today. I went to Cattus Island in Toms River, NJ earlier this morning. and took the trails to the northeast going towards the water. It was cold but not too windy. There were some frozen trails, but it was nothing like the frozen lowlands at Julian L. Capik Nature Preserve. There were some very scenic frozen spots by the water. I also saw the bridge that goes to Seaside (yes, that Seaside) as the sun was coming up and breaking through the clouds a bit. The hidden beach trail was a riot. A large portion of it is elevated wooden walking paths. Those wooden structures have seen better days. I was able to pass through most of it without picking up my Enduro Trailrunner, though. There was one spot where my Trailrunner got stuck and started making a sound. I saw the front wheel wasn't moving, but I wasn't looking at the rear wheel. I hope the rear wheel wasn't moving because that would likely mean I just damaged the spur gear which is a cheap and easy fix. I haven't opened it up yet. The magnet holding my spare tire carrier to the back of the body also popped free. I'm going to see what I can do to make that more secure.

I then went to Unreal RC which is literally 4 minutes away. I picked up some parts and brought out my Mini Z Corvette and tried some setups. I feel I've been giving up too much speed in corners, so I'm going to try to fix that. I think I have a race winning formula! Well, we'll see. I didn't take any pics of the Mini Z course, but I did take some pics of the crawler courses. Yes, I brought some tiny trucks to Unreal RC! I first tried my new build of my Mini Z 4X4 Toyota 4Runner on Unreal's new beginner's course. It's on one of the shelves and is made mostly from popsicle sticks. I was so happy that my little 4Runner made it through nearly all of the course with relative ease. The servo was a little unhappy at times, but it wasn't anything I couldn't deal with. The only part the 4Runner couldn't do was a steep staircase obstacle. I'd say it was a successful test of my 4Runner build. The brass I added yesterday did good, and the new Interco tires from Kyosho did even better. I'm quite happy with the Interco tires. I actually like my Mini Z 4X4 now! LOL! My Axial SCX24 Jeep Gladiator could do it, though! It also did everything else with more ease except for the sharp turns at the ends of the course. The long wheelbase didn't do it any favors, but the turns were passable. The more hardcore rock course was tough but also fun. It was done up with little Christmas trees as markers. My Jeep was able to get through most of the course on the easy end without any help. There was also a separate setup for experts with built up trucks that I did not do so well on, so I went back to the regular area and had fun. I was very happy with how my Jeep performed. Some people don't like the Jeep Gladiator because of its size and shape, but I thought it did well. I could see how its size and shape might affect it negatively, but I was usually able to make something work. I was very, very happy with how the Gladiator performed.

Rich at Unreal RC was busy with other customers and dealing with the business end of things, but he spared some time to chat with me and to see how my Jeep was doing on the popsicle stick course. He was impressed that I was able to drive it up one steep portion. He didn't think I had the weight down low to do it, but I was able to do it no problem once I made sure to go up it straight. Rich is a great guy to talk so, and he has a great, fun store. I bought a couple vehicles and a bunch of parts from him this year, and everything's been great. I wish Unreal RC was closer to home. It's a really great place.

I also stopped by Hobbytown in Toms River on my way back. Don't worry, I like Hobbytown, too I got a few parts there as well. I also said hi to local hero Dickie, but I was getting hungry, so I didn't stay too long.

 

Got my boy some new rigs.

 

Lucky boy!

I got a really bad headache later in the day Tuesday, so I didn't do much of anything yesterday. I just wanted to take it easy. I went out again today for a bit of an outing at Ireland Brook with my TRX4 2021 Bronco. It was a pretty nice day. It was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. A lot different from the last few times I went out. The ice was melting, and the ground was thawing. Things got a little muddy. I only went to the fork where the trail splits into a loop before I turned back, but it takes a while to get that far, so I was out for a while. The sun was in my eyes on the way back, so I took a couple wrong turns and got a little lost. I was able to find the trail again without too much trouble.

 

I haven't had my planes out in a while, but seeing as the Jeep is fixed my son and I went down to drive them all by the town lake. Nice mix of gravel parking lot for some hot laps with the speed cars and crawling on the beach and frozen lake.



The lake was freezing up last week, but it ran back up to the 50s this week and started melting again... its maybe 3/4-1" think, ok for driving RCs on but not nearly strong enough to walk on. We had some fun doing donuts but then of course my son found the only ice hole in sight to fall into. Luckily its really shallow and we managed a recovery with a long branch.




https://youtu.be/21Y_v9Ua0wI

https://youtu.be/2y9ReG3oy6U

https://youtu.be/je4NKbI3OtA

https://youtu.be/vG9mslJzr0c

 

It looks like you guys had a great RC outing! That Willys Jeep is the 1/6 one that can hold GI Joe action figures, right?

 

Yep, the Roc Hobby (FMS) 1/6 “MB Scaler” I picked it up for something like $279 on sale, really amazing deal at that price. The driver figure is just some random toy soldier off Amazon.

 

Thanks! That's what I thought.

 

Oooooookay. It's the second day of the new year, it's my last day off, and the weather was nice. Of course I'm hitting the trails some today. I decided to go to Frost Woods.

I started with my Enduro Trailrunner. My rear spare tire mount magnet solution is working well. The glue holding the exterior magnet is holding, and the extra interior magnets are working out well for keeping the spare tire in place. I also didn't hear any weirdness with the drivetrain like I did last week at Cattus Island, so I think it's going to be okay. I took it pretty easy, but I did go for a while. I just wanted to make sure things were working right.

I then took my Axial SCX24 Jeep Gladiator out for a trail run! It's not a good choice for taking on trails! It's way too slow. It's slower than casual strolling pace. It's a good truck for taking out to the spots on foot, setting down, doing your thing, and then finally picking up and walking to the next spot. I'll have to invest in some sort of carrier for the thing. The Gladiator performed okay. It wasn't super awesome, but it was okay. The rear links really let it down. There were times the rear tires were just floating in the air because the links were bottoming out and preventing the tires from doing any work. The Gladiator's also a little tippier than I'd like. It reminds me of my TRX4 2021 Bronco in that regard. I've already got dreams of changing the links, installing brass parts down low, etc. I'll also be removing the bed rack. I could probably get away with just removing the roof top tent, but why stop there? By golly, I might even install portal axles. It wasn't all disappointment out in the wild, though. I was able to 100% completely clear this one tree log bike obstacle, though I wasn't able to climb up onto it on the end that I wanted in part due to the rear links. I was able to climb up the other end. It took me a lot of K-turns, but once I got up onto the log, I got going. You can see in the video how I made it over one particularly challenging spot, and going down the other end was harrowing but fun.











And here's that video I was talking about: https://flic.kr/p/2o9kGZq

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115658624027

 

That is cool! Haha