getting back into rcs after a long hiatus

[richard.hubbell@gmail.com]

Trying to pick up and dust off old stuff. I have an RC-10 truck and
some kind of dtx motor and a couple of batteries, charger, etc. It's
probably been 10 years since I did anything with this stuff. Will give
the batteries a trickle and see how they do. I expect I will buy a
couple of new ones. What are some things I should do to the truck? I
suppose I should spray the motor good. I think I want less top speed
and more torque so I may need to change the gears. How much has the
technology changed? The speed control was a good one back then and
seems to work fine. Is there a good gear simulator or something like
that around so I can get the right combo? We will drive it at the
school which has dirt and some grass. Has the motor technology
advanced much?

Richard

[mike]

Is the controller electronic? If not, that would be the first thing I would
upgrade. Its a "safe" upgrade since if you build a new truck you can just
transfer it over.

> Has the motor technology
> advanced much?

With the motor, I don't know what a DTX is, but I bet a good stock motor of
today will kill even a hot mod motor from 10 years ago no matter what its
condition. If you want to keep your old motor (and I wouldn't, honestly), I
would take a look at the comm and if its marked at all I would send it off
for a skim (if rebuildable) or run a comm stick down the brush tubes (if
not).

Mike



<richard.hubbell@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1107796687.333916.202130@z14g2000cwz.googlegr oups.com...
> Trying to pick up and dust off old stuff. I have an RC-10 truck and
> some kind of dtx motor and a couple of batteries, charger, etc. It's
> probably been 10 years since I did anything with this stuff. Will give
> the batteries a trickle and see how they do. I expect I will buy a
> couple of new ones. What are some things I should do to the truck? I
> suppose I should spray the motor good. I think I want less top speed
> and more torque so I may need to change the gears. How much has the
> technology changed? The speed control was a good one back then and
> seems to work fine. Is there a good gear simulator or something like
> that around so I can get the right combo? We will drive it at the
> school which has dirt and some grass. Has the motor technology
> advanced much?
>
> Richard
>

[jimomuraNOSPAM@pathcom.com]

On 7 Feb 2005 09:18:07 -0800, richard.hubbell@gmail.com wrote:

>Trying to pick up and dust off old stuff. I have an RC-10 truck and
>some kind of dtx motor and a couple of batteries, charger, etc. It's
>probably been 10 years since I did anything with this stuff.

So am I. I guess 10 years is a magic number? :-) You are
lucky you have that truck. Trucks are basically the dominant
racing for dirt now. But where I am, "on-road" is all that is
around, so I will be trying 1/12th pan cars and probably 1/10th
Touring Cars as well.

> Will give the batteries a trickle and see how they do. I expect I
> will buy a couple of new ones.

If you quit before buying NiMH batteries (which were just
starting to become available 10 years ago), you will also need
a new charger. Luckily, there is a new Duratrax ICE charger which
is a really good buy that just came out recently. My old NiCads
actually survived quite well, but I am changing over.

> What are some things I should do to the truck? I
>suppose I should spray the motor good. I think I want less top speed
>and more torque so I may need to change the gears. How much has the
>technology changed? The speed control was a good one back then and
>seems to work fine. Is there a good gear simulator or something like
>that around so I can get the right combo?

Do you mean just "gears" or are you using the British
meaning ("gear" ~ just about everything)? If you mean the
latter, then Duratrax "RealRace G2 Professional R/C Car
Simulator" sounds like a good program. It costs about $90 US.

http://www.realrace.com/

If you mean literally just gears, then just buy a couple.
Pinions are about the cheapest accessories in the hobby.
Also, if you are going to be in the hobby for a while, a
selection of pinion gears are always usable. Count the teeth
on the pinion. If you have more than 20 teeth then try dropping
2 at a time (ie drop from 27 tooth down to 25 tooth.) If you
have 20 teeth or less then just drop 1 tooth (ie drop from
19 tooth down to 18 tooth).

> We will drive it at the
>school which has dirt and some grass.

Are you going to try organizing races or are you just
spinning laps around a baseball diamond?

> Has the motor technology advanced much?

I would say yes.