I bought a Venom Gambler partly because of the price and partly because their marketing video has it running in the snow and the box claims it is waterproof. One day in the LHS, I overheard one of the guys say they don't care if it says waterproof, he won't risk getting their struff wet. Understandable since most things RC are pricy. How much do you trust your stuff (besides boats) in the water?

Since my last post about the really bad run of luck I had in one day, everything has gotten better. It only cost $10 to fix the MQX, I have a new tail motor on my SR, and Venom is sending me 2 ESCs (one for each truck) because even though my sons truck does go forward, the reverse is intermittent. Considering a new ESC would have been half the cost of the truck for us (We paid $120 each), I am really happy with Venom's customer service right now. That is the Rave part of this post.

My son and I also completed building the Estes Moon Mutt and the little launch pad that came with it. Not sure why we are going smaller, but he's 7 so I do not ask. During assembly there was a little issue were glue ended up on the ceiling, but I am going to try and forget about that one and just hope the rain holds off until after our first launch this afternoon.

Yesterday was my son's 7th birthday. I got him a black Venom Gambler and another white one for myself. I adjusted his so it basically crawled around and I was flying up and down the back alley. When I noticed my car wasn't going as fast as, I figured the battery was getting low and pulled it in next to me. I opened my back gate to drive it up to the house and there was no forward, but reverse worked. I picked it up and put in on a trampoline to open it and shut it off, still thinking it was a battery issue. The second I turned the switch off, smoke poured out of the ESC. I have a phone call and a support ticket into Venom.

Next, being a birthday party who doesn't like heli's? The MCX2 was fun and when the battery was depleted we moved outside for an MQX demo. I took it real high but kept it steady. I got distracted for one second and caught a tree branch. The resulting crash broke one of the arms. An easy fix, but still frustrating.

Now the party is over, the kids are in bed and I have a used Blade SR I picked up that I have just been dying to slap a training kit on and do a simple hover with. While the training gear says install in minutes, it was more like 15 and it took some effort to keep it centered. Finally I have my receiver set, the battery in place, all lights are orange and steady, all the servos are moving the right way and I have my finger on the lever about to turn off the throttle hold. One little click and a some throttle later the main blades are...Continue Reading

Yeah, it ain't pretty, but I just want to play with some cheap EQ first before I started getting more into mixing my hobbies together.

1st Video From a $6 808 #13 Keychain Camera Attached to a Blade MQX with Velcro (1 min 46 sec)