With the new thing in radio control being mini or 1/18 scale, I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on them. I think they are cool because most of them come in RTR form and they can be raced inside on rainy cool sundays. What does everyone else think?
I love my Mini-t but once you put a mod motor in a mini-t it breaks a lot and you end up spending a ton of money to make it durable for hte increased power and speed but its still fun as hell. The 1/18's are small enough to throw into a bag and take everywhere you go too. heck I run my mini-t all over the place.
I like em, but again, its only fun if your buddies have them usually.
I have a (no insults please) Xmods car for the indoor days. We have upgraded to 4wd, ball bearings, stage2 motors, tires, springs, steering bar.
With all of that it runs pretty well and is better than nothing on a winters day! Total investment is still only about $100.
Now, I know it's A TOY and not a real r/c, but to quote a recent writer in a r/c magazine, "If they offer another $100,000 car for winning with an xmod, I'm getting one and practicing!"
i have a mini quake and a micro rs4. both are a blast! the quake still needs more after market support, but its like a mini e-max that will run for 20 min with a good batt. the m-rs4 is good if you have access to a large smooth open space or a carpet track. its so low to the ground anything will pop it up. the 4wd really helps both whip around too!
rusty, how do you like the mini quake? I really like that truck and have thought about buying it.
over all i love it! looks cool, semi fast out of the box, for a noob it has every thing except "aa's" to get you going, and after market parts are finally starting to hit the market. as for driving it is a great basher! it jumps great, handles very well (except at high speeds, but its not really made for land speed handleing) and if you drop a decent batt in you can run forever!
a slight down side is,
the stock duratrax plastic it about as strong as stock plastic usally is, so in this weather ive snaped all sorts of stuff. the stock motor is ok, but there isnt any low end grunt unless you pile on the cells. also the stock esc had a few probs on the first few runs released (i got a bad one) where if you wernt full forward throttle if you hit the breaks it slammed into reverse!
i swapped out my esc to a cyclone and the motor to a t-rex from one18th.com this pigs moves pretty quick now! im also running a 6 call 1100 gp pack.
a few upgrades you want pretty quick if you pick one up is cvds, esc, motor and alum shocks. ive also found it helpfull to have a few extra spurs on hand! lol
they are about to release a sport edition with ball diffs and alum shocks already installed. i cant wait for the ball diffs!!
man im lovin this warm weather!!! the mini quake is holding up soooo much better! i finally got the right pinions so im not popping spurs like crazy. any one else carry-in the mini around?
i got some new bling fr my 18t. intigy allum rims with spike tires. they have fake disk brakes. its vey cool.
I would'nt mind getting the new AE 1/18 4WD truck thats out.
If anyone is interested, I have a Losi Mini-T that I may sell. It has:
*Orion Baja motor
*LRP Speed control- No motor limit
*Hitec Aggressor FM radio
*Oil filled shocks
*Bearings
3 bodies (Stock, Baja Beetle, CrowdPleaser)
*Proline tires (Dirt Hawgs-rear, The Edge-front)
*Hitec servo (forget model#)
Stock radio gear
Trinity Monster motor
Extra spur and pinion gears
*= parts installed
Will also include a micro camera (Onboard camera) for the right price
Make offers if interested.....
I have a RC18T and I love it. In fact i just came in from playing with it... What a blast! It runs about 20 mins on the pack (1100mha) that came with it and I also have a 1200mha pack that lasts just a hair longer,and it is insane fast.
I would buy the factory team kit if I had to do it again because I'm not overly impressed with the stock electronics(but I couldn't be happier with them since the price was right RTR $175 out the door).
Here is what It comes with RTR:
*Pre-built truck everything installed and ready to go.
*Fairly generic but very potent 280 non-rebuildable Motor; gets the thing up to 20mph!
*OIL shocks all around
*55T Spur gear (plastic and yet to strip) and 14T Aluminum pinion gear
*Ball diffs (an upgrade on the mini-t)
*15 ball bearings
*4WD Shaft driven with dog bones (plastic but if you so desire the aluminum ones are
like !$9! a pair; I have not seen a need for them yet as my plastic ones show no signs of
wear).
*Forward-Reverse (LPR cheapo version) ESC but no slouch either
*AM Radio not too fancy but very functional.
*a very nice servo that is quick and strong
*1100mha 6-cell pack
*10hr plug-in charger (a mini-t peak charger that does it in about 1.25hrs is only $30!)
*Pre-painted and trimmed body and all decals applied
The Engine it came with does 20mph+! And it feels alot faster. I love it so far and AE and others have great aftermarket support for it.
I would say that it is a bit too fast for indoors unless you have a really big open space because it is sooo fast. I have read of people clocking this thing at 50mph+ with the brushless setup (Mamba).
Compared to the Mini-T, this thing (comparing stock RTR trucks) blows it out of the water and with a few inexpensive upgrades it can really fly.
I'm gonna convert it to a RC18MT as soon as I get my hands on the wheels (pretty much the only difference other than some minor gearing changes). But even stock it dosen't require a single upgrade for hours of enjoment.
Parts availability was a problem early on but AL's has really been getting the parts in regularly and in the last couple weeks anything I've wanted or needed has been available readily.
If you are an upgrade-upgrade type of guy then the Factory Team kit is for you it includes many Aluminum and titanuium upgrades:
*Blue Aluminum Dogbones
*Blue Aluminum Finned Motor Mount
*Blue Aluminum Threaded Shocks
*Blue Aluminum Wheelnuts
*Titanium turnbuckles
*Blue woven Graphite Battery Strap
*no electronics and you get to assemble it yourself
Also they have a Aluminum upgrade kit which includes almost all AE upgrades for @$150.
I Love mine and would recomend it in a second even the RTR version.
Just my $.02 and I'm definetly not knocking anyone elses truck because almost all the 1/18 scale truck offerings are getting great reviews. I almost got the Mini-Zilla since I have a Savage but I really wanted something different and I'm glad I got this one and I am ver sold on Associated.
Good luck and I'm pretty sure you will like anything you pick in this category since all the offerings are affordable (sub $200 for almost all) and are great fun!
I just posted a review of the Mini Quake. It's really a good truck, and I'm surprised how well it did at the Leisure Hours track a few weeks back. I also have a RC18T, and a MiniZilla(review coming soon).
Duratrax has a bunch of 'hop-ups' coming out, but like you said it does not have a lot of aftermarket (3rd party) support. I just got most of their hop-ups, and will be talking about them as they get installed.
The Minizilla is a fun truck to play with, it looks cool, it acts like a monster truck, and wheelies on command. I would not recomend it for more then messin around on your drive way though. It just does not feel as 'tough'.
The RC18T is a good truck as well, though it's more of a stadium truck then a monster truck. We have been doing speed runs with the mamba brushless, and getting over 50mph. It's undrivable at this speed, and total luck if it's going straight, but it's dang impressive! Looking forward to the drag racing this summer with it.
Head on over, and check out the review.
http://www.BigSquidRC.com
BTW there is another monster truck coming out from cen! We have an exclusive picture on our site. It's going to run on a standard 7.2 volt pack with a 540 motor! Can't wait to bash that puppy!
Brian
PS: I know you won't believe it, but I'm actually cutting the Berwyn Bash video! About time huh?
Nice to hear from you Brian!
I bet that Berwyn vid is going to be super dusty, I remember it being clouds of dust everywhere in the woods that day.
While doing some test compressions on the file, the dust moving really eats into the smoothness. Oh well.
It's almost done. I have it's first full pass done. Now I just show a few people, and tweak for another day or so till it does not suck.
I have the mini-t and its quite fun..now that my motor is getting used its kinda slow the associated is alot faster. A new motor should solve that though, one nice thing about the mini t is that the pinion and spur gears are sealed of nicely.Where the associated can get a small rock in there and stop the fun. I felt the mini t was also easyer to drive despite being 2wd.