Ask Cub Reporter – 01.20.2010
Ask Cub Reporter, A Weekly Advice Column- 01.20.2010
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First off a couple quick notes. If you have a question for the “Ask Cub Reporter” column, just shoot’em to cubby at BigSquidRC.com. Secondly, the “Ask Cub Reporter” segment is for all questions, from Formula One, to Supercross, to how to set the mesh on your E-Maxx, so feel free to ask Anything. 🙂
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Hey there Cubby,
I am in no means new to the hobby. I got my first truck, a Stampede, when I was seven. But I recently put together an Axial SCX-10 kit. Since my first and only electric truck is my stampede. And my newest stick pack is 5 years old, I’m in a way very out of touch in the electric scene(only things I’ve driven in the past few years are a T-Maxx, Savage, And my truggy. I have the an ax-1 ESC on it that I borrowed from a friend (the ESC from the TR version) and I really wanna go LiPo. I just need ya to point me in the right direction for a pack thats not a 5000 mah, 22.4v beast. Just a cheap reliable pack. Thanks a lot bro.
Cenzo Reyes
from Chi-Town
Ya know Cenzo, that Axial truck is one good looking truck, congrats on having one in your stable. So first off some facts for you and the others reading. The SCX-10 is set up to use a normal 6 cell Ni-mh Stick Pack, meaning two sets of 3 Ni-mh cells set side by side. That size of battery tray pretty much holds any standard 6 cell Ni-mh, and all the ROAR legal 2S Li-po‘s out there. Next, the speedo that comes stock in the Trail Ready SCX-10, does not have a built in Li-po cut-off. What does a Li-po cut off do? It keeps you from running a Li-po battery down so far that it damages the battery. So to run a Li-po in your truck, you’ll also need one a Li-po cut off or warning device. Lastly, because you haven’t run much electric in recent years, you may not have a charger capable of charging a Lithium battery pack, so you might very well be looking at buying a new charger as well.
So what’s a cheap reliable battery for your Axial? If you want a good pack, todays Ni-mh’s put out good voltage, and have lots of capacity (lot of capacity means lots of run time). A Ni-mh weighs a bit more than a Li-po, so it won’t quite have the yank of a good Lithium pack, but that slight loss of punch might be worth the money you’ll save on a new charger and a Li-po low voltage alarm. So, if you go the Ni-mh route, I’d highly recommend the MaxAmps 5000 mah 6 cell Ni-mh Shotgun pack. It will fit perfect, has lots of power, and won’t break the bank. You can see more info on that pack HERE.
If you want to go the Li-po route to get into todays new technology, I’d recommend the MaxAmps 5250 7.4v Li-po, info HERE., in conjunction with a Li-po low voltage alarm such as this HERE.. The MaxAmps 5250 will give you extremely long run times, as well lots of rip snorting power. The low voltage alarm will warn you when you are about to discharge your battery too far and damage it.
Happy trails Cenzo, and be sure and shoot us some pics of your Axial when you get it good and muddy.
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Cubby,
I saw a pro racer throw his radio after his car broke in a big race in Ohio last weekend. Why did he do that?
Tony
Columbus
Well hello Tony from Columbus. So why did that pro racer guy throw his transmitter after his car broke last weekend? Well, I wasn’t at the CRCRCRCRC race last weekend, nor can I read peoples mind, so I am not going to speculate. What I will say is the racer in question is normally one of the cooler heads on the stand, and is normally a class act. If the racer in question (who’s nic name rhymes with fudge) did actually let his emotions get to him, I’d hope he’d openly apologize to the public, as that’s really the stand up thing to do. It would just take him a minute to post something on his Myspace page if he did actually lose his temper. If he didn’t, all the rumor mongers need to be forced to drink a full quart of carrot juice (ever try that stuff? OMG it’s horrible).
People look up to the pro’s, if they see some “big name” guy throwing a transmitter, they think it’s ok for them (or maybe even cool) to do the same. It’s really not that uncommon to see a 4PK flying across the pits, even at a local race, now days. Racers get too wound up, and there really are no repercussions for their poor sportsmanship. Local track directors never dock laps or throw people out at a local level, and at the national level, I’ve yet to see a racer penalized for turning a DX3R into a frisbee. Until the people behind the scoring computers get their sh#t together, we can expect to see more flying transmitters, trucks, fuel bottles, etc. At a regional or national level, if a racer did throw an item out of anger, then his racing privileges were revoked for a year or so, I’d bet we’d see far fewer outbursts like that. Just say’n……
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That’s it for this weeks edition of “Ask Cub Reporter”. Thanks for reading, and see you bright and early Monday morning for another exciting (LOL) edition of “THE Cub Report”.
YOUR Cub Reporter
