ASK Cub Reporter- You Have Questions, I Make Up Ridiculous Answers- Version 01.12.2011

And to believe there was a point in time when we hardly got any emails around this joint…. You guys aren’t mess’n around now days, thanks for keep’n our mailboxes full.

Hello
I was just wondering if the HPI Mini Trophy would be able to take Li-Po batteries straight out of the box without any mods? If so, is there a low voltage cut off in the ESC?
Thanks, Ben

Cubby– The mightly HPI Mini Trophy truck, the best looking truck on the market, the truck that could’a/would’a/should’a been a huge seller….

Ok, our BSRC crew only used Lipo’s in our test HPI MTT. Most seemed to fit with zero issues, albeit any pack is a bit hard to put into the stock battery tray. No, the included HPI SC-15 speedo does NOT include any sort of low voltage cut-off protection for Lithium based batteries. And no, we didn’t run an LVC nor did we have any issues with our Lipo’s. To keep from running our Lipo’s too low we simply quit driving as soon as we felt the battery going “soft” (it feels like you are losing power, it’s no longer as punchy as it was). If you are unsure that you’ll be able to stop driving before your battery is too low, then by all means install an LVC.

Dear whoever,
When will the review for the horizon hydrogen fuel cell car be up? it looks interesting, and I would like to know more about it
Your Fan
-Joe

Whoever (aka- Cubby)– Ya know…………… it’s never a good idea to put an item of value in a factory drivers hands, they Always blow it up!
Now I’m not going to mention any names here (he drives for Castle and his last name rhymes with “door”), but “someone” testing our Horizon fuel cell test unit took it well outside of spec on it’s third run, blowing it to kingdom come. Hence we had to return it, and further hence we’ve yet to post our review on it. The Horizon guys were at CES last weekend, and last I heard we’ll have a new test unit in a couple weeks.

To boil it down for ya on what we’ve learned thus far about the Horizon fuel cell-

1. Don’t let a factory driver install one of his uber wayyyy too fast motors on it.
2. It turned heads Everywhere we went.
3. If you are into “going green”, this is for you.
4. If you are into being on the very cutting edge of technology, here it is.
5. The unit will extend your runtimes, but we didn’t notice any increase in acceleration (in the short time we ran it).
6. The H2 filled HydroStiks get very cold during use.
7. The fuel cell system is safer than the Lithium battery you’ll be using in conjunction with it.
8. It sounds really cool when the solenoids purge the system of air.

So hold on tight, and we’ll do our best to get that review busted out as soon as we can. Until then, enjoy the ONLY pic of the Horizon unit mounted up in an HPI Blitz ESE.

Just curious if you guys have played around at all with the Losi Mini SCT. I know that you have reviewed the mico and discussed the xxx-sct, but I haven’t seen anything about the mini. My son and I have Slashs, SC-10s, and Evaders, but he wants to get something smaller for fun. Trying to see how durable the Mini is, we like to jump and have fun.
Thanks in advance for any info.
Thanks, Darren

Cubby– Yo, hey what’s up Darren, thanks for reading and for the email.

At the iHobby expo one of our crew ran a Losi Mini SCT’s during some of our demos. The driver was Wesley “Micro Man” Dennis, he’s one of the uber micro/mini racers on the circuit. I gave him a quick call tonight and he says that after driving/racing/bashing his Losi MSCT for several months now it has been very durable and a total blast to drive. And btw, no, Wes does not drive for Losi, so that’s a pretty honest testimonial.

On a personal note, I’ve gotten in limited trigger time on the Mini SCT- it seems to drive well, even outdoors on a rough parking lot. The MSCT is quite a bit larger than a normal 18th scale Mini-T or RC18, perhaps a bit too large to be run in spaces you’d normally have loads of room running most other 18th scalers. The added size is great for rougher or larger areas, but then you’ve already got a full compliment of 10th scalers for that. Personally I’d recommend the Associated SC18- it’s smaller so you can drive in smaller areas, 4wd, and also extremely durable. But, the Losi Mini SCT sure was fun to drive, let us know what you think of it if you get a couple of’em.

That’s it for this week, please feel free to crush my mailbox at Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!
YOUR Cub Reporter