ASK Cubby, Version- Your Astute Questions, My Questionable Answers

“Duratrax and Ofna

Hello Sir,

I was curious if you knew why Duratrax stopped making cars? I see that they make a 1/8 buggy but that is all. Also I saved up for an Ofna 1/8 Ultra LX2e and parts have been discontinued. I used to buy Associated and Losi but I think their prices have sky rocketed. That’s my opinion. Is there another brand besides Traxxas that doesn’t change their model frequently and makes parts for their vehicles after?

Thank you for your time.

Matt”

Cubby- Well hello there Matt, you are one lucky guy. Why is that? Because I proclaim your question as “Letter of the Month”. Shoot me your snail mail and shirt size so we can hook you up.

So… do I know why Duratrax has stopped making cars? First off, like you mention they are still making cars. Their 8th scale buggies are still on the market and a pretty good buy for backyard bashing. But… I get your point, why have they stopped announcing more new cars?

My guess would be this- Duratrax is owned by a company called Hobbico, which is basically the biggest company in all of rc. Hobbico picked up some rockstar car lines a few years ago that you might know- ARRMA, Team Durango, and Axial. ARRMA certainly has the basher market covered, Durango is dialed for the racing crowd, and of course Axial is an LHS sales floor darling for the scale/trail/crawling guys. If I had to guess, there is no need for Duratrax to compete with Hobbico’s other car lines, so they are going to leave it for accessories, which it has been great at in the past.

On the second part of your question, yes, many car companies use the same platform/parts over and over again, although none with the success of Traxxas. A good example of this would be the ARRMA tenth scale trucks. Many of their parts have been the same since they were first introduced, and many of them are used on every truck in the line-up. But, and there is always a but, you are right, a lot more car companies have gone to shorter life cycles on their cars. It isn’t unusual for a car to only be produced for a year or two, then disco’ed, along with its parts.

“Stability Control

OMG Cubby, do I have a question for you, it is a which one should I buy so you should really like it. My question is which stability control is the best Traxxas TSM or Spektrum AVC. I want to put it in my 3S Traxxas Stampede and wanted to hear your opinion on the subject before I went out and bought one.

Thanks,

Walter

ps- How easy is set-up on stability control once I put it in?”

Cubby- Yo Walter thanks for the email, shoot me your snail mail for a BSRC sticker pack for your Pede.

And oh boy do you have quite the question. Ya know, like 50% of hobbyists can’t wrap their head around the fact that electronic stability control can come in quite handy sometimes, so they go all full retard against it, instead of just seeing it for what it is, new technology to make their life better. They kinda sound like the holdouts against LiPo batteries and brushless motors back in the day. Btw, every single one of those LiPo/Brushless haters now runs LiPo and brushless in their cars, how ironic.

Anyways… which is better, Spektrum AVC or Traxxas TSM? The answer is… wait for it… seriously, wait for it… I don’t know. It is gonna take a full blown shoot-out with identical cars to see how they both really stack up. And, if we were to do a shootout, I’d like to do it AVC vs TSM vs some Joe Blow drift gyro to see how they all stack up. As of right now, I would definitely lean towards the AVC, as it is much more adjustable and also controls power output the motor, but without doing hours upon hours of testing on different surfaces (like we would in a shootout), I can’t tell you for sure which one is the “best”.

How easy is stability control to set-up? Whether it be AVC, TSM, or a drift gyro, initial set-up is really fast and easy. You will probably be looking at 10-20 minutes for the install and initial calibration. The AVC system on one of the better/high-end Spektrum radios gives a ton more options for fine tuning, which you can spend hours doing to get it absolutely perfect for the surface you are on, but generally they are just as easy to set-up as an speedo.

Seriously, that’s it for this week. Dont’ be shy, shoot me an email- thecubreportrc at gmail dot com is my address. Make the front page and win a BSRC stick pack, or be proclaimed as letter of the month (like Matt’s letter above) and win a free BSRC t-shirt.

YOUR Cub Reporter