HPI, LRP, Kyosho, Nuremberg, Oh My! Week in RC.
Welcome to month two in 08′, and like always, the rc world did not fail to deliver the goods.
The most news came out of the Nuremberg Toy Fair. When it comes to terms of “cool”, Nuremberg often bests the American shows when it comes to new products.
But first, I must address a huge beef I have with the management of BigSquidRC. Where was my first class ticket to Nuremberg? I was forced to fly coach and spend a miserable week in the Florida heat last week, and this week they won’t even buy me a ticket to Bavaria Germany? Where is the justice in this world? I fully expect a bottle of Dom Perignon Rose’ 98′, with a BigSquidRC sticker on it, in my hand or this will be my last write up for you guys.
So I digress. The biggest surprise of the show looked to be the new LRP NEXXT brushless controller. LRP states that this speedo “provides sensored driveablity without hall sensors”. Now I find that hard to believe, but the latest generation Castle Mamba 25 is truly remarkable in it’s drive quality, and it is non-sensored. It’s common knowledge that the real guys “in the know” about non-sensored systems
make good arguments as to why their technology is second to none, even throttle control from a dead stop. Time will tell if the LRP NEXXT technology is the next big thing, or yet another example of technology that was over hyped.
The only other thing that really caught my eye from the show was the Kyosho dNano 1/43rd scale racers. Wanna talk hi tech? They come stock with a 2.4Ghz transmitter (that looks exact like a phaser from Star Trek TOS!!!), stock li-po battery, and you can easily race a class of ten cars on your kitchen table! They do look really trick. But be careful, hitting a grain of salt will result in a marshalling.
HPI is getting their swagger back. Over the last couple years, they seemed to have quietly been sitting back gaining a fresh breathe of air. Guess what? The sleeping giant is back in full force. For all those serious bashers, the King of nitro bashmobiles is back, bigger, badder, and gnarlier. It’s called the Savage XL, and it looks EKA (extra kick ass). I’ve never seen any truck take a beating like a Savage does. The new version is bigger, badder, and sure to PWN the local dirt lot when it
comes to driving over all competition.
This week HPI also released news on their all new 10th scale, electric, brushless, off road truck called the Flux. In this new world of lithium batteries and brushless motors, you’d be hard pressed to actually find a transmission capable of handling a decent BL motor on 3S lithium from any manufacture. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that the Flux comes with all metal gears in the tranny. Horrray! (and will the rest of the industry please follow!!) I love it when manufacture
actually engineer for durability, not for a price point.
That’s it for this week. Read your daily dose of BigSquidRC, support your local hobby shops, and get off of here and drive your ride. You need to wear it out now because there is so much new gear ya have to buy!
Your all knowing, all seeing,
Cubby Reporter
