Meatball Racing

Radio Control Blog

Converting to XT60

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I did quite a bit more flying this summer than I did rc car racing. As the weather turns cold flying will be limited to golf dome outings with the local electric club and indoor FPV. In Minnesota the on-road guys drive on carpet indoors, so it’ll soon be time to race. One thing I’ve grown to like that is commonplace on quads and planes is the XT-60 connector. So I decided to upgrade all of my cars and even my rocket launcher to it.

Technically, an XT-60 pair is 2g heavier than a pair of Deans connectors, but with all of the other advantages, I’m still switching.
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Cheali Charger – free 4-button charger upgrade

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If you have one of the ubiquitous “4 button chargers” you can likely upgrade the firmware to Cheali Charger. You’ll have to do some hacking to get there, but if you want to add features like LiHV and NiZN charging, and have 30 battery memories, it’s the way to go.

Example chargers that are eligible:

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Gold Tub RC-10

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Many would argue that the golden age of R/C buggies in the 1980s was truly golden, a standard set by Team Associated’s RC-10 – a racing buggy which featured a gold-anodized aluminum tub.

As a kid, I couldn’t afford an RC-10. I kept hacking away at my intermediate Kyosho Raider, upgrading parts piecemeal as I could afford them. But my friend Adit convinced his parents to buy him an RC-10. He had never driven one, but he knew it was the best – probably because I told him so.
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Kyosho Raider

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The year was 1988, I was 11 years old. The Minnesota Twins were fresh off a World Series win. After taking my Sears Lobo II to it’s limits (whatever that means to an 11 y/o), it was time for an upgrade.

I had purchased a copy of Radio Control Car Action magazine from the local hobby shop – Jolly’s Toys and Hobby in Apache Plaza. Inside, I found this article with all of its 80s flair:

Raider1

(The other pages from that article: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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DIY lithium powered lawn mower

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While this isn’t about anything R/C, it’s somewhat related… I recently converted a lead-acid battery powered mower to lithium-ion batteries. Anyone that is in R/C and has a lawn to mow should follow this course.

For the record, I hate mowing the lawn. It’s a useless pursuit. We’ve all got better things to do with both our time and our resources like water and land. This Washington Post article “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them” pretty much sums up my opinion.

The purpose of upgrading to an electric mower is to get the job done faster, and without smelling like a snowblower repairman when I’m done.
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Hobby Stores getting left behind

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Dear hobby shop owners and employees,

This is a plea, asking you to get to know your competition. If you don’t know what a Turnigy 9x or an XT60 is, you’ve become a slave to your distributors, and your customers are likely going to leave you behind. There is an enterprising young man named Anthony Hand who moved to China and started a company called HobbyKing. You should pay attention to what they (and others) are doing as they’re rewriting the rules of radio control hobbies.

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