Meatball Racing

Radio Control Blog

Flysky Noble NB4 – A great left handed transmitter

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Disclaimer: I am not left handed, but this is a great transmitter whether you’re left or right handed…

During quarantine I played VRC at least once a week to get my racing fix since all of the tracks were closed. My daughter would often ask if she could try racing as she watched me play. But converting my Spektrum DX3R to left handed operation meant taking it apart to move all the components to the left.

I’d been eyeing a Flysky Noble NB4 because it’s a pro-level low latency transmitter, and it’s killer feature is that it can instantly switch from right to left-handed operation.

Since I wasn’t getting to the track anytime soon, I sold my DX3R and ordered a Noble NB4 with some extra receivers. This write-up will go through some of the features and how I set it up because there are a few things you’ll want to consider.

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VRC Live Server Setup

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There are several great resources out there for setting up a gaming server on Microsoft Azure. This one is specifically for VirtualRC the R/C racing simulator.

If you want to host a race and participate in the race itself, you’ll need two VRC accounts (and possibly paid subscriptions): one for you and one for the race host. You can host a race with a free VRC account, but you’ll be limited to the free tracks and cars – that’s OK too – you’ll surely get a lot of people joining your server if you’re hosting races on the free-to-play tracks.

But if you want the most flexibility and variety, you’ll need to have the full all-inclusive subscription on your VRC account(s).

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Join the Quaranteam

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Update

Due to lack of interest – primarily because there are several other well established and well followed clubs already racing, Meatball Racing VRC Live has been suspended. Please go here for recommended VRC clubs to join.

With almost everyone quarantined in their homes for the Coronavirus pandemic, RC racing (along with everything else) has come to a halt. I enjoy competitive RC club racing and I can’t wait to get back into it. Until then there’s two things we all can do:

  1. Buy a shirt and support your local track: https://tssmt.liverc.com/
  2. Play VRC to stay sharp
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R/C and VRC transmitter speed

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After having some troubles playing VRC, I started to look at my hardware to see if there was some gains to be had there because while I’m not a great racer in real life, I’m also not terrible 😎 I wound up doing a lot of research regarding the relative speed and latency of various tx/rx brands and models. The most concrete measurement I could come up with is the PWM frequency sent from the receiver to the ESC & servo(s). PWM signals are often much faster than PPM signals that are used by buddy-box or direct servo control systems. This is important in regards to playing VRC.

I gathered results measured by myself and others using the SkyRC Program Box. It is not a foolproof measurement of end-to-end latency – the delay from when you give a controller input and the ESC reacts to it. But it’s a clear metric, and part of the overall latency we can measure easily.

Much of this may not even matter to you. The average human reaction time is on the order of hundreds of milliseconds. For transmitter latency we’re talking about tens of milliseconds or less. Also, the transit time on the fastest servos are around 50 milliseconds, so that is another part of the equation that is difficult to reduce. But just because the measured latency is less than what we as humans can react to, it doesn’t mean these delays can’t be perceived, even if it’s just in the way something feels.

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Beginner’s Guide to VRC PRO

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I can’t always get to the track to actually race, so the next best thing is playing Virtual RC Pro. I can practice or race at anytime, no matter what my family’s schedule is or what the weather is like. I initially had some trouble playing VRC, so I put this together to document how I was able to improve gameplay, and my driving. The first part of this is about getting VRC set up and working well. The second part is about racing electric on-road cars in VRC (that’s what I drive at our local tracks). But there may be a buggy in my future so subscribe to get those updates as well!

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