1/10 electric RC buggy kit, package but not RTR?

[loudlashadjuster]

With misty-eyed memories of my journey through Mardave Apache through Tamiya Boomerang to Schumacher Cat I'm looking to maybe get my son an RC kit for his 10th birthday. He's been asking for one for a while and I've had to physically stop my wife buying something out of the like of Menkind/Red5 on more than one occasion!

I couldn't knowingly spend the £50+ on the crap they sell when I know what a proper RC car is like. We have a large but a bit rough traffic-free tarmac'd area outside the house and a large garden so a buggy would be be ideal.

I'd love to be able to get him something he can build, maintain and upgrade if he gets into it - there is no substitute for building your own differential when it comes to understanding how these kind of things work - but it seems that the entry price for this might be too high. Most of the packages I've seen are RTR and it's not immediately apparent how repairable/upgradeable some of them are.

There are a load more options that when I were a lad though so I'm a bit wary of buying all the bits myself, not to mention the fact this seems to gets very expensive very quickly when you get seduced by bigger mAh counts etc.

The kind of things I've been looking at so far:

Prime Baja - £95 - Kit including radio, battery & charger is a nice price (under the magical £100 barrier for high WAF) but it is ready to run and spares/upgrades would worry me. Seems to be a bit of a bargain though and if he ends up only using it as a toy and gets bored with it then it's not too much to spend. Flip side is if he gets into it and wants to race then I presume this would be outclassed by even the most basic 'real' kit.

FTX Carnage - £195 - Ready to run again but lithium battery and brushless motor would provide enhanced wall-smashing opportunities. Supposed availability of upgrade parts etc. Not sure if this would count as a 'proper' model though or whether it's still in the toy realm?

If I could be sure the electronics on something like the above could be reused with a 'proper' kit at some point in the future then this would allay my fears somewhat as if he wants to get into racing then pocket money could be saved towards something a bit more pro without throwing the whole lot on Ebay.

Are there are any places that sell a 'proper' build it yourself kit in a package with battery, controller etc. for reasonable money, say £200?

[loudlashadjuster]

Cheers for the replies.

dr_gn said:

I got a Tamiya Mad Bull from a work colleague, pretty much new (body wasn't even painted) for £50.

Even though I'd be happy with secondhand, lack of build opportunity notwithstanding, it wouldn't fly with Mrs Loudlashadjuster

nickos77 said:

My 10 year old nephew has just started going to his first R/C club and he has an FTX Vantage (4wd). Came RTR and with a brushless motor, speedo and 2.4ghz radio gear set-up. Considering the price which was about £140ish it's pretty good, and for a beginner I would say it's more than enough for the time being.
Parts are quite easy to get hold of, and a lot of the guys at the club who are running mega money Schumacher set-ups are quite surprised at the quality. I would say it's a good place to start, and stuff is so cheap these days when I look at what we used to pay for a Reedy motor and a proper peak charger!

Thanks, that's good to hear that the FTX stuff isn't complete crap. It's not a make I am familiar with being an ancient old fart.

troc said:

I'd go for one of the Tamiya re releases myself - maybe a Grasshopper or Hornet and then a basic 2-channel radio, battery, charger etc.

Nostalgia makes me want to do the same but they don't appear to be especially cheap. I also have memories of just how poor some of the kit on cheaper Tamiyas was back in the day; bushes instead of bearings, plastic gears, woeful dampers etc. which meant you had to spend money on them fairly quickly. Stuff may be a lot better nowadays though I guess.

Perhaps I'm just getting carried away with myself though!

Plus, it's when I get to specc'ing all the electronics that I get a bit unstuck. Coming from a lack of recent knowledge on what's available I imagine it's easy to end up with an incompatible collection of bits, or at least some that don't work well together, possibly even with the smell of melted plastic/burnt-out motor!

[loudlashadjuster]

Thanks, those Tamiya packages are exactly what I'm looking for, particularly the Dual Ridge one with two batteries.

Can you just confirm the following?

1) Is the ESC in the pack a TBLE-02 i.e. suitable for brushless, or would it need to be replaced? (getting ahead of myself here but I know what I'm like )

2) Can you offer a kit with fast charger instead?

3) From looking around I see that the Tamiya kits still normally come with bushes. If so, do you sell ball bearing kits? I'd really rather build with them from the outset.

Thanks again for your help.

[loudlashadjuster]

PM sent. I know PH's messaging can be a little, shall we say, flaky so if you don't get it let me know here.

[loudlashadjuster]

Ordered and dispatch notification received

[loudlashadjuster]

Just an update on this. The build took a few weeks due to half-term holiday, homework/tuition getting in the way and the slight matter of a damper oil spillage (!) but he pretty much built the whole thing himself and is loving it.

The kit is great and it's nice to see Tamiya are still pretty much the same as I recall from my youth. I do note that the plastic they use for most of the parts is a lot more flexible than it used to be. Less brittle I suppose, but things like the suspension uprights do have a lot of 'wiggle' in them. I suppose that's to get you to buy their 'hop-up' parts...

Thanks once again.

[loudlashadjuster]

kuro said:

Here's my daughter's car. She helped build most of the drive train but I finished it off. The standard tamiya esc allows a brushless motor but this is plenty quick enough for her.

You're much more organised than me, we're still running with the clear shell!