Red RC » Products

November 13, 2006

ROAR bans LiPo cells in all RC classes?

Lipo Cells banned

At last weekends ROAR (US governing body) meeting it seems a rule was passed that outlawed the use of LiPo batteries in all R/C cars that run at ROAR sanctioned events. Although not stated, the reason was probably down to the safety issues with these batteries having been known to explode if not charged and handled properly. This is unfortunate as the benefits of LiPo are clear (weight, size, longer runtime) but i think this move was more a case of covering ROAR’s ass in the event of an injury brought on by an exploding LiPo. The move however seems a bit extreme as danger is present in all forms of RC racing, particularly burns and cuts and the mis-use or bad treatment of any power sources will always result in an injury.

The ruling however does not just affect Electric class racers but also gas racers who have installed LiPo cells to power their receiver. The judgment makes no differentiation between uses of the cells, but instead just bans their usage in all classes outright.

From the minutes of the meeting:
A proposal to outlaw Lithium Polymer batteries in all r/c vehicles was discussed. This item was adopted.

You can read the full minutes of the meeting here (PDF).

November 12, 2006

The future of the O’Donnell buggy

O Donnell buggy

Philip over at Neo-Buggy has written a nice piece concerning the future of the O’Donnell buggy after development driver and long time sponsored O’Donnell racer Jared Tebo switched to a Jammin X1 buggy at this weekends RC Pro finals and with it, went on to take TQ and the win. The O’Donnell buggy seems to have been flattered by Tebo’s skills, even so the pairing hadn’t won anything together, and then to be competitive straight away with the X1 goes to prove how uncompetitive the O’Donnell buggy actually must be.

Announced in January with huge hype of 2005’s man of the year Jared Tebo being the only driver; things looked good. However as we have all read, seen and experienced its all gone a bit off the rails…

Read the full report here.

Source: Neo-Buggy [neo-buggy.net]

November 11, 2006

Star Motor infringing copyright?

Star Motor STI

After recently reporting on the Sirio Kanai Evo 3 STI I was made aware of the logo being used by the Italian engine manufacturer Star Motor to display that a motor has been factory modified or as they like to reference it, ‘Sirio Technology Impact’ (STI). This logo as you can see above on the right is a carbon copy of the logo on the left created by world famous Japanese tuning firm ‘Subaru Tecnica International’ (STI) that is famous for tuning Imprezas and other Subaru’s including the World Rally cars. This is a blatant copy of the Japanese company’s logo and an even more blatant attempt by Star Motor to change it slightly to avoid infringing on their trademark.

Team Losi officially release the 8ight Truggy

Team Losi 8ight Truggy

Team Losi have officially released their new 1/8th scale truggy to the eagerly awaiting masses of off road ~~nuts~~ enthusiasts. Based on the recently released, and already successful, 8ight buggy, this chassis has had the standard buggy to truggy conversion; longer wheelbase, longer chassis, longer wishbones etc. With the truggy class blowing up all across the globe and considering this cars pedigree on dirt we’re sure that the 8ight truggy will be at the sharp end of the grid come race day.

Created with passion and perfected by obsession, the 8IGHT-T will redefine Truggy racing with what might be called an unfair advantage. The 8IGHT-T Race Roller is the first competition-level, performance-built truggy based on Team Losi’s ground-breaking 4WD nitro platform.

You can check out the Team Losi 8ight truggy here.

November 10, 2006

Schumacher enter the 1/8th off road tyre market

Schumacher Tyres

Schumacher Racing are set to enter the 1/8th scale off road tyre market with their new Spiral and Mini Pin tyres. The Northampton, UK, based company has set mid November as the launch date for the tyres only and December for the pre mounted versions.

Based on our extensive competition racing knowledge we have designed two new tyres, the ‘Schumacher Spiral’ and the more traditional ‘Schumacher Min Pin’ these will each be available in Yellow and Silver compounds to suit a wide variety of surfaces such as grass, dirt and astro.

Source: Schumacher [racing-cars.com]

November 9, 2006

Nova RC Products cool weather head

Nova RC Products cool head

Shown on the right here is the previously available CNC machined cooling head from Nova RC Products. On the left is the new CNC machined cooling head that is to be used in cooler conditions were keeping heat in the engine is important, kind of a similar effect to when you see racers put tin foil around the engine head when its raining. Simple, effective and looks good too, kinda like Paris Hilton.

Features:
– Precision CNC Machined
– Aircraft Grade 7075-T6 Aluminum
– Awesome Looking
– Very Affordable

Check out the full details here.

Source: Buggy-Sport.info [buggy-sport.info]

November 9, 2006

Serpent release drive calculator

Serpent drive calculator

Belgian racer Christophe De Vocht has developed a Drive Calculator program to work out drive ratios for all of Serpents current, and some older, models. The user can input all the pulley sizes as well as the tyre diameters for it to work out the ratio, it will also suggest a tyre size to get a user determined front to rear drive ratio too. As far as we are aware Christophe has also made versions for other manufacturers too.

You can download the drive calculator here or from the 960, 835 and 720 download pages on Serpent’s site.

Source: Serpent [mytsn.com]

November 9, 2006

Team Magic E4 Concept Car

Team Magic E4

You may remember back from the iHobby show, we wrote about the new Team Magic E4 electric touring car. We were quite harsh about its 3 belt system and centrally mounted batteries and likened to a 1/10th 200mm gas car with an electric motor in it. Well that opinon hasn’t changed but these studio pictures from the Taiwanese manufacturer definitely show this car in a new light and i’m starting to like the look of it, look at how low it is….nice.

Looking at the pictures though also highlights a few issues with the E4, like the fact that the speed controller position looks like an after thought, mounted on the pinion side of the motor.

Check out the pictures for yourself here… content