When I was 8 ( I'm 49 now) I got a Tamiya frog for Christmas it was all I wanted. I built it in 4 days and when I finished it I took it outside to the backyard turned on the controller then reach down to turn on the car it immediately turned left and drove forward right into the pool. I remember standing there at 8 years old looking at my frog floating down to the bottom of the pool. I had to dive in fully clothed grab the frog then go inside crying to explain why I needed to go to the hobby store and get 2 new new servos and receiver.
I’m the same age as you and also had the Tamiya Frog as a kid. I remember the mechanical speed controller would sizzle every time I would drive through a puddle of water 😂
I was roughly 10 … 44 now… I had an old Losi truck.. broke a control arm.. never knew rc stores sold parts …. Eventually just thrown away as glue was not enough lol.
Last summer we were on a camping trip , we were hiking up a trail and I let my 9 year old daughter drive my Phoenix (straight axle, f10T axles, KMC Tanks, pretty much every upgrade I could get on it). The trail followed a river which was running extremely high due to run off and well, she hit a rock and it rolled over, I couldn't catch it in time and into the river it went and because of how fast the water was, there was no way to know where it went. There was just no way to find or recover it because of the extremely high run off. I thought it was gone forever, but in October last year I decided to go back up and see if I could find it now that the water was low. I actually ended up finding it, and the electronics still worked except for one shift servo, I went through and replaced all the bearings, got rust off all the metal parts, and am still driving it right now. One vehicle that I will never sell. Plus, my LHS heard my story and gifted us a Phoenix RTR which I gave to my daughter so we both go out crawling together, so It all actually turned out to be a positive experience.
That's seriously lucky.... I dropped my umg10 6x6 off into a river run off as well. Luckily the tires were sealed and the cab held enough air to keep it floating long enough for me and my kids to run down the bank, jump in and grab it.
Far as the team associated not making parts and other companies…. When your real car/ truck needs parts there’s the oem parts and usually several other branded parts at the auto store for you to choose from… that doesn’t mean a company like ford is going to go after advanced auto for making a generic parts or selling them…
2004, RC Madness in Enfield, Connecticut. I didn’t have a failsafe installed and ran my HPI Savage .21 at max speed, wide open throttle into the side of their brick building. It was a spectacular crash/explosion which resulted in me needing basically one of everything to fix it. Kinda miss that truck.
I’ve lost 2 rc cars out the back of my truck. One was my Vaterra Hiulux I think it was called, and a emaxx. Only the emaxx was found years later by a guy on Facebook listing it for sale. Once we reached out and showed him the lost flyers and old pictures he just gave it right back
Thankfully my worst RC mistake was selling an OG Clodbuster with a Clodzilla chassis, and a Tamiya Hummer that never got a re release. Remember kids, its okay for Traxxas to sue everybody, but no one else can.
On the Associated Electrics notice I have no problem with them trying to protect their designs/trademarks and all that and I’m not mad at them for it. I do look at the fact that they don’t produce these parts anymore even though they can and people will buy them. The other issue they cause is they come out with re-release and special editions but then don’t produce any parts support for those that want to run the cars. They brought this on them selves. I do feel that the production of the kit is the bigger issue since parts have been in production by other companies for some time now.
My worst screw-up? In 2006, I had a nitro rig's transmitter battery go low, it barreled straight ahead off the dirt lot where I was bashing. It sailed over the sidewalk and curb, and shot straight across a busy 4 lane boulevard. Fortunately, smacking the curb on the other side made it flip back onto it's lid and it layed there on its back, in the gutter with engine still running. I ran across the street to shut it down and swiftly recovered it. That definitely surprised a couple commuters. To this day, I am thankful that it didn't cause an actual accident!
It's insane that the iSXR does not come with a 6 channel receiver. INSANE!!! You get what you get but you paid 6 channel prices but only get 5 channels of features. I don't think I'll ever buy a Spektrum transmitter again.
Definitely my first (and only) RC, a BRX01. I knew that diving into a paint job that big as a first-timer was ambitious at best, but I managed to do all the fails that are possible. I left a little bit of masking tape on while painting, knocked a door off the stand while the paint was wet, one single thick coat of clearcoat... I also neglected to storage charge my Lipo after the first run. Didn't start a fire, but had to get a new one. Not that this one doesn't puff already. And now I seem to have stripped some gears in the transfer box, after like 4 runs. It's been a real adventure.
I bought a brand new traxxas e-revo brushless edition in 2013/2014…got home, charged the batteries…took it outside (lived in Montana at the time), drove it around the gravel driveway and and through the grass/snow. Brought it inside after 3-4 minutes as it was cold. By the time I set it down on the table with my excitement it started sizzling. I took the truck and threw it outside….POOF! The body off blew off through the clips and the ESC exploded. I didn’t even have a chance to disconnect the batteries.
Was racing my lasernut around in a city park, the cement walkway/path was even with the fresh cut grass. I couldn't see the large dip in the ground the way the grass was cut. Full trigger into a good size hole directly into the cement path. The 3 tires in the back were the only things that didn't break. Possibly 40mph into cement dead stop. I miss that truck. Great city basher. I hope to ge the new one some day.
Shortly after building my first VS4-10 Origin many years ago I had backed over it with my lawn mower by accident. Crushed the body and bent the frame rails. At the time bodys and frame rails were only available by origin kit so I had to buy another got it from DanD at Knkttc. Where I met you showing the clear 410Pro. That was my expensive dumb mistake been full on VP ever since 😂
I spent about a year building my first 10th scale rock crawler. SCX 102 with an XJ body on it to match. My real size XJ. had it out for it's third official real run was rock climbing a huge rock called Hanging Rock. It's about 40 foot tall. I got to the top was posing my truck for a picture leaned over to take the picture with my phone and bump the throttle in reverse. As my radio was hanging from my neck from a lanyard, it reversed off of that 40 foot cliff at full speed and all I could do is listen to it, hit trees Before it hit the bottle. Surprisingly it only broke a backbumper a rear link and a drive shaft.
Nearly had a bad lipo accident at the track once. A new racer approached me and asked if I could charge one of his NIMH batteries before qualifying started. I charged his battery, did my run, and came back and put my lipo battery on the charger without checking the settings. About 10 minutes later my buddy walks by and says "hey what's up with your battery" and it's about to blow. I grabbed it and ran out of the back door of the shop and put it on the pavement safely. Things could have gone seriously bad.
That airbrush will help fill up that huge ass tool box you just bought! lol I almost burned my optic to the ground first time out! It flipped over into a creek, when I flipped it upright it took off full speed out of control then started pouring out smoke! Only thing left of the ESC was heat sinK
My remote was bad if you turn the transmitter wheel the little light that goes off the front would come on and the optic would go full tilt and it popped the esc also VP sent me all new electronics and remote. But definitely sounds like they’re were probably some problems with it other than the diffs
An old boss was into helicopters and planes. When lipos first came out he went and got them ASAP. Hooked them up to his charger in the garage and went inside to get something to eat. Came back 15+ minutes later and the garage was on fire!!!! Burned to the ground!!! Lipos need their own charger, not the old system!!!! Fun times!!!🤪🤪🤪
Got back into rc-ing back in 14, bought my Traxxas Summit, then sent it full speed into a buried 4x4, cost over 100$ in replacement parts to fix it, now it's a shelf queen since the esc doesn't have a lipo shutoff😅
My biggest mess up was my first RC. Got a HPI truggy flux, was trying to calibrate the esc on the ground and sent it into my wood fence at 40 mph. Remember kids take the wheels off first.
Worsed mistake I made was I re wired a starter box for an original Losi 8ight T I got for Christmas to accept 2x nimh batteries. Nothing crazy and I had experience with soldering. Unfortunately I didn't have heat shrink on me and couldn't wait to test the truggy, so I taped up the wires temporarily so I could try it. Unfortunately I used a tape which had some metal in it and while trying to start the truggy the wires short circuited and caught fire... The truggy was fine but all the wires in the box melted together and it needed completely re wiring again... I sold the car shortly afterwards. Lesson learned, don't rush these things or you can cause more problems than you fix
Back when I had my first or second T-Maxx I had a radio failure and without any failsafe to cut the throttle the truck set off with wide open throttle, at least I had it pointed towards me but behind me was a big building and I didn't want to wreck my toy so I put my foot in front of it to stop it. A T-Maxx weighs a fair bit and at almost max speed it hurts like a something, my foot was blue for two weeks and I had to call in sick from work because I couldn't walk for a few days after, but at least the truck survived so I guess that's a good thing :)
Worst screw up was using rubberized undercoating to water proof a 3 cell lipo balance plug…. The plug shorted while I was spraying and watched two wires arc and travel like a fuse down to the base then stopped arcing when I threw it out my garage. Didn’t explode or catch on fire luckily.
My worst "screw up" is one of my own making (literally), and one I should have seen coming. Traxxas markets the Rustler as a 'stadium' truck...but, considering it's using 2.8" wheels, it really isn't (look at all the other 1/10 stadium trucks, and you see the use 2.2" wheels). So, I decided to 'convert' my Rustler 4x4 into a "true" stadium truck. Over a period of several months, I slowly acquired a number of parts for this conversion, many of which were actually designed for the Traxxas 4Tec. Although 2.2" wheels can almost clear the rear uprights, there's absolutely no way they can clear the front. So, in my brilliance (read as "idiotic insanity"), part of my conversion involved replacing the Rustler/Slash 4x4 front C-hubs & steering knuckles with 4Tec front C-hubs & steering knuckles. Problem is, the 4Tec C-hubs are quite a bit narrower than the Rustler/Slash 4x4 C-hubs, so there was a LOT of 'play'. Even in adding shims, I couldn't completely eliminate the 'play'. On top of that, the 4Tec steering knuckles have considerably less material, and, thus, are quite a bit more fragile. After a few weeks of figuring out how to get everything put together, I took her out for her initial test run. All seemed good, except that I felt she was too slow...so, I replaced the stock 3500kv motor with a 4500kv motor. In 2S, she ran beautifully. Unfortunately, I didn't have any 3S packs charged that day, so she never had initial testing done under 3S power. A few days later, I was departing for Las Vegas, to visit my parents for my usual week-long Thanksgiving visit, and I took my converted Rustler 4x4 with me. On the day my stepdad and I decided to take his 2WD Slash, and my 'converted' Rustler 4x4, to the dry lakebed, while her handling was a bit subpar (again, due to the steering 'play'), her performance was fantastic, and we headed back to the house, deciding to wait until the following day test 3S. The following day, we decided to test both of our vehicles with 3S packs. His, running the stock 3500kv motor, was excessively fast, to which he decided he would stick with 2S from that point on. Next, it was my turn to run 3S. The first few trips up and down the street were incredible...she moved like a rocket (with the 4500kv motor, that was probably expected). I can't remember whether it was the 5th or 6th pass...but, but, going up the streets, she got a little too close to the curb. That's also when the steering 'play' decided to "take a left at Albuquerque" - she hit the far end of someone's driveway, which acted like a ramp, launching the Rustler at least 15 ft into the air, at which point vehicle did its own interpretation of a Cirque du Soleil audition...followed by the expected crash back to Earth, demolishing almost everything but the chassis, wheels, and tires.
Worst screw up for me was. When I started out into RC airplanes. I bought a Hangar 9 f-22 raptor nitro from my LHS owner. He had built and hung from the ceiling. I got home and reversed the ailerons into Rx. Went to fly and smashed it straight into the ground. Didn't last a min. 600 ish down the drain. But the hard part was when I would go back into the shop weekly and have to talk about it hahahaha 😂
Worst RC screw up for me was getting deep into the hobby when I was young-ish (1990s), leaving the hobby, then not re-entering the hobby for 25 years (IE: in the past year).I wish I'd been able to stick with it through those years. _SO_ much to relearn, and being older has not helped the driving reflexes _AT ALL!_
My worst screw up besides painting bodies was rolling my Vaterra Ascender off a 50-foot cliff then it rolled another 200 feet down a grassy hill. Surprisingly it only broke a rear link. I was still able to drive it back to the car once I recovered it an got back on the trail.
Great news week I think for me... blowing a brand new hobbywing fusion pro. Accidently cut the power button wire when inwas redoing the spaghetti. Oh well. Also accidently cnipped the words on my muscle winch doing the same thing. I have invested in good flush cutters since hahaha
Buy the GRex air brush sustem. You will not regert it. The compressor is quite and can keep up easily. Spend the money and get different size spray tips. The fan pattern tips are nice for the big areas. I would also suggest the 10' hose. I love my. I now look forward to painting body's just because I getto use my air brush. I have hadmine since 2013/14. No problems just a great tool.
I was trying to get a drive cup pin out on my emaxx diff. Pressing real hard and the mip hex slipped and went right into my palm. Didn't go all the way through, but it was close. Skin on the back of my hand was all stretched out from it. Definitely didn't feel good. I tried to jerk it out, and the magnetic handle just pulled off lol. Leaving me with the speed bit hanging from palm. Got the bit out and decided I was done with RC's for the day.
I just crashed into a brick building with my XRT doing about 30mph!! Nothing broke that wasn't easily fixed and the only thing needing replaced is a $15 center driveshaft.... either I was really lucky or it's just Traxxas tough!! 🤓
My most expensive RC fuck up was buying every metal upgrade for my first gen Tmaxx. Being my first real RC I didn’t realize why a failsafe is needed on a nitro… until the battery died and it went full send into a curb.
The Associated thing is just like with Traxxas, they are protecting their name. FanRC, JC Racing Products, MSP-RC, Factory Works and all the others aren't affected as long as they don't list them as RC10 parts. If Factory Works lists an RC10 shock tower then idiots might assume it's from Associated, so they have to list it as a Factory Works shock tower that fits the RC10. Doesn't affect FanRC as they sell their kit as the FR-01 Graphite Worlds.
Team Associated is wrong. Obviously. If they stop making parts to keep old cars running, that's on them. Customers have no obligation to buy the new stuff. Failing to support the old cars is their miss. Another company picked it up. Time for me to head to FansRC and see what I like.
Got a limited run Jeep WJ Grand Cherokee ABS body from JS Scale in France. The windshield opening was warped a little so I figured I'd heat it back to shape by steaming it. Wrong! Before I knew it the windshield posts melted rendering the body useless.
Biggest screw up, or should I say most expensive, was one night I was coming back from the races. I threw all my gear in the back seat of my truck, with my truggy sitting on top of my toolbox, which was a big tackle box. Hopped on the highway to get home, windows down because it was hot, and all of a sudden my truggy comes to life and starts jetting around the backseat and fly's out the window!! I pull over only to see the truck, car, RV, truck, car, truck, etc, behind me run over it, nothing salvageable.
Worst screwup was in the 1980’s and on my World Engines Rockbuster I put a 12T modified motor in it. I grenaded the gearbox, smoked the MSC as well as I melted the Tamiya style battery connector. There were flames too🤣
Hopefully, this radio isn’t spectrum doing a ‘hush hush’ purchase from radiomaster with a rushed spectrum software push. The natural progression from the radiomaster intro surface radio would be a tx16 pro ‘like’ surface radio…which I was expecting to come out at some point soon… I’m always suspicious, so, I worry that the high price is in part because spectrum bought a radiomaster complete tx design and contract just to keep radiomaster from growing their surface stuff…and therefore, no sub $400 radiomaster 😢 I mean, hopefully I’m wrong, but either way, this spectrum makes zero sense at that price point
Man in all 25+ years I have spent at most 300-350 for a radio no way in hell I’m spending $700 for a Radio with only one 5ch receiver and not even a aluminum hard case smh swing and a miss Horizon
I haven't had any major mistakes in RC, but probably the most distressing was painting my Origin Half-cab body with TS paint and watching is flake off during my next outing. Luckily I didn't back it with another coat of paint and with some effort and patience I was able to get it all cleaned off. I just picked up some liquid mask and the correct paint to repaint it this week.
Just painted a hardbody and was bringing it up the stairs in to the house when I stumbled. Like a clown I fumbled the wet painted body around in my hands only to loose it mid stumble. Best of all I caught the body with a shin and stair combo and cracked it in multiple places. Old school clod body never saw it coming 😢 moment of silence please 😂
Worst screw up I can remember is driving my pumped up Revo at a local park. Was jumping a slight downhill and caught it wrong, the truck cartwheeled down the hill and hit two wheels flat against a parked car. It had two perfect circles where the wheels hit. Never figured out if the owner of the car was upset or not...
worst screwup or learning experience was building a scx10.1 3 months before the traxxas trx4 came out. I dumped so much into that stupid truck for it to be completely pwn'd on anything and everything by a stock trx4 sport. immediately sold it and bought a trx4.
The first day a friend has his Radio Shack buggy out on the play ground I ran it into the only obstacle in 100 feet in any direction and broke the left front suspension off the car. He was a bit bummed. It was like 88 or 89 maybe? I still think about how sad he looked...
While trying to get a voltage reading with a multimeter on a used Ryft I purchased, I accidentally touched the wrong pin, which activated the throttle. If I had not removed the wheels it would have went flying off the table! As it turned out, I just fried that $100 receiver.
Worse thing I’ve done and I still do Is forget to add some crucial screws after adding or changing something That and I always brining the wrong remote to the trail leaving myself with no rc 😅
I used to fly a lot when I was young I built a beautiful balsa extra 300 flew it 4 times I went to the military and came back many yrs later dusted it off I thought I should fly it Crashed it I was devastated lol
When I was a kid, I sent a brand new car into a storm drain within 20 minutes of going outside with it. Took my dad and grandpa to pull the grate off and lower me in to get it back.
I forgot to put my trickster in safe mode before I picked it. Belly hit the throttle and I got 1000 papers cuts on the palm of my hand from an 8" prop. Stung for days.
Change to my first 2.4 radio Spectrum Dx2 or 3 (before the marine RX was developed)thew it in my 57” Apache boat all worked nice on land but once in the water another story off it went full throttle into a sea wall and all I got back was a bunch of busted fibreglass and a busted motor as water don’t compress so about $2500.00 down the drain literally 😊
Worst screw up for me... choosing an arrma bigrock 3s when released, instead of a maxx. Jello diffs were constantly being replaced without any hard running. Now it sits in a box waiting for maxx to come home from the skatepark for story time.
I got a GREX Airbrush when they first came out YEARS ago... I saw it at an early RCX and met the guys in person... walked away with a kit on the spot...LOL
With AE, they have a right to protect their property. On the flip side, they stopped making parts for the older models, someone was bound to step in and overall, that parts availability is good for the hobby as a whole. I'm surprised RC manufacturers don't do what auto manufacturers do. Nissan, for example has NISMO Heritage, it's all the legacy parts still available for older and vintage Nissan/Datsun. AE, Kyosho, Tamiya, etc should rally look into producing limited runs of legacy parts. Problem solved.
I bought a black foot and put a 175,000rpm monster mash engine in it and took it for a run and cooked the speed control and all the wires 😂, I was only like 11 years old
When Tmaxx’s were the hottest thing goin about 20 years ago, I had one that I modded with every possible aluminum option part, an O.S. .21 and we were at the rock quarry and I had it wound up 2nd gear wide open when I lost signal, and it ran away and hit a berm next to about a 75 foot cliff…. It was beautiful for a second seeing that thing soar across the sky, but man, what a thud it made when it hit the bottom. Every piece on that rig was bent in some way.
My mess up was hit a drain cover. Replaced chassis. Hit same cover on first outing. Replaced for second time. Then missed that cover and hit the one next to it. 3 chassis for one idiot.
too my first rc, ever, in my life, to the beach and salt water got in it. It continued to run the rest of the day. Then I dried it out. Then a 2 weeks later I was taking it apart to put some weight and there was this rust all over it. It was a ridgerock MOA. I had to order a new full rtr as just the moa/axle was almost as much as the truck and then had to order a 2nd one because the first 2 orders had messed up axles... it wasn't until the 3rd that it was in brand new good health.
Ah, so Associated has now signed up for the Traxxass aftermarket suppression plan, which has now removed them from my approved vendor list. No aftermarket means no sale.
Most Painful RC screwup, early 90s pancar RC10l spent weeks building and painting it matching batteries and testing. First Lap of First Straightaway Full Speed into the wall.
So far... *knocks on wood* I haven't had any major goofs in RC. My wife's uncle however... He spent MONTHS building an airplane. Took it out for its first flight one afternoon. Everything was going fine until it wasn't. The rx/tx lost connection, and the plane said "Ima head out" and just kept on going, off into the wild blue yonder never to be found. This is why I stick to surface RC.
Reversed polarity on my Futaba transmitter recently. It powers up but won't transmit. Couple hundred dollars in the transmitter and receivers now useless.
I normally watch these at 4am in the morning as down under while i have a few coffee’s before going to my shop to wrap cars. Guess I have to watch Matt’s last upload instead tomoz haha
Worst mistake was using duratrax paint on a phoenix body. Evidently their paint reacts with the lexan and makes it super brittle. First run on my phoenix and it was like i went through a crash up derby. Then of course vp was basically no help. Waited months and months for a response email/solution and got nothing. I even bought a second phoenix and used tamiya paint on it and ive beat it to death and its still all one piece... i gave up on getting another body for my first phoenix. Maybe one day ill put a hardbody on it or something...
I fried a Mamba X. Not sure if the battery adapter was wired wrong as it meted the leads and unsolder its self. But seeing how I made the adapter. I take the blame.
