RC Nightmare Community Blog

I always see people discussing the possibility of Lipo batteries exploding or catching fire. One of these discussions took place in our very own RC Nightmare Forum.  I wanted to take the opportunity to remind everyone in the RC hobby to charge your lipos safely and properly.

The other day I came across this:

Lesson #1 – Do not leave your lipo batteries unattended while charging!

The image above shows the effects of leaving your batteries unattended. A guy had left his lipo batteries charging on his workstation while he went to run a few errands. The place caught fire. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Lesson #2 – Always charge your lipos in a protective lipo sack.

Also, in order to properly charge your batteries, you should always have them charging in a protective Lipo Sack. These are designed to manage the effects of a Lithium-Polymer Battery charging mishap. You can find a variety of different ones online. If you want to be really safe, put them in the protective sack and charge them outside!

Lesson #3 – Make sure to let your lipo batteries cool before charging.

This lesson/tip is pretty self explanatory. Do not run your RC for hours and then immediately charge your battery. This can lead to a fire as well. Let them cool down to an ambient temperature before putting them on a charger.

Lesson #4 – Balance your Lipo batteries.

Use a charger that has a cell balancer and balance your batteries every time you charge them for proper care.

Just a reminder that the RC hobby is fun, but can be dangerous if you don’t take care of your equipment properly!! Questions or comments? Post them below or join the discussion in our RC Nightmare Forum!

Hey everyone! Once again, I’m learning and hearing new and exciting things in the RC Nightmare Forum every time I dive in there. This time I found it in the post “Castle possibly going waterproof? that was started by andersonwal (Thanks!!). Here is what it said:

Castle possibly going waterproof?

If anyone has seen the updated version of the HPI firestorm flux, it comes with a waterproof esc and, as many know, the hpi brushless esc’s are just rebranded castle equipment. The new flux vapor esc looks exactly like a waterproof version of the sidewinder v2. Who else thinks that we may start seeing waterproof castle speed controls in the near future?

Read on »»

This is a guy and a team that I always like to see win: Ryan Maifield and Team Associated/Reedy. Well, it happened again at the Silver State Nitro Challenge on what some would call a special day aka my birthday. For those of you – well most of you – who don’t know, that would be April 11th which was this Monday. The Silver State Nitro Challenge was held at Sin City RC track in Las Vegas, NV. I now remember discussing this race in an earlier post because I was hoping I would be in Vegas on my birthday and be able to go to this race. Well that dream did not come true.

So, this race is actually known as one of the most grueling RC races on the planet and it brought together some of the world’s best talent this year. There was crazy weather yet again this year, and it went from 50+ mph winds and near freezing temperatures, to hail, rain, and beautiful sunshine so that by Sunday, the main event was epic.  And it was Ryan Maifield who battled through the rough conditions to earn the Expert Buggy Silver State title!

Maifield’s JConcepts-equipped RC8B, powered by Reedy’s Sidewinder-fueled 121 VR engine, remained consistent and near the front of the pack. As Sunday’s 45-minute main event rolled around, a positive and never-get-flustered mentality helped propel the Associated star to the top of the podium. Teammate Ryan Cavalieri joined Maifield in the Expert Buggy AMain with his Pro-Line-equipped RC8B taking a solid 5th place.

Looks like the Team Associated guys stayed tough and I hope they got to party hard in Vegas after the race!

Coming at ya with another new RC I heard about with some info and a quick review.

The Wraith

Recently, the RC Nightmare guys acquired an Axial SCX10 Trail Honcho and the Axial XR10 Crawler which Jeremy showed you in his unboxing videos and Axial SCX10 running video.  Well Jeremy and RCNightmare gave these RC’s some pretty good reviews and were really excited to get out and crawl with these bad boys.

So keeping on the Axial wave if you will of RC’s, I got wind of another new truck from them called a Rock Racer. It is actually a first for them and they’ve done it with the Axial Wraith RTR 1/10th scale electric 4WD Rock Racer. That’s a mouthful. I know because sometimes I talk when I write. Anyways, first glance – this thing looks really cool – kind of like a dune buggy almost but a lot sweeter.

Sickness

This is the first and most realistic full tube-frame chassis design from Axial that is manufactured with high strength composite materials. I was confused at first to find the difference between this and our other two trucks. Now the key to this is it is different from a rock crawler. It’s a rock racer. This thing  is built to go fast – this is the biggest reason people like this better than a crawler. It can tackle terrain at higher speeds. They describe it as being a truck with 1:1 scale looks, high-speed monster truck “bashability,” and technical “crawl” capabilities.

The fact that its RTR is a plus for those of us who like to get it out of the box and play! Some of the other technical features are the 4-Link suspension, Optimized Steering Geometry, Protective Transmission Spur Gear Cover, Slipper Clutch, Waterproof Radio Box, High Performance Shocks, and there are plenty more that you can check out at http://axialracing.com/wraith. The only thing I think is funny is that they totally promote the seats on the inside which I admit do add some realism to the RC. I guess you can put a GI Joe or Barbie in there and go for a ride.

Anyways, sounds really interesting to me and I’m hoping to see it in action. If any of you have any experience, thoughts, comments, post them below!!