RC car for 10 year old

[balloonshark]

These Tacon models may not be bad for a budget option. http://www.nitrorcx.com/tacon.html

 

[mmntech]

What is the charge time and how long does a charge last?

A charge will last around 10-15 min with the stock battery depending on how hard you're driving it. The wall warts that come with the car are as useless as tits on a bull.

Unfortunately, this is where things start to get expensive. You may want to check out Hobby King. Their batteries and charging gear is okay. Not great but not dodgy. You'll save a bit of money that way. I swear by my Triton Jr charger but Great Planes seems to have foolishly discontinued it. Guess they want to make you buy the regular Triton, which is overkill for most people.

Ideally, you'll want an AC/DC charger that can do NiCd, NiMH, and LiPo. A decent quality LiPo charger should have a balancing plug, to make sure each cell charges evenly.

 

[Pulsar]

The Traxxas will upgrade to a LIPO motor. Then you'll realize you need a LIPO speed controller and battery. And all of a sudden you've added 150+ to your $200 car. Then you'll start data acquisition (the new lipo systems do that...). Temp versus time versus discharge rate.... then your wife disowns you because you're spending all your time playing with toys. That's why you start with a base model.

When you realize that a 'base' model goes 20-25 miles and hour, and you realize JUST HOW FAST that really is when you're talking about driving it on a driveway, street, or flat area, you'll thank yourself for not going LIPO. You don't need 60 mph. Not yet anyway. Trying going 25 MPH in your car on your driveway for reference =).

Traxxas is nice because their parts really are dirt cheap to replace, and are fairly robust to boot. So much so that our local hobby store rents you a car to drive for $5 for 2 hours. Bring your own car and it's $1 / hour to drive on their indoor tracks.

Do you have indoor tracks near you? Getting into a beginners league is fun as hell.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I remember my friend back in the day had to change crystals whenever he did a race. I thin there were only a dozen or so channels available for everyone to share at races. What's the deal today with this?

Based on comments, the 1:16 are not an option.

I think a 1:10 4WD Traxxas model is what I'll do. I like the idea of upgrades. Maybe santa could do things like bring extra batteries or different tires. The timing could be great.

 

[compcons]

You could always buy a vintage car from the 80s and spend days putting it together and then a week fixing it when it breaks. I have about 6 vintage cars in different states of repair. The fun part is fixing them. Who wants immediate gratification? Building it with your boy will be worth the time. Of course finding a part like a belt for a Kyosha Optima Mid turbo special might be a bit more work than its worth...