5 Things to Consider when buying your FIRST RC CAR!

so you are looking to get into the RC hobby you want to go for an RC car what is the best thing to go for as a beginner uh on today's video we are going to take a look at five things to consider before purchasing your very first rc [Music] [Applause] car [Music] welcome back to the channel So today we're going to be taking a look at the five things you should consider before purchasing your very first rc as a beginner now I get asked many questions near enough on a daily basis now uh such

as what is the best thing to go for is it Nitro electric or petrol uh ready to run almost ready to run or kit uh brush versus brushless our lipos really better than nickel metal hydr batteries and what is the best size or scale of RC to actually go for these are just some of the questions that I get asked on a regular basis which is why I thought i' put together this five things to consider video so hopefully it can help some of you uh some of you out there who are looking to buy

your very first rc or looking to get into the RC hobby I'm hoping this video will help you out now if you haven't already be sure to hit that subscribe button to stay up to date with all the latest RC content so the aim of today is to hopefully answer some of these questions we will be looking at the five things I really think you should consider and hopefully it will help you make your very first purchase so the first thing we'll look at is electric petrol or Nitro what is the best power source to

go for as a beginner so let's talk about Nitro first of all then because Nitro is very attractive to people who know nothing about RC and are looking to get into RC uh if you enjoy engines in general you enjoy the sound and the feel of a real working engine Nitro RC's are going to be very attractive to you now Nitro RC's are absolutely great don't get me wrong but for a beginner there is a lot more setup and maintenance involved in actually looking after a Nitro RC properly as soon as you get a Nitro

RC out the box there are quite a few procedures you have to do uh the first thing is to break the engine in now people have many different ways of doing it uh you know a lot of people actually like to let the car idle for the first tank off wheels off the ground second tank run it around a slower pace and third tank a little bit faster fourth tank full speed all that sort of stuff many people have different ways of doing it now that is something you really have to do to prolong the

life of the engine if you skip that step that engine is definitely going to uh not going to last as long as it probably should so Nitro RC such as my CGI one right here may not be the best option for a beginner they just require so much maintenance so many different procedures you have to follow it can get a bit frustrating and it can get a little bit confusing uh for people who are brand new so we're going to real Nitro RC out on this occasion because I really think you can uh you can

actually make things a lot easier for yourself if you go for a different power source which we are going to talk about in a moment now if you have the budget as a beginner to go for something like this fair play to you because I certainly didn't when I first started out in the RC hobby but would something like this be suited to you again I am not entirely sure now one of the things I noticed years ago when I ran uh Fifth Scale petrols was the fact that they are a little bit easier to

use than nitro engines don't require a glow glow igniter for example they are a little bit easier to start I always found they are a little bit easier to tune as well uh overall just a little bit more of an easier experience the engine's a bit bigger easier to work on but they are incredibly expensive uh and there are some better options available to you now the one thing I would say if you're considering something such as this as your very first rc please consider where you are going to be running it these things are

absolutely huge they're also really heavy and they can be really loud as well now I used to run a dominator pipe on my HPI Bara 5B and that thing was incredibly loud I think I actually have a clip of it which I'll stick on the screen [Applause] [Music] [Music] now now that thing was incredibly loud and that really used to upset the people in my local park where I used to run it so would a big Fifth Scale petrol such as this be a good option for you I really don't think so I think they

are far too expensive they're also really big and they can potentially be really loud as well so we are going to move on to the third and final power source which I think is going to be the best option for you now if you haven't already guessed yes I am talking about electric RC's now I really do think electric RC's have come really far in recent years when we consider how much cheaper brushless systems are and lipos in general getting decent speeds out of some very budget friendly rfc's is definitely doable these days and certainly

on a tight budget or a limited budget not only that but if you are running a brush list system in your brand new RC or if it comes ready to run with a brush list system and Lithium Polymer batteries you will definitely be able to push some serious speeds which will almost always be quicker than their Nitro or pet counterparts now there are a huge amount of very good cheap ready to run electric RC's these days which makes them a perfect choice for someone looking at getting into uh RC uh it really does seem like

the most easiest and painless option okay so we have considered our options and we have established that the best thing to go for is more than likely going to be a uh an electric uh RC as your very first rc now this brings us on to the next thing which is do you go for a kit do you go for an almost ready to run or do you go for a ready to run so if you are considering a kit as your very first rc this is not always a bad decision because building a kit

can really help should you need to fix or do maintenance tasks on your RC you will know exactly how to take things apart what goes where and how to put it back together again now there are of course some considerations when it comes to building an RC kit you will have to supply your own transmitter receiver ESC motor Servo batteries charger plus a lot more as well you do have to bear that in mind which is why again we ask ourselves the same question is this the most uh viable option for a beginner uh potentially

not now if you have built kits in the past or if you've built anything similar uh you may actually get on all right with a kit but I think there is another easier option now picking out all these components may not be the easiest thing to do for someone who knows very little about RC which is why we're going to move on to an even easier option in a moment but there is one other thing we need to talk about and that is almost ready to run now with almost ready to run essentially what you're

getting is a rolling chassis now very similar to building a kit you will have to provide your own Electronics again so like I mentioned your uh your transmitter receiver ESC motor uh all the other bits as well Servo you will have to provide all your own Electronics again but the only benefit to buying an almost ready to run or a rolling chassis is the fact that it is pretty much pre-built all you need to do is throw your choice of electronics in there and off you go but guys do you know what I think there's

an even easier option for some someone looking to get into this sort of thing and that is to buy an ready to run package for example which will come with everything you need included in the box now you really can't be a good ready to run RC especially if you're new to this hobby a ready to run will come with everything you need in the Box it's almost always a simple case of charging up the included battery and putting some AAS in uh in the in the transmitter now it's a worry free and painless option

for anybody who's brand new to RC I really think this is the better uh best option for you now ready to run packages are the best option because they do include everything like I mentioned now in my years of buying ready to run RC's I have noticed a lot of the time the batteries and chargers that they actually include in the Box aren't always great the batteries are usually of low capacity and nine times out of 10 they will include a trickle charger as well which takes hours to charge even a low capacity battery now

that said this really is the easiest option as there's very little to go wrong uh but you will more than likely want to upgrade quite early on the battery and charger that's just my opinion there are a lot of ready to run RC's out there now that do that have actually started to include higher capacity uh capacity batteries uh along with better charges but it's definitely something to think about before making your purchase so we have established that an electric ready to run is more than likely going to be your best option so what comes

next now the third thing to consider when buying your very first rc car is do you go for a brushless model or do you go for a brushed model now this really does come down to budget and how much you're winning to spend uh brushed motors have been around for many years in in RC years ago if you went for an electric model it would almost always be brushed we have to remember that brushless is still a relatively new power source in RC and in recent years has only really started to become more affordable to

most people now brushless Power Systems and lipos along with chargers used to be insanely expensive but as technology has improved things have become more affordable uh I definitely think brushless is starting to take over in the RC world now no longer do you have to spend hundreds on a brush list system basic brush list systems can actually be had for well under $100 these days which makes it a very viable option now brushless systems do tend to be more efficient uh you can expect to see longer run times faster speeds are also achievable uh and

also they they tend to be uh maintenance free there's no brushes to worry about uh wearing out uh such as what you get on a brushed motor uh and there's much more as well but we won't go into too much detail because I don't want to confuse you too much um but yeah now if you do decide you want to go for a brush list ready to run uh to really get the best performance out your model you do need to consider your battery choice now lios will definitely be uh the best way to go

if you're looking to get the best performance out of your brand new brushless RC if brushless is far too expensive then let's not disregard brushed RC's uh brushed RC's are incredibly good value for money making them an ideal choice for beginners uh and not only that if you crave some more speed or performance later on you can always do a brushless conversion uh which is something I really enjoying doing myself it's an excellent way to actually start out in this hobby now let's take a look at the fourth thing to consider when purchasing your first

rc do you go for a nickel metal hydride battery or a Lithium Polymer battery now nickel metal hydride batteries are easier to use uh they've been around for years uh not only that they must be fully discharged before charging uh and must be charged full before storing now LiPO batteries don't have to be fully discharged uh and ideally they must be stored with a 50 to 70% charge level the charging must be done with a charger with a balanc charging option uh this is always I find this is always the best and safest way to

actually charge a lipo uh is to use the uh the balance option uh on your charger now it is always good to store your lipo safely uh now you can use a lipo safe bag or you can use a metal tin or a metal case uh anything like that will def itely be the best way to look after or to store uh your LiPO batteries because we do have to bear in mind they can be volatile and they are extremely flammable now you have probably seen or heard so many horror stories about lipos and lipos

catching fire now this is definitely something that can happen uh almost always it's because of incorrect charging or the Lipo actually gets punctured uh in a big crash or an impact or even uh potentially I've had it in the past where an ESC can uh cause a short which can cause the Lipo to uh to basically Catch Fire as well but I wouldn't worry too much because it is very rare as long as these things are looked after carefully and you do take uh the right precautions with storing them and looking after them LiPO batteries

are extremely safe now another thing to bear in mind if you do decide to go for a ready to run RC that features a nickel metal hydride battery you will more than likely be able to upgrade to a lipo battery at a later date a lot of efcs that come with uh ready to run cars actually feature uh options and they will allow you to select uh the option to run a lipo pack instead of the nickel metal hydride uh option uh which will definitely give you some more performance now this brings us on to

our fifth and final consideration when purchasing your very first rc uh and the final thing we're going to talk about is scowl and what size of RC to actually go for as an absolute beginner so scow simply means the uh the size of the vehicle in comparison to its fulls size counterpart so let's use this armor Typhon for example uh this this is a 1/8 scale buggy so this would be/ 18 for the size of its real fulls size counterpart now this is great but what is the best scale to go for as a beginner

well to be honest there's no real answer to that question it really does come down to a few things uh such as budget the surface you'll be running on which RC you actually prefer the look of there's many different types out there such as short course trucks monster trucks buggies truggies there's so many different types out there it really does come down to personal choice uh also another big consideration is the size of the area that you're intending to actually run your RC uh if you are pretty much running uh in your back in your

backyard or your back Garden uh then you're going to want to consider something a little bit smaller if size really doesn't matter to you and you have a huge amount of space to play with then you can consider pretty much any RC you want you know even the big uh petrols all the way down to the micro stuff you really won't be limited so there are many factors involved in picking out what size RC to actually go for it's not something I can give you a definitive answer to uh this one really will depend on

you what takes your fancy and uh your budget as well also where you're looking to actually uh run your brand new RC so there you go then that is the five things to consider when purchasing your very first rc now I really hope this has helped you clear up some of those questions today it can be a little bit confusing when you're just starting out in this hobby so I'm hoping we have actually helped you out today now in my opinion you really can't go wrong with an electric ready to run it will provide you

with the ease you're looking for in your very first RC model so if you enjoyed today's video be sure to hit that subscribe button like this video as well and also leave a comment down below why don't you let me know what your very first rc was how many years ago it was and uh how you actually got into the RC hobby please let me know down below because I'm very interested to actually hear uh how each of you have actually got into the RC hobby we all have our different stories so it'll be very

interesting to actually read some of yours cheers guys and I will see you again on the next video take care [Music] yeah