How do I slow my son's car down?
 

Hi, I need some advice on how to slow my son's RC18T down. It's got the kit motor and esc with an old Acoms stick transmitter.
At the moment it's still way too fast and I want to slow it down, does anyone have any ideas how I could do this?

Two thoughts...

1. Build a custom 4-cell pack (2/3rds the power of the standard 6), all the electronics should still work as usual.
2. Since you are using a stick transmitter, one trick I have seen before is to put a small self-tapping screw in front of the throttle stick, and adjust it as a travel limiter. Although I know someone else that did something similar for their grandson, and their grandson soon realised that pushing the trim forward made the car faster again!

Thanks Tigs, give yourself a shiny:thumbsup:sorry!
I'll try the adjustable screw idea first I think, cheers.

No need to apologise - obviously we both spend far too much time watching kids TV!

Far too much, sometimes I think CBeebies is the only channel we can receive!

not to be too nosy but how old is your son, and is he particularly smart just in case he does figure out whats stopping him from going so fast. maybe you could teach him not to drive too fast?

then again telling him not to drive fast probably will make him drive faster ;)

He's not even three yet, but he'll probably work it out!!

wow, a rc18t at three, if only my parents gave me that ;)

I remember when I was two I had one of those 1 inch long micro cars and they were the best thing ever, mainly because my 3 other brothers had one each so we had loads of fun :) , I recommend them, not that I still think like a three year old :thumbsup:

We got a cheap mini but it kept getting stuck on any surface that wasn't billiard table smooth and was no good outdoors, so we got him this instead, plus it's there just in case I ever need to borrow it!

Does he find it ok to drive? I'm in a similar position - the £20 Clio from Gadget shop is only good on the kitchen floor, but the Lazer with an 11x2 was a bit too quick for a 3yo...... Need something for him for Xmas, ideally an RTR version??

He's not too bad with the mini in the kitchen, at the moment the extra speed of the RC18 is what's causing problems, well that and trying to stop him picking it up by the aerial!

A cheap digital transmitter should allow you to adjust the throttle highpot, then you can just turn it up when his ability improves.
Im not sure wether the standard speedo can do this? Older ones could.

Must admit I was thinking of giving him my radio gear and buying a 2.4g set for myself!

an easy way would be to get him a stick transmitter( ok see that thats what he has!!!) and cut varying sizes of rings that you can put over the sticks to limit travel. you then could gradually go from large to small as he gradually gets better, can draw a pic if your not sure what I mean!:)

I've bitten the bullett and got my 5yr old boy a Spektrum DX3R. The hand grip seems a bit smaller than other pistol grip transmitters and as it uses only 4 x AA's it's light too. Additionally it has no long aerial that keeps snapping and I have taped the short aerial to the transmitter. There is also no longer an aerial on his car.

It has all the adjustments you'd ever need and so I run his throttle EPA low down at 40% and steering rate at about 70%. It has reduced the crashes and saves me a lot of money on broken parts too and a lot of frustration on playing mechanic. :bored:

One thing though is that his finger can't push the trigger forwards enough to use the brakes so I have cable tied a bit of nitro fuel tubing over the trigger to get it closer to his finger and I also switched on drag brake a little.

He goes racing with me every week and I got him his own PT - that alone has made my life so much easier. No more running backwards and forwards for hand outs and much less faffing about. It's all money and hard to justify when they are so young but what the hell, you only live once and I don't want to spend my life faffing about :lol:

He's just started asking me to make the car faster this weekend so we'll see how that goes :lol:

I've thought about that too, but just can't justify the money on it, plus I have a selection of 27mhz stick Tx's so am not too worried if he breaks one.

In terms of the disks idea, that's what I'm in the process of making. Was going to use a dab of sealant to fix it to the the Tx.

What car are you running for him? I have also toyed with the idea of getting him a ZX-5 rtr as I run a std zx-5 so we can share spares.... mind you, I could buy an SP and give him my std zx-5... :)

We both have B4's and for micro racing we both run LRP Shark Monsters. It makes a lot of sense sticking to the same cars as your spares requirement is much lower and when something goes funny it doesn't take you ages to fault find it either because you are very familiar with the car. If for any reason your car breaks and you need an emergency replacement you can pull rank and take his :thumbsup:

Makes sense, much the same theory behind me getting Maul Jr a zx5 rtr. Wish I had one when I was three thats all I can say:woot: