racing multiple (cheap) boats

[raygundan]

I recently moved to a house that is adjacent to a small pond-- and was wondering what it would take to get four or five cheap RC boats together for races. You can't beat the tiny NKOK boats for price, but they seem to only come in two frequencies. Is it possible to race more than two boats with the same controller frequency (are there channels within a frequency band?), or will they interfere with eachother too much for this to work?

Same thing with the zig zag racers-- look like fun little toys, but I'm not sure they'll play nice in groups larger than 2.

I would also be interested in small RC hovercraft, if anybody has a group of those that can race together.

Any suggestions welcome, but because I'm buying a tiny fleet for casual use by visiting family, I'd prefer inexpensive boats.

[Ron Olson]

Yes they will. The Zig-Zag Racers are available on more channels, 6 if I'm right and better speed at 12-15 MPH plus you can get parts for them. NKOK boats are like Radio Shack and Nikko's, once they have problems you might as well throw them away. Talk to your LHS and see if they'll give you a deal on buying a bunch of them at once. Get extra battery packs because they don't last that long and the included chargers take a long time to recharge. They do sell some quick chargers that you might want to look into.

[raygundan]

I was pretty sure the NKOK boats were low-quality throwaways, but I've seen web deals as cheap as 3 for $20. If I can race a bunch of them at once, they'll do nicely as starters for our purposes. The Zig Zag Racers look like much better boats, and some more digging (I found a .pdf manual for them) confirms that you can run six of them at once, but six of those is more like $400, literally ten times as expensive as the NKOK boats. Heck, I even found a site selling them in 24-packs for $125.

Still, if the little cheapos won't cut it, I'll probably end up going the zig zag route.

Question is still out on hovercraft... there's a little Taiyo one for $30 that looks fun, but I can't find frequency/channel info for it *anywhere*.

[raygundan]

Pardon my newness to the RC world, but what is an LHS? Local Hobby Shop, maybe?

[Ron Olson]

Yep.

[Hydro Junkie]

Don't feel bad. I still haven't deciphered all the acronims used on these sites, like LOL :confused: Here are some of the ones I do know:
pics are pictures
LHS is local hobby shop
ESC is an electronic speed control
BEC is a battery eliminator circuit, which is an optional feature on some ESC's
There are several battery types you will be seeing, starting with nicads. Sorry, but I don't know them all. I'm sure you will see more in the future, so don't be afraid to ask :D

[Ron Olson]

I knew that you were going to ask what LHS was for some reason. Sites of all kinds seem to have their own language. My favorite one to use that I haven't seen being used by anyone else but me is PITA, Pain In The A**. :)

[scottericsonon]

hey junkie

LOL means "laughing out loud:

nimh batteries are the other one youll see

hey i have an "ESC" button on my computer if i push it will it go faster???????????LOL

scott

[Ron Olson]

Hey Scott, have you found the "Any" key yet? You know, they one where they tell you to hit "Any" key to continue? I still haven't found the one on my 'puter!

[Hydro Junkie]

Scott, I don't think so and thanks for the other battery type, just couldn't remember what it was :)
Ron, neither have I :D
Raygundan, Hope this helped, and as you can see, I learned something today too

[Ron Olson]

Nowc you'll have to learn how to say Li-Poly, short for Lithium Polymer cells. For me, they look like they are too fragile for bouncing boats plus you have to buy a high-buck charger.
OK, now back to the subject at hand. Sorry, we get off on a tangent once in a while...

[BoatDoc]

i know a few people who have had electric planes light on fire in the air because they drew too many amps off the Li-Poly cells! in other words...NiMh is the only way to go!!!

[raygundan]

Batteries and circuits aren't a big deal, as I'm a EE. NiMH, Li-ion, Li-Polymer, NiCad (ick), Lead-acid, and the like are no problem. If you're having fire issues with a Li-ion battery, something was spec'd wrong in your design. They'll do that, but only if you use them wrong. Now, boat-hull differences and information specific to boats and hobby shops are all new to me-- for example, I don't know much about the spectrum allocation for RC stuff. There seem to be two "levels" of RC-- the low-end has two bands, at 27MHz and 49MHz, and the "high end" (anybody who bought their radio separately) at (i think) 75MHz. It's hard to tell on the low-end stuff whether or not they use subchannels to make those bands workable for multiple radios in the same band, or whether a particular vehicle's radio is just going to dump all over the whole band.

The Zig Zag racers use six channels in their band, for example, but they are the *only* variety I have found good information on.

I'm sure someday I will get around to the bigger and better stuff once I knock out some of the projects I'm already tinkering with-- but for now I need RTR boats that I can race in a largish group with inexperienced drivers that are cheap enough to not worry too much about wrecks and breakage.

So... terminology questions aside-- what are everybody's recommendations? And is there a hovercraft equivalent to the Zig Zags? (Moderate price, decent quality, multiple channels)

[Hydro Junkie]

On the radio frequencies, there are three bands you can get for surface use. They are 27mhz, 50mhz and 75mhz. The 27 and 75mhz are the standards and can only be used with a surface model. The 50mhz is a different animal, however. You can use it with anything that floats, rolls or flies. It requires an FCC license to use it, so it's not often used. You mentioned the 49mhz systems. The only place I've seen these is in the toy store and Radio Shack toys. I don't know aboout 50mhz systems, but the 27 and 75mhz systems are broken into channels spaced 20khz apart. 27mhz channels start at 1 and go up to 29(I think), while 75mhz start at 61 and go to 90. In between is the 72mhz aircraft frequencies 30 to 60. Do these toy store boats stay on one channel? Hopefully someone can answer that for us, as I've never checked that out. Now for your question on hovercraft, there is a place called Hovercraft models in the Buyers Guide. Their phone number is 301-947-1526 and e-mail address is hovercraftmodels.com

[Ron Olson]

49 Mhz is not a good choice for any R/C vehicle. This is a shared Frequency with the new Walkie-Talkies in what I think they call a Family Band. For 50 Mhz, you have to have an Amateur Radio (Ham) license so you won't see too many of those around.

[KG4]

Go with the zig zag racers if you can.We have one in our fleet and they are a blast.