RC Car - Nitro vs. Electric - A Readers Perspective

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Nitro vs. Electric - A Readers Perspective

Everyone should read this. This is one of the best pieces I have ever read, and I didn't even write it :-)

"PRO"

Hey Pro, I just thought I'd run my opinion on the gas vs. electric topic by you- throw my log on the fire, so to speak.

I think that gas cars are more sensible and technologically appropriate than electrics, and I will give you my reasons. I do this because I enjoyed your discussion of gas vs. electric very much and I like the topic. Most of my ideas are more conceptual and broad than your focused, no-BS answers.

I have always found C-cell battery packs to be a crude power source- they introduce so much variance and hassle into the science of keeping a good car. Ni-Cd is dead in the rest of the electronic world, and maybe R/C is due for an upgrade but it's tough because of the high discharge rates demanded. Call me crazy but I find batteries to be such a frustration in R/C - all the discussion and over 20 years of debate, and it is still very easy to ruin packs, abuse them inadvertently, etc. I am a degreed EE (Electrical Engineer) but I HATE worrying about the batteries in my RC. I think they are a huge constraint on the design of R/C. Of course there is an opposing school of thought that finds the design constraints to be welcome in a racing environment - everyone has the same crappy tools and is challenged to do something great with them. I can't refute this and it really is exciting when someone makes magic out of 6 cells and a 540 can.

The 540 motor is just not meant to get knocked in the mud. If you run an electric in sloppy off-road, you can lose so much of your motor's power the instant you get some good dirt in there. Gas engines are sealed and don't suffer as much from this problem. Of course there is a lot more drivetrain on a gas car, but I am just frustrated by the apparent mismatch between finely timed and oiled vented-can electric motors and what amounts to unsealed, ground-level position mounting on off-road R/C cars.

On a very 'axiomatic' level, gas cars are more systematically interesting than electrics. Adjusting an electric is largely an issue of 'getting the details' of the battery-ESC-motor trio just right. There is mechanical tweaking of course, but with a gas car you get to work mechanically, electrically, and chemically. Let's assume that the total inherent complexity in electrics and nitros is similar for a moment - now would you rather spend 75% of your time on pedantic electric optimization and 25% on mechanical, or 45% of your time making an engine sing and the rest of your time trying mechanically to keep the rubber side down? :)

From the 'cause and effect' corner - We R/C'ers are a fairly small group. There is no one else out there with the same huge demands that we have for an electric system - high torque and long battery life (at least I want long battery life! Remember, the 4-minute race didn't come to us- we came to it 'cause it's the best we can do!). When the greater electronics world considers 'high current applications' for battery powered devices they are in a completely different ballpark (laptop computers, digital cameras, etc) A Pentium II laptop with a huge, bright screen, a DVD-ROM drive and a spinning hard drive still doesn't come within orders of magnitude of the current draw imposed by a 540. Believe me, if tens of millions of people bought and upgraded their R/C cars every year, it would be a different story. Combustion engines, on the other hand, have enjoyed the technological focus of many more generations of people, and therefore are more developed and mature.

To sum up my opinion, I think that electrics are fun, well designed, and improving every day, but they are somewhat ill-conceived (or just ahead of their tech curve) while gas cars seem very well balanced in terms of run time, part life, aggravation factor, etc. I just can't help thinking that the full-size auto market leads the trends - the IC (Internal Combustion) engine is sort of the best thing that mankind has come up with to run a vehicle efficiently and cheaply, and the idea of slapping an inherently inefficient DC motor together with a low-capacity, low-quality storage cell is an exercise in frustration.

With all this Socratic Method pontification out of the way, I can hit the street and have fun with my RC10L! Our hobby is all about fun in the end - I am just curious about what a seasoned, well-spoken expert like yourself has to say about the fundamentals.

Thanks again!

Dan

Thank you very much Dan for these "amazing" words. It is nice to read what other people think about subjective Radio Control topics such as these. Keep them coming.

Let's take off a few tenths per lap,

"PRO"