 A little over a week ago, I mentioned that I had ordered an Opolar Air Duster from Amazon. It's in my hands now and I just gave it a quick test  The air duster comes with the battery powered blower unit, a USB charge cable and two nozzles - one with a soft brush on the end and the other without It did not come with any instructions but using it is pretty straight forward: Charge it, attached the desired nozzle, pull the trigger It takes about 1/2 a second for the motor to activate and spool up when you push the button and it also takes a moment to slow down when you release the button I haven't tried it on any of my RC stuff yet but after a short charge I used it on a few things around my house. Here's how it did:
So, would I buy it again? Although it's not as powerful as I was expecting, it's convenient to use (I don't have to haul out the air compressor) and does a decent job around the house. I have my doubts about it's ability to clean a dirty RC car but it'll probably work reasonably well to knock off loose dirt. I think I would buy it again but wish it was either a little more powerful or a little cheaper than the $80 that I paid for it. 'till next time, have fun Rob By the way, if you found this post helpful, please help me out by using one of the links to Amazon within the post the next time you buy something (it doesn't have to be the air duster...heck, go buy some toilet paper). If you use the link, Amazon will pay me a small commission and it won't cost you anything extra and I'll be able to use that money to buy more items to review for you
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 It's time to gather up some friends and add a couple of Kaiju trucks to your fleet of RC vehicles! Starting now and ending at the end of April, when you purchase two Kaiju trucks, I'll email you a gift card valued at $50 to be used on future orders
This offer is valid from April 1, 2021 through April 30, 2021 Both Kaiju trucks must be ordered at the same time, on the same order and ship to the same address The gift card will be emailed to you within 48 hours so be sure to check your spam folder if you do not receive the email. Gift cards can be used site-wide for any future orders of parts, upgrades or even vehicles and do not expire Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it Rob  I've been saving up my Amazon gift cards for a while now to make this purchase and finally pulled the trigger on it this morning. It's called the Opolar Air Duster and I'm hoping it will work well for cleaning off my RC cars. From the reviews I've read, I think it will work well.
I was considering getting one of the Metrovac dryers as I know they are very high quality but they need to be plugged in to AC power so I decided on this Opolar battery powered unit instead. My plan is to keep it in my field bag and blow the trucks off before bringing them home. Then, I can use a little Simple Green and the blower again or my air compressor at home to do an even better job. As a bonus, I should also be able to use it around the house and in the car for light dusting and cleaning. Once I have it in hand and have used it for a while, I'll write another post and let you know how well (or not) it works but until then, here's a link to where you can check them out on Amazon if you'd like to. 'till next time Rob By the way, if you found this post helpful, please help me out by using one of the links to Amazon within the post the next time you buy something (it doesn't have to be the air duster...heck, go buy some toilet paper). If you use the link, Amazon will pay me a small commission and it won't cost you anything extra If you haven't found him online yet, check out Dad Bod RC on YouTube, he's a cool guy and makes some entertaining Gen8 videos - the fact that he's also a customer of mine and mentions TeamRedcatShop.com also scores some points with me
'till next time, have fun Rob For a limited time, when you purchase any one of the following Redcat vehicles from TeamRedcatShop.com, you will receive a coupon code good for 10% off our already low prices on all parts and upgrades for 12 full months! Simply place an order for one of these vehicles then check your email inbox (check your spam folder too) I'll email you a customized coupon code within 48 hours that you can use an unlimited number of times for 1 full year toward all parts and upgrades for your vehicle
Feel free to add any parts and upgrades to your vehicle order as well, I'll issue you a refund for 10% off any parts ordered with the vehicle Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it Rob  If you've been looking for parts or upgrades for your new Redcat Volcano 16, I have good news for you. All Volcano 16 parts and upgrades are now in stock and ready to order
To celebrate the good news, all Volcano 16 parts and upgrades are on sale. Check out all of the in-stock Volcano 16 parts here and be sure to tell your friends about the sale 'till next time, have fun Rob  It's been almost a month since I purchased this Yeah Racing trailer for my AXE and I finally got around to putting it together and hooking it up to my truck. Here's a quick look at how the project went along with a few final thoughts on this trailer  The trailer comes fully assembled but you have to build the wheels/tires. Instructions were not included with my trailer but the process was straight forward enough that they were not required  You'll need a few basic tools to assemble the wheels. A 2.0mm hex driver and a small box wrench or pliers. Medium thread lock is also a good idea so that you don't lose any of the hardware on the trail  The trailer included two stamped steel beadlock wheels and some okay looking but super low quality tires with foam inserts  The silver metal hitch / rod end was included with the trailer. Unfortunately, mine arrived damaged (the ball was improperly installed and I couldn't get it out or fix it) Luckily, I had some rod ends (I think this is a lower shock end) from a different vehicle that fit with some minor modification  The Yeah Racing trailer is designed to use a pin style receiver (or maybe a pintle) rather than a more traditional ball type. You can find similar trailers on Amazon with a ball type hitches but I didn't realize that when I ordered this one. If you buy one for yourself, just pay attention to the hitch style on whatever one you choose. Because of this, I decided to modify the stock Gen8 bumper's receiver to work like a drop pin. I simply cut away the sides of the receiver to make room for the trailer's hitch then drilled a vertical hole through the receiver so that I could drop the factory Redcat plastic hitch pin down from the top. The stock body clip still works to secure the hitch pin in place. Only time will tell if this will be strong enough but, I like it because it was easy to do and completely free  It's likely that the plastic hitch pin will break at some point. When it does, I might try replacing it with a screw and nut or, I may order the Yeah Racing hitch and use the metal pin from it, or possibly get myself something like this hitch this hitch from Injora  My final thoughts...
The quality of the trailer is okay. The tires and foams are junk but for a trailer, they should be good enough The hitch on my trailer was damaged and needed to be replaced. Luckily I had some parts that I was able to use but if I didn't, it would have been pretty disappointing. I'd probably give it 2 1/2 or 3 stars out of 5. It's far from perfect but, it's a fun little trailer for the low price. You can probably find one like this on Amazon for around $50. It may not be a Yeah Racing trailer but I'm pretty sure they are all the same - despite the different name on the box. Even with the minor issues I had with mine, I'd likely buy another one. All I have to do now is decide if I should load it up with firewood and a chain saw or try to find some other cool scale accessories 'till next time - stay safe and have fun Rob By the way, here are some other Gen8 posts that you may like: Gen8 V2 Project Part 1 - Wheels Gen8 V2 Project Part 2 - Magnet Body Mounts Gen8 V2 Project Part 3 - Bumpers Gen8 V2 Project Part 4 - Roof Rack Gen8 AXE Project Part 1 - Injora Aluminum Wheels Gen8 AXE Project Part 2 - Brass Wheel Hexes Gen8 AXE Project Part 3 - Brass Lower Link Mounts  Although January was a super hectic month for us, my son and I were able to get outside a few times and have some fun with our Gen8s. Both of our trucks are filthy so the first thing I need to do is just give them a both a good cleaning and check over. Once I clean them up a bit, I'll do a few modifications
First on the list will likely be my son's Gen8 V2. He wants more lights on his truck so I have one of the 11650 LED Light Kits set aside for him and hope to find the time to install that some time soon I've also set aside a couple of the 11813 Clear Bodies and one will be going on my AXE. My plan is to paint one of these bodies gunmetal grey. I haven't decided yet on all of the details but I think I'll black out the rear roof section. I'm also debating on whether or not I should apply the factory black decals or, mask the body on the inside and use paint to recreate the stripes. I don't think this project will happen for a while so I'll keep debating on that one To go along with the new body, I may order myself another set of Injora wheels from Amazon, possibly in the grey colour then give my son my black wheels. Alternatively, I may try to color match my stock Gen8 plastic wheels to match the new body color...decisions decision Last but not least, I picked up a trailer to tow behind my AXE. It was a bit of a late night Amazon impulse buy and not exactly what I was looking for but it should add a little fun to our trail adventures I'll go into a little more detail on each of these projects once I tackle them That's about all the updates I have planned for the near future, hopefully I'll have some time to check off at least a couple of these this month 'till next time, have fun and stay safe Rob  One of the things my son has been asking for lately is a roof rack for his Gen8 V2 so I decided to order this one for him from Amazon. With so many different options, it was a bit of a tough choice as to what rack to purchase. I considered going with a plastic Axial rack to keep the weight down but when I found this metal one complete with "Hella" LED lights, for cheap, I decided to pull the trigger on it. The installation was pretty easy. In fact, I let my son complete the entire install with just a little help from me. Here's how the project went...  The roof rack comes with five LED lights, light covers, Hella stickers, and mounting hardware. Depending on how you want to power your LED lights, you may want to pick up a "Y" adapter from Amazon. I added a 11417 wire extension to the inside of the receiver box to tidy things up and make it quick and easy to disconnect the LED lights from the chassis  You'll need some small jeweler's screwdrivers for the LED light mounting hardware (the screws are phillips head). I offered my son some tweezers to help with the sticker installation but he just used his fingers  We started by adding the stickers to the light covers. Something tells me these are not licensed but I thought these looked cool so that's why I chose this rack and light bar set. These light covers are removable. You can clip them on or off depending on what look you are going for.  Once the stickers where installed, the next step was to add the LED lights to the light buckets using the included clips and hardware. My son then used the included screws to mount the light buckets to the roof rack.  This setup is heavy - almost 550 grams!. Installing it will negatively effect how well your truck will climb and side hill but for my son, this is not important. He primarily uses his truck on trails and his crawling style is closer to bashing than technical rock crawling so having the truck look the way he'd like is more important than ultimate performance. Adding the 11417 wire extensions will make it easy to disconnect the lights whenever needed. In my opinion, this is also a cleaner installation than using a Y harness but that's another easy option if you'd prefer to go that route.  Here's how the truck looks with the power on. Pretty cool if you ask me.
We may experiment with removing the little risers under to roof rack but for now, I think this project is done. 'till next time, have fun Rob By the way, here are some other Gen8 posts that you may like: Gen8 V2 Project Part 1 - Wheels Gen8 V2 Project Part 2 - Magnet Body Mounts Gen8 V2 Project Part 3 - Bumpers Gen8 AXE Project Part 1 - Injora Aluminum Wheels Gen8 AXE Project Part 2 - Brass Wheel Hexes Gen8 AXE Project Part 3 - Brass Lower Link Mounts  I had a little time to work on my Gen8 AXE today and decided to add some more Treal brass upgrades. This time I went with the lower link mounts. Not only will this add a small amount of weight down low (improving stability), they'll also add strength to my truck and look great too. Although I've never personally broken a lower link mount on my truck, I do sell them from time-to-time so I know other guys are breaking them. By swapping out my link mounts to these nice brass units, I've added strength to my own truck and will now have a second set of stock parts in my trail bag if my son ever breaks one of his on his V2. Here's a quick look at these brass lower link mounts vs the stock mounts:  The stock plastic mounts and hardware weigh 14 grams.  The Treal brass link mounts and hardware weigh 45 grams - an increase of 31 grams over the stock plastic pieces. This isn't a massive increase in weight but, they'll also add strength and heck, they look cool too.  This is a super easy project but it will require a few tools. Here's what you'll need:
You may want to also pick up some 3x22mm button head screws. The Treal mounts are slightly thicker than the stock plastic mounts so the stock 3x20mm screws do not pass all of the way through the nyloc nuts. If you add a little thread lock to the tip of the stock screw before re-installing the nut, you'll probably be fine but using slightly longer screws will help ensure the nut does not fall off some day 'till next time Rob By the way, here are some other Gen8 posts that you may like:
Gen8 V2 Project Part 1 - Wheels Gen8 V2 Project Part 2 - Magnet Body Mounts Gen8 V2 Project Part 3 - Bumpers Gen8 AXE Project Part 1 - Injora Aluminum Wheels Gen8 AXE Project Part 2 - Brass Wheel Hexes Here's a quick tip to help you improve the performance of your Gen8 that can be completed in just a few minutes and it's completely free! Push in your bumpers Pushing the rear bumper in will allow your truck to climb a steeper incline before the bumper scrapes on the ground and potentially stops your truck. Pushing in your front bumper will help when you are coming down a steep incline and reach the bottom. Your front bumper will be less likely to dig in to the ground. To complete this modification, simply take the two screws out of the bumper mounting posts, push the bumper in then secure the bumper again with the same two screws. You may also have to trim a very small bit off of your body to clear the bumper once it's pushed in.  Here's a quick look at my son's Gen8 V2 with the rear bumper in the stock location  And here is his rear bumper pushed in by just one mounting hole. To improve the performance of your truck even more, you can push your bumper in further or remove it completely. You may also want to remove the receiver hitch. We like how the truck looks with the bumper still sticking out a little plus, the bumper will still protect the body so for now, we're just pushing it in by one mounting hole.
I didn't push his front bumper in because he wants to add a winch to the bumper at some point and I'll likely need the bumper to remain in the stock location for the winch to fit Hopefully this helps a little, have fun Rob By the way, here are some other Gen8 posts that you may like: Gen8 V2 Project Part 1 - Wheels Gen8 V2 Project Part 2 - Magnet Body Mounts Gen8 AXE Project Part 1 - Injora Aluminum Wheels Gen8 AXE Project Part 2 - Brass Wheel Hexes  Last week, I wrote about how I added some Injora aluminum wheels to my Gen8 AXE. These wheels not only look great but added around 42 grams to each corner of my truck helping lower the center of gravity and improve the truck's climbing ability This week, I decided to add a little more stability to my truck by upgrading the wheel hexes to some Treal 8mm brass units. Here's a closer look at this fast and easy upgrade and how these parts compare to stock...  The stock Gen8 aluminum wheel hexes and pins weigh in at 7 grams  The Treal brass upgrades come in at 26 grams or just under an additional 5 grams per corner. Not a lot but, when added to the aluminum wheels, I've now added around 47 grams to each corner.  The stock Gen8 aluminum wheel hexes are 6mm wide  The Treal brass units measure in at 8mm wide. Again, not a huge change over stock but the additional 2mm width per side (4mm total) should help with side hilling stability  This was a super fast and easy upgrade for my AXE. I like how the small amount of additional width helps the wheels fill out the wheel well a little better. In my opinion, the stock setup is just a touch too narrow. The small amount of added weight and width should help keep the truck a little more planted when crawling.
'till next time, have fun and stay safe Rob I've been running my Gen8 AXE in stock form for quite some time now and it has been great. With that said, my son recently started running a Gen8 V2 and he's been slowly upgrading it so I figured I had better customize my AXE a bit as well. The first thing I decided to change on my AXE was the wheels. I decided to go with some black Injora 1.9 wheels that I found on Amazon and I think they look pretty good.  Not only do these wheels look good, they also help lower the truck's center of gravity by adding some weight down low. Each Injora wheel weighs 93 grams while the stock Gen8 AXE wheels complete with the beadlock rings and hardware weigh only 51 grams. That extra 42 grams per corner should help with the truck's stability.
One thing I wish I purchased with the wheels is new center caps/hubs. The stock Gen8 center caps don't work with these wheels so I'll likely buy myself some aluminum ones soon I have a few more upgrades coming soon including new tires, LED lights, some Treal brass bits, and possibly a body swap so be sure to check back again soon 'till next time, stay safe and have fun Rob PS, here are a link to the Injora store on Amazon where you can buy these wheels, some center caps and even some of their Hirax clone tires. If you use that link, I'll earn a small commission that I can use toward more customizing parts for my truck and it won't cost you anything extra  Not long ago, I wrote a post about changing the wheels on my son's Gen8 V2 and showed a quick look at my Injora 1.9 beadlocks. I'm slowly getting these wheels ready to install on my Gen8 AXE and thought I'd show you how they are assembled. This assembly / mounting process should be the same for most 1.9 beadlock wheels such as SSD, Injora, RCLion etc that you'll find on Amazon. It's easy once you know how to do it but if you've never assembled a beadlock wheel, this might help you. Here's how I do it....  Step 1: Start by cleaning and organizing your work area. Get your tools and supplies ready, throw on some music and grab something to drink...this is going to take a little while Here's what you'll need:
 Step 2: Assembly starts with mounting the beadlock ring to the face of the wheel. There's a lot of little screws to install but don't worry, you'll likely never have to remove any of these screws again in the future  A little dab will do ya. Don't use too much threadlock. Put a small amount on a piece of plastic then dip the tip of the screw into the threadlock. Using too much threadlock or using too strong of a threadlock will just lead to stripped screws and frustration if you ever try to remove them later  Use a star pattern to gently install the screws. Remember, you are working with small screws threading into aluminum...two fingers on the driver are enough. Work your way back and forth installing the screws in that star pattern then finish up with a couple of rounds of snugging up each screw. Go easy...the threadlock will hold them in place. Snug is good enough.  Step 3: Once you've secured the beadlock ring, grab your 2.5mm hex driver and use the same process to secure the hub to the wheel. The same tips apply, use a small amount of threadlock and go easy on the screws  Step 4: Next, install the metal ring inside the tire. Double check that it sits evenly inside the tire and that the beads are even. Some rings may have an inside and an outside. Look closely at yours when you install them to ensure you put them in correctly. My Injora wheels don't have an inside/outside so I just stuffed them in there STOP: This is where you'll also have to decide whether or not to punch vent holes in your tires to let the air escape. If your wheels have holes in them, you do not have to punch your tires but, if you plan to run in water, you may want to in order to let the water drain out. There's lots of info/debate online about whether or not to vent crawler tires, I'll let you Google that and decide on your own. I vent mine with three holes spread equally around the center line of the tire's tread - sorry, I forgot to take a picture  Step 5: Now it's time to drop the face of the wheel into place. Pay close attention to the bead and make sure everything is seated evenly. If you have any trouble getting the wheel face in place, a little water or saliva (if no one is looking) works well as a lubricant. I don't recommend using any oil or grease Tip: if your tires are directional, now's the time to double check that you have the face installed on the correct side of the wheel/tire  Step 6: Flip your wheel over and drop the back plate into place being careful to line up the screw holes and also to get the bead seated evenly.  This is where it gets a little tricky. When you try to install the screws that attach the back plate, you'll likely have to use one hand to squeeze the pieces together while using the other hand to attempt to thread in the screws. It's not too difficult but it will take a little effort. Get the first screw started but don't thread it in all of the way. Use a star pattern to get all of the screws started. Note the gap between the wheel center and the back plate in the image above.  Finish up by carefully tightening these screws and you are all done with your first wheel.
I'd show you a nice picture of my wheels installed on my Gen8 AXE here but I still have three more wheels to build and I want to go crawling now so I'll create that post later 'till next time, have fun Rob By the way, if you found this post helpful, please help me out and use one of the links to Amazon within the post the next time you buy something (it doesn't have to be the item I link to...heck, go buy some toilet paper). If you use the link, Amazon will pay me a small commission and it won't cost you anything extra. Did you know your Gen8 inner fenders are designed to either use the stock velcro body mount or rare earth magnets? It's true and it's a pretty cool feature that I decided to take advantage of on my son's Gen8 V2 Although the stock velcro was working great on his truck, the magnet body mounts are a little quicker and easier to use so I decided to add them Here's how the project went...  The first step was to remove the stock velcro. I've heard some folks say that the velcro on their truck was coming off but the glue holding the velcro on my son's V2 was seriously strong. I struggled to get the velcro strips off but with a little effort, I had all of the velcro pulled off in a few minutes  After removing the velcro, I thoroughly cleaned the inner fenders on the chassis and underside of the body. First, I used Simple Green to remove any dirt and then followed that with some motor spray to ensure all of the glue residue from the velcro and any mold release agents were removed from the plastic. Cleaning these parts well should help ensure the magnets stay in place  After everything was clean and dry, I used Shoe Goo to attached the magnets to the chassis then let them sit for an hour while the glue dried.  Next, I dropped a second magnet on top of each of the chassis magnets. I did this to make sure I had the magnetic poles of the body magnets in the correct direction. Once the second magnet was stacked on top of the original chassis magnet, I marked an "x" on the top to indicate where to add the glue so that these magnets could be affixed to the body.  Last but not least, I followed the same process to clean and glue the magnets to the underside of the body. Even though the inner fenders are designed to accept two magnets per corner, I decided to use only one magnet per corner. These things are super strong and I think they'll be more than strong enough to hold the body on. If I discover otherwise, I'll update this post in the future. Also, the magnets do add a little weight up high and I wanted to keep the additional weight to a minimum 'till next time Rob And here are some amazon links to what you'll need to do this project yourself:
UPDATE: Shoe Goo may not be the best choice for securing the magnets. So far, two have come loose. I'll clean and prep the magnets and try again but if this continues to be an issue, I'll try something else and update this post again After a fun trail run with my son yesterday, I accidentally put his green V2 body on my Gen8 AXE and the black wheels completely changed how his truck looked (my AXE looked kinda cool with his chrome wheels too). This got us talking about some of the customizing he'd like to do to his truck including changing the wheels. Although I'm not quite ready to give him the wheels off of my AXE, here are some quick shots of how the truck looked with different wheels...maybe it will inspire you to make some changes to your truck as well  Here's my son's Gen8 V2 after our run yesterday. The truck is completely stock including the chrome wheels. The truck looks great and works flawlessly in stock form.  Here's the truck with the black wheels from my AXE (actually, this is my AXE with his green body). You can see how the look of the truck changes with the addition of the black wheels. The black AXE wheels give it a more rugged look and would probably look even meaner with the beadlocks painted black like I did on my Gen7 project a while back  Here's how his Gen8 V2 looks with some Gen7 wheels. It's not the best photo but you can see the spoked wheels and also how the Gen8 hub covers still fit  Here's a closer look at the Gen7 wheels installed on my son's Gen8  Just for fun, here's how an Injora aluminum wheel looks. I plan to write a post on these wheels in the future when I install them on my AXE so stay tuned for that one Wheels and tires are often a personal preference thing. You may like chrome wheels better than black, I may like the Gen8 AXE wheels better than the Gen7 wheels but, that's what's awesome about this hobby - you can do whatever you like.
'till next, have fun Rob Here are some quick links if you want to check out some of your options: And here are some amazon links to tools that I recommend:
 A shipment of the new Treal Gen8 brass upgrade parts has just arrived and they are ready to order now. Now you can add stability, strength and crawling performance to your Gen8 with these awesome brass parts:
Check out the full assortment of brass and aluminum upgrade parts for your Gen8 on the "upgrades" page 'till next time Rob  The wait is over and the new Gen8 V2 trucks are in stock and shipping now. Whether you've been thinking about grabbing a Gen8 for yourself or even getting an early start on your holiday shopping, be sure to grab a Gen8 or two while they are here
'till next time Rob Great news Gen8 fans, the new Redcat Gen8 V2 is almost here and pre-orders are now open! You can check out the full specs and details of the Gen8 V2 here and this video will also give you an overview of what to expect of the new truck
'till next time Rob  An order of Wendigo parts just arrived including all of the upgrades that the Wendigo Builder's Kit comes standard with. Now you can upgrade your RTR Wendigo to Builder's Kit specs with the following parts:
These parts are now listed on the Wendigo Upgrades page and are ready to ship 'till next time Rob  Great news if you've been waiting on parts or upgrades for your Kaiju - a large order of parts just arrived and they are ready to order now!
Almost every part is back in stock including spur gears, diffs, suspension arms, body posts and more. A few new upgrade parts are now available as well including aluminum servo horns, aluminum servo saver nuts and 11t pinion gears Although most of these parts are in good supply, I highly suggest placing your order as soon as possible if you've been waiting on anything. You may also want to check out the top selling Kaiju parts and add a few to your shopping cart to ensure you have them when you need them. 'till next time Rob Well, I didn't see this one coming! The awesome Team Redcat TR-MT10E that was sadly removed from the vehicle lineup a few months ago is back again and is now called the RC-MT10E! The truck is essentially the same but now features a new green color and slightly different electronics along with a lower price!
What's great is the RC-MT10e parts and upgrades are all in stock and ready to order as well Check out the new RC-MT10e here 'till next time Rob  Good news! A shipment of parts has just arrived and has been entered into inventory. Today's delivery was a bit of a mixed bag of parts for all the different vehicles including a few Kaiju parts, Camo/Dukono parts, Everest-10 parts, Gen7 parts and Gen8 parts
More parts are scheduled to arrive any day now so hopefully anything you've been waiting for will be available to order soon Check out all the parts and upgrades for your Redcat here and stay tuned to the blog for more updates Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it Rob The ONE Must Have Item You Need for Working on your Vehicles Plus a Couple of Other Goodies9/14/2020 Having been into RC for over 35 years now (gulp), I've made just about every mistake a guy can. One of my mistakes was not investing in quality tools for wrenching on my cars. I invested in "good" tools two years ago and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. If I could go back in time, and talk to a younger me, I'd tell myself to buy MIP tools and nothing else. That's the message I'm sharing with you today as well. I can hear you now..."but Rob, MIP tools are expensive...I can buy a complete set of tools from China for the cost of just one MIP." If you are thinking this, don't forget to consider the cost of replacing those cheap tools - the MIP tools will last much much longer. More importantly, using high quality tools will dramatically reduce the risk of stripping screws. Just think of how much time, frustration and expense you'll save if you ever strip a screw and have to cut it out. Trust me, that's a pain in the butt that you don't want to have to deal with. Here's the good news, you don't need very many tools. If you are on a budget, this is the only one you need:  A 2.0mm Hex Driver will cover 90% of your wrenching needs and will only cost you around $20. If money is an issue, just get this one and you'll be in good shape. Do not buy a ball end driver - just get the regular 2.0mm driver (part #9008) If you have a little more money, you may want to consider buying a 1.5mm and a 2.5mm hex driver as well. The 1.5mm comes in handy for small set screws such as those on pinion gears and for some of the trim pieces on the Gen8 body. The 2.5mm will be used once in a while on larger screws (My TR-SC10e only had two screws on the chassis that required this driver). These are available individually but you'll save some money if you buy the complete set. Again, don't buy ball end drivers...just get the regular hex drivers.  These will cover 99% of your wrenching needs. But, if you are anything like me, you may want to fill out your toolbox with a few rarely used but very handy tools as well such as a 2.0mm Ball End Hex Driver.  A ball end driver comes in handy if you have a difficult to reach screw (usually on lower shock mount or servo horn). The ball end allows you to access the screw from a slight angle. I don't recommend using a ball end driver unless it is absolutely necessary as your chances of stripping the screw increase. A few other nice to have tools but not really required include:  I use my nut drivers all of the time and I'm very happy with them but truthfully, cheap nut drivers work fine. I just like everything to match and I like how the MIP handles feel in my hand. I paid around $20 for my power driver and I REALLY like it. It saves a lot of time when wrenching on my vehicles but, you have to be extra careful to not scrip screws. I like to use mine to drive the screw in 95% of the way and then finish it off by twisting the screwdriver manually. So, to recap, if you are on a budget, just grab yourself and MIP 2.0mm Hex Driver. If you have a little extra cash, go for the set including the 2.5mm, 2.0mm and 2.5mm Hex Drivers. After that, you really don't need anything but the power driver and 2.0mm speed tip is a time saver. Everything else is just a bonus.
'till next time Rob  The wait is finally over. Several of the long awaiting Kaiju aluminum upgrade parts have just arrived and are available to order right now. A few parts are still on the way but the following are in stock now:
'till next time Rob |
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