Matching with diversity of the RC car hobby and variety in the level of participation of enthusiasts, even the RC car kits can be available as various different forms to satisfy the different level of expertise of the people. They vary in complexity, sizes and the amount of effort required in the process of picking up the kit and putting your vehicle on the track – ready to race. These variations in the type of kits can be broadly covered in three categories that are:
- Ready-to-run type RC vehicle kits
A link to some basic Ready to Run RC Cars & Truck Kits
- Almost Ready-to-run RC vehicle kits
- To be assembled general RC vehicle kits
We will try to discuss each of these variations in the type of RC kits to describe compare the options so that you get a fair idea about each of them. This description will help you understand each of them and help you in deciding which one to start with.
Ready-to-run Vehicles
The first in the list and the most popular among majority of users are the ready-to-run or RTR type kits. RTR or Ready-to-Run type RC racing kits can be suitable for both amateurs as well as expert RC racers. As a result they are obviously the most common and famous type of RC car kits that are being used. As the name suggests, Ready-to-run or RTR kits do not require any engineering, assembly, and connections to be done. You can just pick up your kits and start racing. RTR type kits are available as completely assembled models including all the things that are required to run the RC vehicle as soon as you take out the vehicle from the box. Some of the RTR cars or trucks may occasionally require some extra parts to run the vehicle. These parts may include a battery, a charger or some nitro fuel to run the engine. It does not mean that ready to run kits are only for amateurs who want to pick up the kits a start playing with their toys. Even commercial uses and participation in competitions also witness use of ready to run (RTR) kits wherever users can do with the standard models and do not want major customizations.
Team Losi provides such ready to run kits that include absolutely everything you will need to run your vehicle right out of the box. For few RTR vehicles you may need to buy nitro fuel, battery and charger, glow driver or AA batteries for the transmitter which supposedly is quite trivial stuff. So just take your RTR vehicle from the box, plug in the batteries and you are ready to race your vehicle on the road.
Build-your-own kits
The next type of kits is RC cars assembly kits or simply RC car kits. They are the exact opposites of the ready to run (RTR) models. The RC car kits have no ready models to use. In fact, the kits just contain all the required parts for making an RC car model. One has to start from scratch and assemble all the parts together to come up with a working model. These kits may either provide instructions to assemble the constituents or may give the constructor complete freedom for building the RC model on his own. This way the constructor can play around with the design by doing experimentation and doing customization to the kits. However, this type of luxury is provided by most extensive kits only that will provide optional parts or spare parts. Such kits also don’t have the limitation of using the parts from the specific kit itself. You can use extra parts as well to be able to completely customize the design and working. For example, if you want to use special type of wheels for a specific race surface, that are not available in the kit, the wheels can be purchased separately and replace the default wheels with the specific ones. These kits are again available in different type of version with varying level of details and level of expertise. Though, in most of the cases, these build your own kits are meant for professional racers only due to the requirement of higher level of knowledge, skills and expertise, some companies also make starter kits that can easily by handled by beginners or kids. These kits only have basic parts but they are disassembled. So, the beginners can just join those basic parts through proper instructions and build their own car models.
Almost ready to run kits
The third type which is a sort of hybrid of the above two variations is the almost ready to run kit. If performance of your RC vehicle is a concern for you and you would like to do some modifications and customizations to your standard model of the RC car or truck but do not possess enough time to build the model right from the scratch, this option is ideal for your purpose. Such kits are semi assembled in nature where some of the very basic parts are already assembled to save time on steps which do not require much customization. However, some of the important parts or larger parts may be left assembled to do quick assembly or customization and be ready with the ready to run RC car or truck model very quickly. Some of these types of almost ready to run RC car and truck kits are also suitable for beginners so that they can build their RC car and truck models with very basic and minimum steps and start learning the art of building their own RC cars and trucks. This way they do not have to go into the detailed intricacies of the complete process if they were to build an RC car or truck model from a completely disassembled kit. One such famous example of this type of kit is the Team Losi’s race roller.
The kits that are have to be build from scratch and are meant for competitions build your own vehicle type kits and semi-assembled kits that are knows as race roller kits are generally designed so that substantial amount of modifications can be incorporated into the designs of the RC cars or trucks, therefore you will have to buy an number of extra components. These extra components can include engines, motors, electronic components, and obviously battery or fuel for power. Because of their capability of being customized, you add further level of customization by using specific wheel and tire assemblies and even paint and design for the RC model. This should not be a problem for people who have decent level of expertise in the field and are interested in working with the details of the models.
Factors to be considered before opting for the right type of kit for you:
As you must have realized that each of the above mentioned three types of RC car or truck kits are different levels of users and applications, you must clearly understand what your preferences are and what factors will affect your decision in choosing the appropriate type of kit for your purpose.
Kits or Race Rollers types are designed specifically for customization. Because of the customizable nature of their kit models and race roller versions, they do not contain the electronics such as radio system, electronic type speed control systems, servos or even batteries. They also do not contain any power system i.e the engine or the motor. Therefore all these items need to be purchased as separate items. This makes it critically that only if you actually have so much interest in working with so much detail and have detailed understanding about all this stuff or want to gain expertise in this field, should you venture ahead by buying RC car building kits or even race rollers.
The Race Roller type kits and RC car building kits require continuous maintenance, fine tuning and modifications for satisfactory performance. Due to the complexities involved in the RC kits and RC Race Roller, they are required to be handled very carefully while inspecting and fine-tuning every time they are used. This will ensure an optimum level of performance for these types of RC cars and trucks.
RC Kits and RC Race Roller type kits are mostly meant for participation in racing competitions. Therefore, if you do not have such specific and high requirement, the features of these kits may exceed your requirements and expectations. Moreover, be carefully before choosing to buy these kits if you’re only a starter in the field as it takes some time in getting comfortable with these advanced kits and building expertise in handling and working with these complex kits.