Hobby Grade Radio

[Tankbear]

It has caused some confusion with users when I have used the words “Hobby Grade Radio” so I thought I best explain what I mean.

Basically there are two groups of radio control.

First is basically a radio controlled system which comes with your model (sometimes called Ready To Run) these are all your HL, Taigen, WSN tanks etc.

Second group is a radio control system which isn’t designed for any specific model but simply to control a servo (1 per channel) these are Planet, Spektrum, Turnigy, etc

So what use is a servo control to my model? Well this originated from years before electronics been cheap, so before affordable ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) a servo use to move an arm across a coil of wire to vary resistance and hence speed. So although the electronics available to the market has increased with decreased costs the actual control of the output from these Hobby Grade Radios hasn’t changed. It means any manufacture can make an ESC or controller or what ever as long as if conforms to the servo signal and you can interchange parts and it will work.

So although with a Hobby Grade Radio system you can use for planes, heli’s, boats, cars etc with a ESC for your drive motor and servo control for steering etc it isn’t quite as simply for the tank (it is possible but I won’t go into it). With a tank, we want extra features like sounds, lighting and battle systems therefore it is often better to buy one of the commercially available electronics packages like Tamiya, ElMod, IBU2, SLU, Clark, etc which does all this in a complete package.

Hope that helps.

Ian.