R/C Truck Help

[Justin76]

I got my 8 year old brother an entry level R/C Truck for Christmas, and have a question I was hoping somebody here can help me with. I have no experience with r/c cars.

The truck is a Duratrax Evader EXT2 RTR.

I set up the ESC by following the enclosed instructions: turn controller on, turn ESC on, trigger forward for 2 seconds, trigger reverse for 2 seconds, wait for the ESC light to turn green.

The light turned green as it was supposed to, so I though I was good to go. I put the truck on the ground in my apartment, to test it out. Forward is good, it goes quickly with no issues. The problem is the braking/reverse. I'm not sure if these trucks are supposed to stop quickly, but when I press reverse on the trigger as the truck is moving forward, it takes a very long time to stop, it coasts for a while before anything happens. Is this normal?

Thanks for any help.

- Justin

[bluebmw]

Try and tap the trigger in reverse quickly and then hold it the second time. Most basic esc's won't let you go from forward to rerverse in one quick motion to prevent the trannys from stripping a spur gear (made of plastic).

If that doesn't work then I have a few other ideas.

I've never owned a duratrax car before but most speed controllers are pretty much the same. I have 6 R/C trucks that I raced a while back (before the days of owning a car or motorcycle). A couple of them go 0-60 in 3 seconds!

[roadhog0]

All my Tamiya stuff (car) has always worked so that I plug in the controller and it works. I've blown up a spur gear or two. Usually strip off one side. I did a Tamiya Champion Series race one year with a rock in a gear, thing howled so bad! It was fun though!

[lumbergh17]

Depending on the ESC, some you can adjust what is called the "drag brake" and "braking". I doubt your ESC has it but it'd be worth to look. The drag brake applies a small amount of braking when you go to neutral (off the throttle).

If you have an owner's manual, check around there should be a section on "If my car doesn't move...then they lists reasons." So check that out it might say about braking.

I've been out for a little bit and forget a lot so thats where I would start.

[lumbergh17]

Depending on the ESC, some you can adjust what is called the "drag brake" and "braking". I doubt your ESC has it but it'd be worth to look. The drag brake applies a small amount of braking when you go to neutral (off the throttle).

If you have an owner's manual, check around there should be a section on "If my car doesn't move...then they lists reasons." So check that out it might say about braking.

I've been out for a little bit and forget a lot so thats where I would start.

[Justin76]

Thanks for the tips guys, but nothing seems to help so far.

I checked out the manual, nothing about braking there either. I think the best solution is to just have him run the truck in a huge open area. No walls, curbs or cars to worry about.

[lumbergh17]

Hmm, it is really hard for me to figure out your problem, I'm so used to just having them in front of me. I'll keep looking, some other things that come to mind is the "Throttle Trim" on your controller. If it is set forward as in the car is moving a little even with no gas it takes away from your braking/reverse.

If it is set backwards too much the car will either have less throttle forward then normal or will go into reverse depending on the ESC.

Worse comes to worse call Duratrax. Apparently they have really good customer support.