dNaNo Discussions/Debates

[kg6ein]

ok lets start with some back ground, I have been into RC for over 20 years. from planes to 1/10 scale electric and nitro to helicopters, but never micros or minis. I picked up my first mini yesterday 5/11/09 and promptly put 3 batteries through it. That thing is awesome. OK so i am a gadget geek and went back to the HTUSA today and picked up some new gears springs and a Gyro.

After installing the Gyro I noticed right away that it was working, if you pick up that car and shake it just a little the front wheels will turn back and forth, The stock setting of the Gyro works very well; there is still plenty of power however my starts seemed quicker due to less tire spin on take-off, my track times (on home built track nothing fancy) were faster than last night. after the first battery pack i recharged and put it back on the track and there was trouble, i could not steer the car, it would lurch forward and stop, then go in reverse. Quickly i removed the top looked at all my wires all looked good, put it on the track with out the top and all worked fine, put the top on and same issue.... Yes the wires from the Gyro can not touch the body or strange things will happen. This is covered in the install instructions however I did not pay attention to that part as closely as i should have.

Over all not having a racing back ground with mini/micros yet i think the Gyro is a keeper, and once i have an ICS programmer I am sure it will be a true performer. In its stock program it is a noticeable difference and is well worth the money.

Side note, I have not timed the battery life with and with out the Gyro but it does seem to run out a little faster with the Gyro installed, but this is just an observation and have not got into the timing yet.

Hope this review helps any one that is sitting on the fence wondering if they should get one or not.

[kg6ein]

Sorry post does not talk about what car, I purchased the DNano Subaru 2006 WRX.

SUBARU Rocks!

[-J-]

Here's how I feel about the gyro.

It's interesting technology. No doubt about that in my mind. I've been into micro r/c helis for about a year now, and the gyro really makes or breaks a heli.

Gyro applications on a car, I just don't see this being as useful as on a heli. I run my dNaNo on carpet, pretty high grip surface, the track is fairly slow, tight and technical. On the track, the gyro is slower. It definitely settles the car down and makes driving 'smooth' easier, but there's no doubt in my mind that's it's slower. It doesn't let you push the car through corners as hard as you could without the gyro. You can only get about 85% of potential performance out of the dNaNo with the gyro installed. Now, on a more slippery surface, or a faster track using the x-speed, I could see it being more useful, but in my opinion, still not worth the money. It's helps new drivers drive faster quicker, but not faster in the end.

[arch2b]

so essentially, it does what i expect kyosho wanted. it takes the average joe and makes the car easier for them to drive right away at a track vs. putting the time in to learn the finesse or track racing. from thier viewpoint, it's perfect for what it does. it gets newbies in the door and driving cars. for seasoned racers, you might want/need the experience of pushing the car to the edge.

thats how i see it anyway. i don't plan on buying the gyro not that i don't think it's worth it or that it works well enough, i just don't need the added crutch masking my racing skill defects.

[fovea3d]

He he, I understand that everyone will have his own opinion about the gyro and I respect that, but here is mine: I love it!
I am not exactly a new driver so I would not need a gyro to be competitive, but we race on carpet and it is where this gyro gives all its potential.
Just watch this video, that was last year when some in our club just got their dnano's. Everything, tires, H-bars, etc was stock except a few X-speed (the two yellow murcielagos). With the gyro I could lead while the others had hard time with the lack of grip. Sure this was not a fair race, but it was some kind of comparison test.
Watch at 1:27 Tytoo, who normally is a better driver than me when we race mini-z losing control of his Enzo while giving throttle.
For me the dnano with the gyro is a superior machine, you can really push it to the limits... Later that night it could even keep up with some mini-z on that same track (well except Tytoo's MZ )
I don't think newbies would do any better with the gyro onboard. They should first learn controlling trajectories and throttle because even with the gyro it is still possible to make the rear spin out.

[arch2b]

I don't think newbies would do any better with the gyro onboard. They should first learn controlling trajectories and throttle because even with the gyro it is still possible to make the rear spin out.

given that the tracks in kyosho stores in japan are carpet and these are marketed to people directly as buy and race for stats online vs. competitve racing series i have to disagree. much like your track, the gyro will help the newbie who plops down the money to buy this, walk right over to the carpet track and put some laps down and drive with less loss of control. i'm not suggesting it will make them perfect but it gives them a much better shot at getting around the track than without it. i'm willing to argue a majority of buyers will never race these competitively thus buy the faster motors, hop up parts just to have fun and will be buying the gyro to help make it fun vs. taking the time to learn proper driving techiques and slowly adding speed to their car. this has always been the case with mini-z's and i see no reason why it would not be the case with the dnano. most buy these for sheer fun and enjoy buying the cool stuff for them, looking to make it easier for them.

just an opinion of course, not fact.

[fovea3d]

Well your opinion is certainly valid and I agree, Arch, but on the other hand I think a gyro may also be profitable to the more experienced users.
Like all MZ fans I always tried to tune my cars to their best, and I would certainly do the same with the dnanos, what I like with the gyro is that it will "smooth" an already touchy car by nature (due to its small scale), erasing the imperfections of the track surface and make it feel like it was a bigger scale, thus pushing it to a higher level of performance in addition to an already correct setup and good driving skills. I agree this to be a kind of cheat or artificial technique to make it perform even better, but eh, its working, its there on the open market and some of your competitors may have one under his shell
I have a gyro on my Murcie and it is my only car using one.
It all depends on the conditions if I may use a gyro or not. On carpet I definately will. But in fact my favorite place to run these cars is on a 10'' wide lane track (painted wood) with the stock motor, stock tires, and no gyro
Also, I doubt that the gyro would give any advantage on RCP and other foam type surfaces. It is basically and anti-skid device...

[arch2b]

...but on the other hand I think a gyro may also be profitable to the more experienced users.

i don't doubt that at all.

...what I like with the gyro is that it will "smooth" an already touchy car by nature (due to its small scale), erasing the imperfections of the track surface and make it feel like it was a bigger scale, thus pushing it to a higher level of performance in addition to an already correct setup and good driving skills.

exactly my point in why kyosho certainly made these and push them given they are sold at stores with the types of tracks where it works best. they have created a market where the gryo is easily sold and recommended for those ready to race out of the box which is a much larger percentage of the buyers than people like you and me.

I agree this to be a kind of cheat or artificial technique to make it perform even better...

i don't think it's a cheat per sae, it's just one tool in a driver arsenal. it's always been my opinion that drivers should focus on the fine points of navigating a track and throttle control prior to going all out with speed and hop ups. i would not think less of anyone using one, to be clear. for myself, i would only be cheating myself in learning the basics before moving on to bigger and better things. i'm the type that needs that basic level of practice with a car before jumping into the works. i have a box stock mini-z at my home track just for this type of practice driving. choosing the right lines and doing it consistently is far more important that what you have inside your car one could argue however that the gyro enables this to be learned quicker, to play devils advocate.

Also, I doubt that the gyro would give any advantage on RCP and other foam type surfaces. It is basically and anti-skid device...

yet another reason why i won't be buying one. i have access to rcp tracks only. the closest dnano track will be 3 hours away (each direction). i don't have the same learning curve you do for track surfaces.

[kg6ein]

Arch, not sure if i agree that it will let a newbie driver become a racer however I think that every driver could benefit from the gyro, however i do think that as you are a more experienced driver you will need the ICS to program the gyro more to your driving style. I think the gyro is much like the TCS is professional race cars in that they will not make you a great driver however they will help to control the power and add a little more drivability across many tracks. But with all things in the RC hobby its all about proper tuning and learning your equipment and your limits with it.

[arch2b]

i didn't say it would make the newbie a racer... it will however make them easier to drive, just as you've said.

...they will help to control the power and add a little more drivability across many tracks

[lornecherry]

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I disagree with one of your statements Arch: the target market -- Yes, Kyosho is targeting the serious, competitive racer, but they are also after those that simply want a small-scale hobby class-car to race with friends or family, and then there's the scale collector. The Gyro is for those who don't necessarily want to race competitively, as I'm sure they may be barred from club races anyway.

The Gyro's effectiveness is probably surface-dependent, meaning it will be more or less useful depending on the track's coefficient of friction. Finally, somebody, somewhere is modding one of these and setting up the car for drifting, at least I hope so. That was the first question my 14 year-old son asked ...do they drift? Like it or not, the serious club racer is only part of the market appeal for the dNano, and that is a good thing.

[Pierro]

Hello!

For my personnal point of view, as said before, gyro only makes the car more smooth and help to have consistancy lap after lap.

I have it and love it. On both my mini 96 at home or on the larger track at the club. One important thing with the Dnano, is the fact they're so small...
Even a little bump a mini-z would never "feel" can make this car chatter.
For me, the gyro helps preventing these kind of problem on RCP. Sure the RCP is a great surface, and with the right tires, it's easy to go fast with a consistant car and so, focus more and more on line.
But with the Dnano, if you want to get the most out of this car (on an "non-perfectly flat" ground), you will need the gyro.

I'm curious about testing a Dnano on a full flat carpet track. On this kind of support, I do believe the Gyro will not be as effective. On carpet,your car is constantly lightly drifting in the curve. At least if you try to push hard. So the gyro will only try to get the car "back on the track" leading to a smooth but slower turn. I do suppose the Dnano (and so, it's gyro) is set for RCP track as tires are developped to work on this surface.

[arch2b]

i don't believe the dnano is aimed for competitive racing as much as the mini-z is. the mini-z at least has a kyosho sanctioned racing series (mini-z cup) where as the dnano does not (as far as i know, correct me if i am wrong), even after a year in japan. this is my basis for not seeing these marketed toward the same end. dnano is more recreational in store racing for online ranking and social meeting. think of it as cyber cafe with dnano racing and track stats. you have online lap tracking with im/chat discussions and juice bars (overseas). places like nanotrax are seemingly similar (i believe they have a drink bar of some sorts, feel free to jump in here nanotrax ) but have an obvious focus on more of the racing aspect with the track they have installed vs. the prepackaged unit kyohso is using. your not going to find a hobby town usa with the same social setting atmosphere that the over seas markets have. you don't go to htusa to hang out, you go in, buy and leave. i don't see that changing with the way hobby shops are setup here. there is no hospitality aspect to them, they are not destination points.

what gives it the competitive potential in my opinion is that they built in tunability and a line of hop ups. but lets not kid ourselves. they would not have made the dnano without a hop ups line. there is simply too much money to be made in parts vs. just kits. the real test will be whether or not the aftermarket development takes off as it did for the mini-z. atomic has started, pn racing is getting into the game as well.

i really do enjoy reading all the opinions and discussion. reminds me of the early days with my mini-z

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[fovea3d]

Originally Posted by arch2b

i don't believe the dnano is aimed for competitive racing as much as the mini-z is.

I would not say that Not aimed for competition, this is something I would qualify the Mini-z Lit that was a kind of an executive toy prone to roll overs...
If you look closely the dNano is in design far more advanced than what we had when the Mini-z first came out (MR01 + only a few Kyosho upgrades, rear or high mount motorpod...).
The MR01 was not marketed for competition initialy. In fact older or existing 1/24 scale chassis from that era (ABC DTM, Tamiya Tamtech 201, Kawada Tripmate) were more advanced technically (pan chassis, 7.2 v batt and 180 motors). When I got my first Mini-z (2001), I was surprised and kind of disappointed to see it was using small AAA's like any other toy. By that time triple A rechargeables was rather hard to find stuff and I had to go to the drugstore in my street to buy a pack of disposable batteries to give it a first try

I think it was the clubs and hobbyists (us) who really started making competitions happen, starting localy in garages, basements, attics, this mostly because mini-z were affordable and easy to get "toys".
The lack of aftermarket parts had one advantage, all we were thinking was: readyset + batteries = races
I recall how fast readyset were ordered by that time (at around $100 or under). That was just a question of passing a web link and bang, here was another fellow Mini-z racer attending each week...
With the dnano, we have something that took instantly advantage of 10 years of development of the Mini-z with even more advanced features (gyro, tag, lipo, coreless motor). The tolerances in construction are amazing, small details like reinforced knuckles, metal steering plate, 2.4Ghz (Remember the wobbling of the steering of the MR01 ) makes the dnano something obviously aimed for competition, but probably in a different way than the Mini-z.

Originally Posted by arch2b

the mini-z at least has a kyosho sanctioned racing series (mini-z cup) where as the dnano does not (as far as i know, correct me if i am wrong), even after a year in japan. this is my basis for not seeing these marketed toward the same end.

Agree, but maybe because of the high price and distribution problems it may take longer with the dnano. With the Mini-z, it took some time before we had official races going on, and only later the official Mini-z Cup by Kyosho (at least in europe) took place, followed by HFAY (wich still did not make it here) and after that the sponsored series (PN, ATM), the only real form of worldwide MZ competition to date.

But at the same time the dnano was released, we were offered this concept: International online competition. Of course we all know that HFAY originaly initiated this form of competition, but here we have a company, Kyosho, officially marketing the concept with the dnano. I think it won't take long until some parallel form of online competition would take place if ever the promise of an official dnano track in every city (sarcasm) is not held...

Again, we as the users have to imagine a good race format for these cars.
The high precision of the Dnano, very good coasting abilities, highly sensitive steering, all suggests a track at its size, more technical and with narrower lanes than what is required for a Mini-z. Hey, even overpasses and elevations are easier to design at 1:43! I think the small space required to operate the dnano gives the chance to have races organized in places where you can hang out, only needing a permanent room a slotcar track would normaly require, this could be in snookers, bowlings, bars, restaurants, the list goes on. Nanotrax is a perfect example of what this place should be. Hobby shops are definitely not the kind of places where you can have a drink, socialize, and race until late at night. We, in Europe, like this concept, nightlife and racing go well together and this is a part of what made the mini-z popular here around

Originally Posted by arch2b

what gives it the competitive potential in my opinion is that they built in tunability and a line of hop ups. but lets not kid ourselves. they would not have made the dnano without a hop ups line. there is simply too much money to be made in parts vs. just kits. the real test will be whether or not the aftermarket development takes off as it did for the mini-z. atomic has started, pn racing is getting into the game as well.

Regarding aftermarket parts, I may be wrong but while a few upgrades are still required to make a mini-z perform correctly, I tend to think that with the dnano the gain with perf parts in comparison to what we have now would be negligible. I can get 30km/h with an x-speed on my speedchecker. Wanting more would be just ridiculous... Except those for the purpose of durability: alloy, carbon parts, I see no massive market for performance parts, at least in comparison to what we have with the MZ. So out of the pleasure of tuning what do we have left? Racing of course!
And anyway if you are not on a budget, there is plenty of money to spend with the dnano. By just changing body style for instance... with the required conversion kit. This is probably what came out from the marketing department studying 10 years of autoscale series

My apologizes, I too started the comparison with the early days of the Mini-Z... Well there are obvious similarities...

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[arch2b]

i copied this thread over and will edit out the gyro specific stuff as needed. please take up the gyro discussion in it's original thread in the parts subforum

the mini-z cup followed the release closely if i recall correctly. i don't equate the online racing as the same thing as a dedicated racing series. i think it has more to do with the social environment in which non-us shops are oriented. here, it's a pitstop, not a place to hang out.

i agree that it is people like us that really got the racing going with clubs. the club scene has done far more for mini-z racing here in my opinion. the qnty of people willing to travel to sponsored events here is small, in large part due to the sheer size of the u.s.

i think it will take really pushing the online series as more of a dedicated racing venue inorder for it to overtake club racing. it's just too new right now so it's a hard argument to make one way or the other. if the tracks make it to stores and does well, the situation could be entirely different. lets wait and see how it turns out for all the hobby towns. as soon as the tracks pop up in clubs, i think were back to the same model that makes mini-z racing so successful, non shop dependant racing.

i really wish hobby shops were more like asian and european markets. people might enjoy them much more then. right now, i enjoy going to the hobby shop about as much as i do going grocery shopping.

i think 3rd party support play a huge role in a product life span. look at the overland and monster, development slowed and so did interest. mini-z's have been successful with the ever evolving support from 3rd party parts. who buys kyosho aluminum parts? maybe a few... atomic and pn pretty much rule the roost. same thing will happen with the dnano if supported properly. pn tires could be the norm depending on how well they are received. still no reviews on the atomic h plates. the trick has always been keeping interest up. lack of support can kill a line just as easily as anything else.
sure, there may not be that many things to really right now but there are already people working on motor mounts, dual motor pods, and many other interesting ideas. this is where people spend a good deal of money on these, on parts. hell, if pn made the same steering plates in various colors alone, you would see interest. who didn't get excited about the color options gpm offered back in the day they were wildly popular until quality dropped and others started making better designed parts.