costs of technic RC vehicles vs normal RC vehicles

[stoneboi]

Hi, I got excited looking at all the custom technic remote controlled vehicles because of their uniqueness.

but i am totally clueless about the costs.

Are they very expensive vs normal remote controlled vehicles (non-lego, non-technic)?

I know it is definitely very time consuming to gather all the required parts if you do not have lots of spare parts lying around.

[Alasdair Ryan]

Welcome to the forum Stoneboi.

The most costly part is the motors and PF components.

These cost about 40 uk pounds upwards for basic rc parts but not including any liftarms,pins,axles.....

Edited September 15, 2012 by Alasdair Ryan

[DLuders]

You can see the prices of the various Lego Power Functions elements on this Shop.Lego.com webpage. You can "Change Region" at the top-right corner of that webpage, to match your country's currency if necessary.

I would imagine that you could get comparable RC vehicles for the same amount of money, but they are all pre-made and are "not LEGO".

[Blakbird]

Hi, I got excited looking at all the custom technic remote controlled vehicles because of their uniqueness.

but i am totally clueless about the costs.

Are they very expensive vs normal remote controlled vehicles (non-lego, non-technic)?

The costs of LEGO R/C vehicles are comparable to the costs of other "toy" grade R/C vehicles and have similarly limited performance. Hobby grade R/C vehicles cost much more than Technic but also have much higher performance. Therefore, you get what you pay for. One of the differences is that toy grade R/C typically cannot be repaired or disassembled, but LEGO can. In this way, it is like hobby grade R/C.

[hrontos]

Many people comment technic RC vehicles as having poor performance comparing to real RC vehicles or DIY kits.

This is definitely true. For the same money the real RC vehicle performs much better.

For 200USD you can get much better RC, but I personally miss the construction. I tried both. I assembled the RC model car myself and I found the assembly of the model much more fun that driving itself. I spent more time by construction experiments and improvements of the model than driving. So I found out, that I need construction toy (with optional RC) and not real RC toy (with optional possibility to built it myself). For the same money is the LEGO Technic better option for me.

[Ondra]

Rc nonlego electric cars are better for same price.More speed, more battery power(Especially using LIPOs) better offroad capability and bigger fun.But there's a catch, you have to take care of this car, because parts need sometimes to be changed or repaired.

I have this RC car, It cost much more but no one lego rc car can compare.

http://www.hpieurope.com/kit-info.php?partNo=101702〈=en

Lego power functions are overpriced compare to RC electric components.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Ondra

[hrontos]

Lego power functions are overpriced compare to RC electric components.

Yes, the real RC battery is much more powerfull with much higher capacity and almost 4x cheaper, real RC motors are stronger for the same or less money. LEGO RC components are made of pretty simple electric parts and are really highly overpriced.

[drdesignz]

I think it's hard to compare really, since they're two totally different things. You can buy decent hobby grade RC vehicles for around a hundred bucks. But you can also easily spend a lot more. I have an RC car that I have nearly a grand invested in. It's 1/10th scale and a race car. I also have a truck that's all billet aluminum that I have well over $1,000 in. Both were built by me, but they can only go together one way. Lego is entirely your own design, so it can be built any way you want. You can also take it apart and build new designs with it later. My large scale Lego hot rod probably cost me over a thousand bucks, too. Although, that's only because I bought several new sets and dozens of bricklink/eBay orders for individual parts. Shipping costs alone can really add up. I estimate that it could be sold at about $200 retail if it were produced by Lego. But that's just a guess. Currently there is only one Lego set that comes with the servo, which is the best option for building a drivable vehicle. And that set is $200 in the US, so you'll have to invest that much plus whatever else you need to build the vehicle you want. If you already have a decent Lego collection, then a couple hundred bucks may not be that bad because you might have what you need to complete your vehicle. But if you're like me, who just recently started a Lego collection, that cost can go much higher. Ultimately it's about what you really want. If you want to design/build your own car and are okay with driving around a relatively slow vehicle indoors, then Lego would be the way to go. If you want a high performance, tough, and fast car that you either buy ready-to-run or build as a kit, and you are okay with breaking parts, high maintenance, and purchasing the appropriate tools, supplies, and spare parts, then a hobby grade RC car is what you want. The best investment is totally your opinion.

[Shawn]

I think looking at your question, if you are just looking for am RC car, it will never be cheaper or even close to cheaper to us lego. You will get cheaper and better performance with the hobby and toy grade r/c cars.

I think that what can be done with lego is awesome, but it does not compare with off the shelf components. I have a hard time controlling the lego r/c cars from more that 15 feet away since the are infra red and standard R/C.

I personally prefer the lego, but if I were to be playing with R/C all the time, I would definitely go hobby grade r/c.

I picked up a toy grade r/c for $50 buck for my son and a hobby grade for about $200 for my older son. Both can run laps around my r/c lego car.

[jorgeopesi]

I think there are two different things with same functions, I don´t like RC cars but I like to build them . For me the good thing is to think and create the best design that with Lego you can do, of course if I would like to drive RC cars Lego wouldn´t be the answer. Sorry for the googlenglish .

[efferman]

i think comparing the costs between Lego RC and RC from tamiya, losi or kyosho is without a sense. they could cost the same, look only the electrical parts of my G for the total parts you can get a full RC Unimog

you should better ask "in which case is specialized RC better than Lego RC?"

My answer would be: Lego gives you more fun to build, Tamiya and Co gives you more fun to drive.

[Moz]

Hi, I got excited looking at all the custom technic remote controlled vehicles because of their uniqueness. but i am totally clueless about the costs. Are they very expensive vs normal remote controlled vehicles (non-lego, non-technic)?

Depends what you want to do and exactly what you're comparing it to. The Lego one will always be less capable, more fragile and less realistic.

• Prebuilt plastic toy. Lego doesn't have anything like that any more, and will be significantly more expensive for something worse in just about every respect.
  
• kit where you assemble the bits and there's a thriving market in both replacement parts and better/faster/stronger/prettier parts. Those more of less price match Lego, but perform much better. But what you buy is what you have. Buy a 4WD offroad car kit and you're only ever going to be able to build a 4WD offroad car with it.
  
• scratch-built. This is where Lego starts to look cheap. If you build your own metal and composite parts you can make just about anything. Scratch built models can be extremely realistic, perform really well and are really fulfilling to build. Assuming you already have a decent home workshop and have built stuff like furniture, bicycle frames/car parts and some of your own tools, it's pretty easy to crank out a scratch built model for a couple of grand. Less if you have a CNC mill or a manual mill and a lot of time. But, and this is a big but, that workshop will cost at least $20k to set up.
  

I've scratch built wood+balsa models before (and won boat drags with them), built offroad cars (including one I could stand on and it would carry me... slowly, on a flat surface). The latter sold for ~4k in todays money. But it's an expensive hobby, not least because the models can't be repurposed, so you either run them into the ground and bin them, or sell them into a very small market. It pays well, but it can take -3 years to sell something.

Being able to strip down a Lego model and build something else out of the parts is amazing. IMO it's worth the loss of functionality and spending most of your build time trying to work around the limitations of the format. But it does make me critical of the "looks like Lego" builders who modify parts, make key parts out of metal, or glue parts, because to me that defeats the point of using Lego.

[allanp]

Real RC cars that are similar in price the the crawler perform waaaaaay better, it's like comparing a ferrari to a scooter. You can pick up RC toys for $50 that perform as well as the $200 crawler. So, yeah, Lego RC is very expensive compared to similar performing non-lego RC, but it's infinately more customisable.