Optic Kit Coming

[JatoTheRipper]

Not sure if anyone else caught it but H-Tech released A teaser of an Aluminum H10 cage... I'm sure it will be $$$....

My guess is that Josh (Harley Designs) will cover it at some point

So did Meus Racing. And it looks great.

MEUS Racing Aluminum Frame Cage with Roof Lights for 1/10 Vanquish H10

MEUS Racing Aluminum Frame Cage with Roof Lights for 1/10 Vanquish H10 OPTIC RC Crawler. The frame is made of 6061 T6 aluminum billet CNC machined. Surface frosted anodized. Key Features: 1. The Aluminum alloy frame cage is compatible with the stock faceplate and MEUS aluminum alloy faceplate...

www.meusracing.com

I have a pretty cool collection of comic books from my childhood that have no real value. Recently in a fruit and veggie market an owner had covered all the walls above his product with comic books from his collection. Looked great, a total time machine.

I hope they ate kind to Greg. It was a minor slip up at worst.

Like the Topps 1987 "wood grain" series. Most of those cars are absolutely worthless because they printed so many of them.

 

[svt923]

I believe you all just experienced a media embargo. Bike industry does this all the time. They get people to sign an NDA, show them new stuff and tell them they can't talk about it until a certain date. Tradeshow are often like that and dealers don't want to tell you about the new stuff because then they won't buy the stuff you have sitting on the shelf.

If you break the deal you don't get invited next time. Or the free product to test when it's released.

Also, deny, deny, deny when you f-up.

As a former executive for a minor RC industry conglomerate, the vast majority of companies in the RC industry are not issuing media embargoes because:

#1: They are small companies with too much other things to worry about when releasing a new product
#2: The RC "media" is like 5 dudes that everyone knows

 

[smog]

#2: The RC "media" is like 5 dudes that everyone knows

This made me chuckle

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Saw this posted on Facebook. Meus claims it's a billet CNC cage. If that is true, it's awesome and now a bad deal at all. But China has been known to fib/stretch the truth/lie.

 

[Col_Sanders]

That MEUS cage looks pretty good and the price is not bad at all.

 

[SteveB1]

So did Meus Racing. And it looks great.

MEUS Racing Aluminum Frame Cage with Roof Lights for 1/10 Vanquish H10

MEUS Racing Aluminum Frame Cage with Roof Lights for 1/10 Vanquish H10 OPTIC RC Crawler. The frame is made of 6061 T6 aluminum billet CNC machined. Surface frosted anodized. Key Features: 1. The Aluminum alloy frame cage is compatible with the stock faceplate and MEUS aluminum alloy faceplate...

www.meusracing.com

View attachment 507535


Like the Topps 1987 "wood grain" series. Most of those cars are absolutely worthless because they printed so many of them.

Lemme ask this question; if they are bending the truth a bit and we find out that it is a cast-n-blast item where the bulk is cast with some finish machine work, then bead blasted for finish, how much does that matter to the RC community at large? I bet those who buy it won't really care.

Without one in hand, I have no way of knowing, but from the photo alone ( for what it's worth ), that's not machined from a solid block. It's missing the tooling marks in the tight radius corners, and the joints have the distinctive "humps" from casting. The other more basic parts in their product suite show tool paths where there are virtually none on this cage.

Looks pretty nifty though.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

Lemme ask this question; if they are bending the truth a bit and we find out that it is a cast-n-blast item where the bulk is cast with some finish machine work, then bead blasted for finish, how much does that matter to the RC community at large? I bet those who buy it won't really care.

Without one in hand, I have no way of knowing, but from the photo alone ( for what it's worth ), that's not machined from a solid block. It's missing the tooling marks in the tight radius corners, and the joints have the distinctive "humps" from casting. The other more basic parts in their product suite show tool paths where there are virtually none on this cage.

Looks pretty nifty though.

The average person isn't intelligent enough to know the difference. Most just believe what they are told.

Does it matter? Well I guess that depends on a lot of things.

I also didn't think it was machined judging from the photos, but again, I don't have one in my hands to inspect.

 

[smog]

I have purchased a couple of Meus products. The fit and finish of both were excellent. If I wanted an alu cage to either build or change up my Optic I would seriously consider that cage.
I don't knownif it's cultural, but the Chinese are well known for making false and exaggerated claims. I tend to always take the marketing with a grain of salt. It's the way they role...

 

[89Industries]

Lemme ask this question; if they are bending the truth a bit and we find out that it is a cast-n-blast item where the bulk is cast with some finish machine work, then bead blasted for finish, how much does that matter to the RC community at large? I bet those who buy it won't really care.

Without one in hand, I have no way of knowing, but from the photo alone ( for what it's worth ), that's not machined from a solid block. It's missing the tooling marks in the tight radius corners, and the joints have the distinctive "humps" from casting. The other more basic parts in their product suite show tool paths where there are virtually none on this cage.

Looks pretty nifty though.

Some joints on some parts have the ball end mill marks and others don't. More noticeable on certain parts of the blue cage pictures zoomed way in.

But if it's fully machined, they'd have to blast the crap out of it to get rid of the tooling marks on all the tubes to look like they do in the pics. That would likely get rid of most of the other tool marks as well. But would give you the "frosted ano" they describe.

If it's really 6061 then it wouldn't be cast to shape, as they do not generally do that with 6061. But could be melt forged. Personally I'd prefer that to full CNC. Much less waste. Strength wouldn't be much different. Might even be better.

Even better would be cold forged which would be stronger than cnc but that's super unlikely due to costs.

Also if you cast or forge aluminium, you would need to heat treat afterward to get the claimed T6. With tubes this thin it would likely warp too.

The reason cheap aluminum bicycle frames are 7005 rather than 6061-t6 is the difficulty of heat treating 6061 and keeping everything straight.

Also, cnc time in Asia is cheap. Especially for something with a bigger tolerance range like this.

 

[SteveB1]

Some joints on some parts have the ball end mill marks and others don't. More noticeable on certain parts of the blue cage pictures zoomed way in.

But if it's fully machined, they'd have to blast the crap out of it to get rid of the tooling marks on all the tubes to look like they do in the pics. That would likely get rid of most of the other tool marks as well. But would give you the "frosted ano" they describe.

If it's really 6061 then it wouldn't be cast to shape, as they do not generally do that with 6061. But could be melt forged. Personally I'd prefer that to full CNC. Much less waste. Strength wouldn't be much different. Might even be better.

Even better would be cold forged which would be stronger than cnc but that's super unlikely due to costs.

Also if you cast or forge aluminium, you would need to heat treat afterward to get the claimed T6. With tubes this thin it would likely warp too.

The reason cheap aluminum bicycle frames are 7005 rather than 6061-t6 is the difficulty of heat treating 6061 and keeping everything straight.

Also, cnc time in Asia is cheap. Especially for something with a bigger tolerance range like this.

Looking at the inside of the shock tower mounts, that's cast from my eyes. But photos are so easy to change that who knows. I just see the difference between their other parts and this one. Sure, with a blaster you can cover that up, but it's hard to blast tooling marks away and not have uneven radius in the joins of the parts.

I agree that their machine time is cheap, and this is a multi-part cage and not a monolithic block, but their price is reaaaaally cheap for that part if it is indeed all machined. I wouldn't want to make that part in our shop for the peanuts they are charging. I'm just guessing though without the part in hand.

I haven't fooled with HT aluminum, only carbon steels, so I got no ideas on that. We machine everything from solid billet here.

 

[bgredjeep]

At the end of the day, it's $400. If you think you are getting a $1500 product for $400 you might be let down. Just based on looks, it appears to be great value for the money.

The furitek ti cage on the other hand...

 

[89Industries]

SteveB1, I can totally see that side of it as well.

It just looks like all the cheap cnc bike stuff from Taiwan in the late 90s and 00s to me. Easy to hit tolerances, not enough volume to make tooling for cast or forging because things were changing so fast year to year, and the ugly blasted to infinity and anodized finish.

As I'm sure you know you can machine aluminum really quickly. Especially if you have no environmental standards and can use coolants and cutting fluids you can't use here either for toxicity or just cost of disposal.

Being able to put in all the bolt holes and such without touching the part a second time also seems appealing for cost. Machine one side with most of the holes. Flip it, use those holes to fixture, machine the rest and done. Send it to the blast line.

Actually that's probably a good way to tell once somebody gets one. If the counterbores are blasted like the rest it's probably full machine. If it's cast out forged they'd likely blast it before machining those holes to get rid of flash and parting lines so they could fixture to make the holes.

Someone should just buy one already.

 

[89Industries]

I have purchased a couple of Meus products. The fit and finish of both were excellent. If I wanted an alu cage to either build or change up my Optic I would seriously consider that cage.
I don't knownif it's cultural, but the Chinese are well known for making false and exaggerated claims. I tend to always take the marketing with a grain of salt. It's the way they role...

I'm sure there's some exaggerating but after my experience I'm Taiwan I believe some of it is just translation. They never bothered to get a native English speaker to proofread anything so lots of weird stuff was put out in the ads.

Mandarin and English with in very different ways.

"Like chicken talking to duck."

 

[smog]

At the end of the day, it's $400. If you think you are getting a $1500 product for $400 you might be let down. Just based on looks, it appears to be great value for the money.

The furitek ti cage on the other hand...

Is it normal not to fishmouth Ti joints? Some of the images i have seen of the Furikek cages display some wonky looking joints.

 

[smog]

I'm sure there's some exaggerating but after my experience I'm Taiwan I believe some of it is just translation. They never bothered to get a native English speaker to proofread anything so lots of weird stuff was put out in the ads.

Mandarin and English with in very different ways.

"Like chicken talking to duck."

It's a very good point you make. I have seem many Chinese Herb clinics that like to use the word 'cure' when 'treat' is likely a more appropriate word to describe what is being offered

 

[SteveB1]

Now someone does need to get on and find out. If they crash ( hope not ) and it cracks, ya gotta post the images. I wanna see if a bunch of grainy melted popcan material comes out. I shivered a Chicom machete on some rock clearing a trail last week, and it snapped like it was made from glass. Sandy infill on the blade, kinda wild.

 

[89Industries]

Is it normal not to fishmouth Ti joints? Some of the images i have seen of the Furikek cages display some wonky looking joints.

Ideally you would but at this scale it might just be plain difficult. Ti is tough to work with.

But looking they don't even cut the tubes at a matching angle so it doesn't look super nice. Could be plenty strong though.

And for the price I would not expect to much more.

 

[hnoroian]

How is the “hydro ram” part holding up? Any binding, deflection or dirty gritty parts impairing the servo throw. Not that I run most of my trucks through the muck I have badgers for those type of things but the fine silt dirt and such around here are just pain nasty.

 

[PileDriver]

The RC "media" is like 5 dudes that everyone knows

 

[smog]

How is the “hydro ram” part holding up? Any binding, deflection or dirty gritty parts impairing the servo throw. Not that I run most of my trucks through the muck I have badgers for those type of things but the fine silt dirt and such around here are just pain nasty.

No issues. I have definitely not babied it. It has been in and out of dirt and water as well as taken some long tumbles