Rockslide RS10 Rock Crawler Review

Posted by Patrick in Review on August 7, 2010

I wanted to buy a RC car for my son. After looking around it seemed like the Rockslide RS10 from Redcat Racing was a good choice. There are a lot of expensive rock crawlers out there, but I didn’t want to spend too much. There is no reason to spend a bunch of money on high performance competition parts when the crawler is just going to be used in the backyard.

This looked like a good RC car for my son because:

They go slow so he doesn’t need a lot of room.
They can drive in a lot of places that other RC cars can’t
Batteries last a long time per charge
We can build obstacles together that he can drive over

In looking around the Rockslide RS10 seemed to be a recommended crawler. It is relatively cheap and had decent performance. I couldn’t find any better ones so I went ahead and bought the RS10.

I received the rock crawler within the week. The crawler is very impressive out of the box. It is big and it looks very tough and well made. The crawler comes with almost everything you need. The only thing it doesn’t come with are 8 AA batteries for the transmitter.

After charging up the battery we took it out to try it out. The truck is very impressive. It can climb things that you would not be able to expect it to do. To give you an idea of what it can climb: A standard curb on a road is a little too high to climb if you drive straight on, but if you drive in at an angle you can climb the curb. The people who have seen the truck are very impressed at the ease that the truck can climb obstacles.

The transmitter that comes with the truck is nice for a bundled transmitter. It has an LCD screen on it where you can make adjustments. There is a button on it that allows you to control which steering mode the truck is in: front, rear, or two all wheel steering modes. The only thing I don’t like about the transmitter is the limited range, it only works to about 20 feet. With a rock crawler you’re usually going to be close to the truck anyway so it isn’t a big deal, but it would be nice to have a little more range sometime. I wish that Redcat could have included a 2.4ghz transmitter instead even if it cost a little more.

I had a few problems with the truck. The servos that control both the front and rear steering wore out. They started making a clicking sound when steering and eventually stopped working. Redcat Racing repaired the servos for free under warranty, but from what I have read the stock servos are of low quality so I’d expect the replacements to break too. So instead I replaced them with these metal gear servos that people online seem to like. The new servos were easy to replace and worked without any configuration. So far they have worked great with no evidence of them wearing out.

The screws that hold the struts onto the wing fell out after a few uses. I recommend using Loctite on these screws so they don’t come out. I wish Redcat would warn people about this in their manual because once the screws fall out they are impossible to find.

Overall I really like the Rockslide RS10. The performance is very impressive for a good price. It is one of those things that both the adults and the kids can have a lot of fun with. If you are looking for a good RC vehicle without spending too much I recommend getting the Rockslide RS10.

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Simple Tomato Firmware Install On Asus RT-N16 Router

Posted by Patrick in Gadgets on July 8, 2010

The Asus RT-N16 router is one of the most powerful routers currently available. The RT-N16 has 802.11n, gigabit network ports, a fast processor, lots of memory and flash, and two USB ports for running a printer and external hard drive at the same time.

The stock Asus firmware is not that great, people have reported a lot of problems with it. So a great way to improve this router is to install a third party firmware. The two most popular are Tomato and DD-WRT. Tomato seems to have all the advanced features plus it is easier to use than DD-WRT so I decided to install Tomato. The standard version of Tomato does not support USB. Luckily there is another project called TomatoUSB that allows the use of the USB ports on the RT-N16.

The only problem with the alternate firmwares is that the documentation is severely lacking. There doesn’t seem to be a single, easy to follow guide on how to install the firmware. You have to spend many hours reading forum posts that are sometimes contradictory.

In reality installing Tomato is actually pretty simple once you figure it out. There is a lot of confusing information online, but if you follow the steps below you will have a working Tomato install:

  1. Download the latest version of TomatoUSB from here: http://tomatousb.org/download.  For the Asus RT-N16 you need to use the “Ext” build for Kernel 2.6 MIPSR2. The Ext build has the most features and it will fit in the RT-N16′s flash space. I used Build 47, but use whatever the latest version is.
  2. Install the Firmware Restoration Utility from the CD that came with the router. Run \Utility\setup.exe from the CD to install it. If you no longer have the CD you can also download it from the Asus website.
  3. Disable the firewall on your computer. This is required, the Restoration Utility refuses to run unless it is disabled. To disable it on Vista or Windows 7, hit the Start key then type firewall to get to the firewall control panel. On XP you should be able to go to the Control Panel and find the Firewall icon.
  4. Using an ethernet cable plug your computer into one of the 4 LAN ports on the router.
  5. Open a web browser and go to http://192.168.1.1. Verify that the router login page loads. If nothing loads then your computer is not able to reach the router. You’ll need to fix this problem before continuing.
  6. Run the Asus Firmware Restoration Utility from the Start menu. If it gives you an error about the firewall then your firewall isn’t disabled. You need to disable it before continuing.
  7. Click the Browse button and select the file that you downloaded in step #1. Don’t click the upload button yet.
  8. Put the router in recovery mode: Unplug the router. Hold down the Reset button. Plug the router back in. Once the power light starts slowly flashing release the reset button. The power light should continue to flash. The flashing light means the router is ready to accept the new firmware.
  9. Click the upload button in the Restoration utility. The firmware will now start uploading into the router. Don’t touch anything while the firmware is being uploaded. After the upload is complete wait five minutes or so just to be sure everything is done.
  10. Now reset the settings to default: Unplug the router. Hold the WPS button on the back of the router. Plug the router back in. Hold the button for about 30 seconds and release it.
  11. Open a browser and go to http://192.168.1.1. Login with user “admin” and password “admin”. You should be logged into Tomato. Now you can configure your router using the Tomato GUI.

I’ve used the above steps to successfully install Tomato on my Rt-N16. If you have any suggestions or improvements to this guide let me know by leaving a comment.

This page is ad free as a service for RT-N16 users. The only thing I ask is that if you found this page useful and happen to be ordering something from Amazon.com, that you click on this link before placing your order: Amazon Link. It doesn’t cost you anything, it is completely anonymous, and I get a small referral fee that pays for the hosting of this site. If you never order anything from Amazon then don’t worry about it, enjoy the site for free.

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Rinnai Tankless Water Heater Review

Posted by Patrick in Home Stuff on February 17, 2010

My electric water heater was very old so I decided to replace it with a new one. I had heard about tankless water heaters before and they sounded pretty good: unlimited hot water, no tank to break, energy efficient, space saving. With the recent tax credits I figured I’d try one out.

I ended up buying the Rinnai tankless water heater. The Rinnai is made in Japan and has a good reputation so I figured it would be a good choice. Brennan Heating had the best price of the companies that I contacted and seemed like a good company so I setup an install date with them.

The old electric heater was in the garage near the center of the house. Unfortunately Brennan said that the new Rinnai couldn’t be installed there because the vent to the outside was right next to the front door. So instead they installed the water heater on the other side of the garage to vent it and then ran water pipes back to the other side.

Unfortunately this extra pipe makes it take longer to get hot water to the faucets because the water has to travel through the longer pipe. I didn’t think it would add all that much time but it added a significant amount of time.

The second problem is that if you turn the hot water on and off frequently the water does not heat up consistently. Once the water starts flowing the burners cannot fire up fast enough, so cold water gets into the pipe. So for example, if you’re washing dishes and turn the hot water on for a few seconds at a time then the water will never get really hot. So you have to learn to wash dishes in a different manner by combining all your hot water in larger batches.

For things like showers the Rinnai has no problems. Since the hot water is used consistently during a shower the heater has no problem keeping the shower nice and warm. Plus since all the heating is done on demand it is handy when you have guests staying over. People can take showers back to back all day long and nobody has to worry about running out of hot water and being force to take a cold shower.

The Rinnai is a nice hot water heater, but there are some downsides to it. I’m not sure if the benefits outweight the drawbacks. If you are really into having the latest technology and energy efficiency then go ahead and get a tankless heater. If all you really want is just hot water then it might just make sense to stick with the old tank style.

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