Introduction

Readers outside the UK may not be familiar with Maplin, but from 1972 they pioneered mail order retail of electronics components through an annual catalogue of increasingly heroic proportions, grew into a chain of 200 bricks and mortar shops, and started selling online in 1999. 

At some point they lost their way – not helped by being acquired multiple times – and ceased trading in 2018. The brand still lives on, but the current online only business shares only the name & the last website design iteration of what went before.

 

I may have been an Acoms fanboy for a long time, but more recently I’ve also come to appreciate other vintage brands of radio gear, so when this Maplin 2001 2-channel set came up on eBay for a good price I swiftly added it to my small stockpile.

I can’t be sure it’s as it left the factory, it’s 35+ years old, has been through an unknown number of hands, and has a very glaring issue – while the box has a Band 6 sticker on it & the pennant included is blue, the TX & RX have band 1 (brown) crystals.

Between the original taped up bag of servo fittings and the lack of marks on the battery terminals, and the protective taped still on the TX badge panel, I’m confident it’s never been used.

 

 

 

Receiver

The receiver (2001-R) is physically very similar to an Acoms ARB-227 RX (from the 1981-83 Techniplus mk.ii set), the exceptions being a different label, black case with the crystal slot being open on one side, no provision for the early Acoms “clip on” servo connectors, and small slots for “Futaba” type servo plugs.

Inside, the only identifying mark is "2001" on one corner on the back of the board.

 

  

 

Servos

The two servos (2001-S) appear to be identical to the Futaba S3401, with the exception that the plug is considerably thicker, looking more like the 3-pin connector found on PC motherboard fans.

 

   

Battery Holder

The 4xAA holder is pretty generic, but has a nice chunky plastic shroud over the switch, and the same chunky 3-pin connector as the servos.

 

BEC

The Battery Eliminator Circuit unit (which isn’t mentioned in the manual) is a big clunky thing, it’s of such a size that it’s going to compromise fitting the switch. In comparison, the earliest Tamiya units (before BEC was incorporated into receivers) were much more petite & would fit anywhere a regular switch would.

It does help date the set pretty accurately – external BECs were only really a thing between late 1984 and mid-1985. The output is a conventional 3pin servo plug (with only two wires/pins), but the input is 2-pin with a latch**. A (now) standard 2pin JST connector (what Tamiya used as the output on BEC capable mechanical speed controls) fits the pins but feels like it won’t hold for long. This is possibly meant to connect to the Mechanical Speed Control in Maplin RC kits (see below).

** This plug seemed oddly familiar to me, I suspect It’s the one used on small, modern Chinese RC battery packs.

 

Transmitter

Transmitters of any given period tend to look very similar, with each manufacturer taking inspiration for from the others. I can see features shared with mk.i and mk.ii Acoms sets (frequency bands listed on the front), Acoms mk.III and “mk.iv”, (sticks, surrounds, 60/30 throttle split) Nikko hobby grade sets (side ribbing), Nikko toy grade sets (large power switch with chrome around it, labelled channels), Futaba (servo reversing switches on the underside, tubular handle with tapered fittings, battery meter shared with FP-T2MR), and so on – I could quite easily make comparisons to the early Sanwa Dash models too.

There’s a charging socket on the rear, but as a whole, the transmitter feels even more plastic than others of the time, not helped by the main sections of the case having smooth finish with actual sparkle in the mix.

I opened the case up to see if there were any more clues to the manufacturer – but there was only the same “JT929T” on the board that I’d already seen on a sticker on the bottom of the case. The board (brown, with large scale components) looks a little crude for the time. With “J” in the reference, I obviously thought “JR”, but couldn’t find any matches – although there are many external similarities to the JR Jeep 2 and Beat 202 transmitters.

Clearly, someone else made the transmitter for Maplin (or they incorporated others’ old tech) but having features like multiple manufacturers it’s really difficult to identify the source. A lot of badge engineering is commonplace across many radio gear brands - Acoms and Futaba are/were probably the busiest in this regard.

  

 

 

 

Manual

The manual – a single sheet of paper less than A4 size – looks like it could be from anywhere from 1983 to 1987 and has some rather crude amendments for the Maplin brand. It also shows there are two versions of transmitter - “TYPI” has a light, “TYPII” has a meter. As this set has a meter, and BEC I’ll call it “TYPIIB”.

  

 

Overall

I think this would have been quite a well specified set for 1984/85, even if it was a bit old hat under the casing, and a little toy like in looks. I don’t think anyone would have bought it over a Futaba set of the same spec, or even a lower spec (or later) Acoms set as they’d be the ones on offer from any (UK) model shop.

However, Maplin did briefly dabble with RC kits in the form of the “Wild Cat” (a Traxxas Cat clone – think clunky Tamiya Hornet + Wild One-esque front trailing arms) and the “Killer” (very, very similar to the Tamiya Fox – to the point of some parts being interchangeable), so it would have made sense for them to have their own radio set to sell alongside them.

Nb. Maplin also sold The Hotshot inspired, horizontal motor MRC 4WD Road Winner, but that was an RTR car with its own transmitter already in the box.

The “2001” references in the set and components are interesting, I think it’s very likely this was Maplin’s first – and probably one and only - foray into hobby grade RC gear (notwithstanding the 3 versions) and this was an attempt to make the set look “futuristic”, and that it wasn’t their first/only RC set.

For the time, it has a lot of features, but somehow manages to feel even more plastic than the competition. It’s perfectly credible set to use with any 2-channel “late” “golden era” RC car (1983 to maybe 1987, so 58038 Subaru Brat to 58063 Lunchbox? for Tamiya), but it would be even better if you’ve got an actual Maplin car to put it in.

   

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Written by TB member Jonny Retro