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Wheelnut -> CEN ME16MT review by Wheelnut (3/27/2008 4:17:42 AM)
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First of all it was packed pretty well with thick strong cardboard.
Upon opening the box you will find the truck, DSX Radio, 1800Mah NICD battery, wall charger, one allen wrench, one wheel and slipper nut wrench and the manual.
The manual is done very nice. Nice layout (Some color), very explanatory and detailed with plenty of parts explosions and part numbers. Very clear illustrations. GREAT JOB HERE!
While examining the truck itself the first thing I noticed was that it is the biggest 1/16th scale I have ever seen with a wheel base of 7.48" and a width of 10.47" and a ground clearance of 1.26". It dwarfs my old MLST.
The DSX rado is pretty nice. Definitely better than most stock radios that come with RTR's. Lots more trim to play with.
The battery compartment is in a very good place on the bottom of the chassis. But it is flush with the bottom tucked away inside. The center of gravity is very low, However the compartment door could have been designed a litlte more easy to open. You have to take out two screws to get the compartment door open. The screws are very nice and heavy duty though. Two clips or something would have been nice here.
The shocks feel very nice, not too thin or thick oil was installed. I am guessing around 40wt to 50wt. Very smooth shock action.
The body looks pretty cool and I like it. Nice colors and it's pretty strong. I am kind of getting tired of seeing spoilers on the back of all RC's so it was refreshing.
The wheels and tires are not much to talk about, but then again what RTR wheels and tires are? I am however very glad it is 4WD. This is also a must for a modern Mini.
The slipper clutch has a nice feature. In the middle of the slipper cover is a plastic nut like cover that can be taken right out with a twist, it is very secure though. After this nut like cover is taken off the slipper can be adjusted without taking the whole cover out. See Below.
The electronics are standard RTR stuff with an esc that will only handle down to a 17T double wind or a 19T single wind. I haven't asked about the stock motor but I am guessing it is somewhere beteween a 19T and 23T motor. The ME16MT houses a standard size servo which makes upgrading to a strong servo easy. The stock servo works fine so far but it's nothing to write home about. Kind of noisy and slow.
All of the suspension looks pretty beefy and is pretty flexible also so hopefully breaking stuff won't happen too often. I am however very dissapointed to find that they didn't atleast put a full set of bearings in the truck. Instead there is bushings. Come on CEN get with the program. Every RTR should at least come with bearings.
I cycled the stock NICD battery 5 times while I was at work today, I came home to find that the Stock 1800mah NICD had only charged up to 1300mah. With the advancement of technology in batteries today a 2400mah battery would have been cheap enough for CEN to have included a slightly better battery. NICD is a NO NO for a modern RTR.
So for the first test run I wanted everything bare bones stock. So we (my 8 year old son and I) popped the stock battery in and headed outside with truck and vid cam in hand.
The radio synced up with the esc very quickly and was ready to go. The first thing I noticed while performing the initial check was that the steering EPA was tured down, so my first task was to turn it up. Operating the radio was not so intuitive. But I have been around for a while so after several minutes I figured it out. When all else fails "read the manual"[:D] Then I noticed that the steering servo saver was set too loose, so I tightened that and we were off.
The truck ran pretty smooth and at a decent pace. It definitley handled the grass and bumps better than any mini I have had yet, and I have had most of them. However it was not powerfull enough to pull a wheelie with out reversing first. The truck took the jumps just fine and after several flips and cart wheels there was no cracks or breaks.
After several passes and jumps the NICD wore down pretty quick. So we went inside and grabbed a NIMH 3300pack. With the new battery the truck's power jumped about 30%. IT was noticeably faster.
Over all I give this truck 7 out of 10 out of the box satisfaction.
The best news is, it has pleanty of potential. The first thing I am going to do is put a Duratrax 12T modified Intelispeed esc and a 12T Phantom motor that I have laying around. I am sure this is going to push this truck to the extreme. At this point I will be able to ride the edge between fast and disaster.
I also have a set of 2.8 wheels and tires coming. I feel that slightly larger tires will do this truck some justice.
Here are the links to the vids, the first one is with the stock battery and the second one is with the better battery.
I left the videos raw with no music so you could hear how the truck sounds when it runs. Something the manufactures won't do.
http://rcuvideos.com/item/DD6L4M8GGJRNGR5G
http://rcuvideos.com/item/HZ18818QD5Q0NMWP
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