hi i'm gideon from technologyman.com the wl toys 124017 radio controlled four-wheel drive car comes already fitted with a brushless motor and promises speeds of up to an impressive 75 kilometers an hour or 47 miles per hour for around 145 or 110 pounds you're getting a hobby grade 112 scale buggy with a metal chassis replaceable parts and upgradable electronics and that price includes a very basic lipo charger and two lipo batteries which you'd usually have to buy separately to get something equivalent from a well-known brand would cost around double that price but is it any good i'll see what you get for your money test out its speed claims and durability and in the conclusions i'll compare it to a similarly priced car available from a local hobby shop the 1 10th scale ftx carnage so let's take a look inside the box you get the car itself two or three 2 200 milliamp hour 2 cell or 2s lipo batteries depending on the option you go for a radio control transmitter a usb lipo charger a small spanner and a basic instruction manual the manual is in english although the translation is far from perfect but it should at least get you started and it does have exploded parts diagrams which is an encouraging sign of replacement parts availability something you really want for a proper rc car my car already had one battery in the battery tray which has a simple but effective velcro strap the battery tray does restrict anything longer or wider than the included batteries without some modifications which i'll come back to the included batteries measure 102 millimeters by 35 millimeters and 50 millimeters thick you can fit a battery twice as thickness the batteries come with a popular dean's connector and charged with the included usb charger by their balance lead the cable with four wires and white jst connector these lipo or lithium polymer batteries can offer excellent performance compared to nickel metal hydride batteries you'd usually expect at this price point you need to treat lipo batteries with care they should not be stored empty or full otherwise they can puff up and become unusable and when not in use they should be kept at a storage charge around 3.8 volts per cell or 7.6 volts for these two cell lipos as a quick aside you'll see lipo batteries referred to as 2s up to 6s this just refers to the number of individual lithium polymer cells stacked on top of each other and connected in series hence the s connecting them in series multiplies their voltage based on one cell's nominal or resting voltage of 3.7 volts so a 2s is 7.4 volts a 3s is 11.1 volts a 4s is 14.8 volts and so on when you charge these batteries their voltage will actually increase to 4.2 volts per cell so a 2s battery becomes 8.4 volts with everything else equal the bigger the voltage the faster your car will go lipo batteries should ideally be kept in a metal container or at least a lipo sac it's unlikely they do pose a fire risk if not looked after properly batteries did arrive at this storage charge but unfortunately the supplied charger has no way of getting them back to this voltage it will only fully charge them unless you unplug them early and measure their voltage with a multimeter or cheap lipo battery tester so although the supplied charger will get you started i'd highly recommend getting a proper lipo charger at some point which will also be a lot faster something like the sky rc b6 ac where i use this very capable hote d6 plus they will also have the added benefit of properly balanced charging your batteries basically ensuring both individual cells have the exact same voltage another important factor in lipo battery care if you're using the supplied charger you want to plug it into a 10 to 12 watt wall charger most computer usb ports should work or charge a lot more slowly the charger is rated at 7.4 volts 2 amps output and gets quite warm whilst charging this should charge the included batteries in around an hour and a half from empty but i found it slower than that taking about the same time from their approximate 50 storage charge they arrived at the car is well built with a chassis and shock tower plates made of aluminium and oil filled front and rear shocks the knobbly tyres feel soft and together with its four wheel drive i'll be mainly testing it off-road the electronics specifically the steering servo the bl motor 2845 3400 kv brushless motor receiver and electronic speed controller with its own fan are all separate electronics which makes future upgrades cheaper and easier again not something you typically get with budget cars like this the only thing not included are four aaa batteries for the transmitter i really quite like the two channel 2.4 gigahertz controller it feels well made for a ready-to-run car like this with similar if not better build quality than the traxxas tqi controller that came with my considerably more expensive traxxas max it might be a little on the small side for a very large hand but feels very comfortable to me and fits my children's hands well too you have the usual throttle brake and steering dial which has a nice foam sleeve and there's a steering trim knob which you'll need to adjust slightly if your steering is off below this knob is a throttle adjustment which is very handy if you want to hand the car to your children or someone new to rc rotate it anti-clockwise if you want to reduce the top speed of the car there's also a mode button this has no function with this specific wl toys car always turn on the controller first and then plug in the battery and turn on the car with its switch if you turn on the car before the controller you can get unpredictable results like the car taking off on its own the lexan body shell then clips on with two body clips which is pretty standard for these cars but they are easy to lose on my son's car we tethered them with thin cord and some sticky cable tie bases the shell doesn't sit quite flat it looks like it doesn't clear the esc fan they don't advertise the electronics being waterproof but the weather here in the uk has been pretty damp and i had no choice but to drive the car on the wet soggy moorland the first thing i noticed was quite severe stuttering or cogging as i pulled the throttle to market the high speeds on the box the gearing is a little optimistic which causes this issue the cars are 27 tooth pinion which will make it fast but the consequences there isn't enough talk to get started in a lot of situations without some hesitancy this is worse than longer grass where it needs a little kick to get going in shorter grass or on road it just stutters a bit then takes off and it's worse when it's wet once it's going it's fine and there's a lot of fun and it is quick it looks like in the latest version of this car wltoys have fixed the cogging issue if your car has a blue motor plate rather than the gold one on mine you have the newer version with a 19 tooth pinion but if you do have one of the original cars i'll show you how you can fix the issue quite cheaply shortly in its stock configuration with the included 2s battery i tried a speed test to see if it could reach the claim 75 kilometers an hour top speed i attached a gps speedometer to the car and measured a decent 33 miles per hour 53 kilometers per hour on a pretty flat stretch of short grass on road i got this up to 37 miles per hour or 60 kilometers per hour so not the speed advertised but it's still very quick this sky rc speedometer also has a nice drag speed test you can measure how quickly the car travels from north to 132 feet typically the app gives you a nice little graph of speed and acceleration i managed around 3.7 seconds but i'm sure with a bit of practice and dry roads i could better this score during my testing i tried a few small jumps and sent the card in cartwheels and flips many times you only have to hit a small bump at top speed with this car to send it flying but i've yet to damage the car apart from a few small scrapes on the bottom of the chassis there's not much ground clearance around one inch or 25 millimeters so it's hard to avoid these scrapes the lack of ground clearance does mean it's not much good over rocky terrain apart from the cogging the range was the other issue i found a little disappointing sometimes the car doesn't respond even when it's not that far away the 2 200 milliamp hour batteries last pretty well i got about an hour of use with two batteries and when i measured this the conditions were damp and not ideal so i'd say the version with two batteries is probably enough for most people although there's no claim with the electronics being waterproof i took the car through puddles and it got caked in wet mud and it still ran fine and i wasn't too careful rinsing it off with a garden hose and it's still not broken i did carefully dry the car and spray the moving components with wd-40 or muck offs mo 94 specifically if you have one of the newer versions of the car or if the cocking doesn't bother you you don't need to do this but i decided to change the 27 tooth pinion gear to a smaller one to eliminate cogging and improve torque and acceleration you will reduce the top speed significantly but for driving on grass the car is so much more enjoyable after fitting the smaller gear and it tackles even thick grass and bracken with ease still with no stuttering or cogging i followed an excellent guide that i found at qualifyrc.com that i'll link to in the video's description i'd highly recommend taking a look at the article for details you can follow his links to the required parts too if you want to try the modification yourself but i will outline the procedure i went for the cheapest option which uses all the existing electronics but just swaps a 27 tooth pinion for a 15 tooth one since there's no adjustment on the motor plate you'll need a new one of these too total cost is under 10 pounds or 10 dollars i wouldn't say the procedure is particularly easy but it's not too bad it took me around two hours that will depend on the tools you have to hand and your experience i would pick up a butane blow torch since you need a ridiculous amount of heat to release some of the screws as the article mentions wl toys use a lot of thread log first you have to remove the motor with its motor mount then unscrew the tiny grub screw holding the existing pinion in place this is probably the hardest bit you need a high quality 1.5 millimeter allen key and a lot of heat even after removing the grub screw i still needed to apply more heat to slide the pinion off i didn't have a small butane torch and my rework station heat gun wasn't up to it so resorted to a map gas torch which is overkill but did do the job you then need to remove the two screws holding the motor to the motor plate which also requires more heat than you think and since their phillips screws would be pretty easy to strip out then you need to enlarge the two holes in the new motor plate from 2.5 millimeter to three millimeter and enlarge a 2.2 millimeter hole in the new pinion gear to 3.2 millimeters you want to do this in stages i went to 2.5 millimeter then three millimeter and finally 3.2 millimeter as suggested in the article and added a bit of wd-40 for cutting fluid this hole needs to be dead straight so drill press is handy if you have one you can then reattach the motor to the new plate slide on the new pinion gear and lightly tighten the grub screw and put the car back together you can then adjust the pinion gear so it lines up with the spur gear and then tighten the grub screw fully you'll need to trim the lower and upper shroud with a knife i also found i had to remove the motor's heatsink since it interfered with the top deck this was tricky to get off i again needed some heat and managed to price it off after reassembling everything i attached it back with some thermal glue i took the car out for a test drive and again measured its top speed in grass the speed was down to 23 miles per hour or 37 kilometers per hour but it feels faster than this since it pulls away instantly even off-road i then tried a 3s battery a link to the battery i'm using down below it's a bit of a squeeze to fit it in so i designed and 3d printed and expanded the end piece so it fits in perfectly you don't absolutely need this but it's very easy to fit if you have a 3d printer i'll provide a link to the model down below too with a 3s battery fitted i've got the speed up to 34 miles per hour or 55 kilometers per hour off-road and 37 miles per hour or 60 kilometers per hour on-road about the same speed as with 2s and the old gearing you could probably use a 3s battery with the old gearing and get the advertised speeds but wltoys says this isn't recommended and i'd imagine you put a lot of strain on the electronics and gears especially with all the cocking it's pretty impressive what you're getting here for your money the wl toys 12 401.7 is a hobby-grade rc car which out of the box is fast and a lot of fun it's well built and even if you do break bits most of the parts i searched for were available online and fairly inexpensive which makes it great for someone after their first serious rc car and it doesn't break that easily which is reassuring too if you can get the new version with a 19 tooth pinion gear that should hopefully eliminate the cogging which is a little irritating when pulling off but not really noticeable once it's away and in dry conditions it will be less of an issue fitting the 15 tooth pinion with its original model did transform the car though for its intended off-road use i'd recommend this modification to anyone happy to get the hands dirty the range was a little disappointing although that's also meant to be improved with the new version i will try and test a new version at some point and see how it compares if you're after your first rc car at this price you could also pick up something like the ftx carnage from your local hobby shop this is a monster trucks are not directly comparable but at first glance it doesn't seem great value compared to the wl toys car the comparably priced entry level model has a brushed motor and comes with a nickel metal hydride battery and it's not as rugged as the wl toys with nearly all plastic construction this nickel metal hydride battery and brush motor doesn't have anything like the punch of the wl toys but for not that much money you can quite easily upgrade this car to brushless which transforms it we added a surpass 3650 4300 kv brushless motor and a new esc for around 35 pounds of course you also need a lipo battery and something to charge it which will push up the total price a bit still if you're after a fairly inexpensive route to your first proper rc car i certainly have this car to your shortlist but i'd love to hear your thoughts if you've got one of these cars what do you think of it if there's another car you think i should look at let me know and as always if you have any questions please ask i read every comment i'll do my best to respond i do hope you found this video useful please like the video if you did i'm releasing videos every week on the latest technology and how to get the most out of it so please make sure you subscribe and don't forget to tap the bell icon if you want to get notified as soon as a new video gets uploaded thanks for watching
