iWaver 04 cheapy bound to break on first day

[snailpace]

Got my iWaver 04 Monster Truck this morning, or what they call Big Foot. It’s pretty much you get what you pay for. Essentials are ball bearings as the stock plastic nasties are fairly tight with plenty of friction. Must get rid of the plastic nuts too. Dropped in an X-Speed and goes pretty well, keep in mind with the increased speed, it’s much easier to damage. I snapped the front suspension mount in two places with a head on collision! Not bad work for less than 30mins out of the box! Think it’s time to get the aluminium mount. The front knuckles look fragile and will most likely snap too if your front wheels collide, i’d go aluminium ones for sure.

Body is a polycarbonate, guess it’s good for collisions but the misaligned stickers for lights, windows and pretty much everything else on the body look really tacky. Might lose them and paint it myself. No real mounts for head/tail lights, probably use some plastic to make mounts for them. By the way, get a 4.0 mm drill bit ready cos you will need it, nice of them not to pre-drill a hole for the antenna!

Guess the savings with this iWaver04 allow you to use the spare change to buy hop ups.

[bithed]

…the 04 never quite looked up to standard…I hpoe you have some fun with it though becaus its a nice platform but PURELY indoors…start saving your pennes becuse you will start breaking MORE stuff just after you finish FIXING another part 😉

[Priest]

what did you expect its an iwaver nuff said

[jamiekulhanek]

SNAILPACE!!!

GIVE US A REVIEW ON THAT COOL TRANSMITTER

[Kerosene]

Hey I got my 04 today too. It’s pretty cool… but the plastic looks very breakable. And it’s real real slow – mine sounds/drives like the diff is slipping. Those wonky stickers are about the worst thing I’ve ever seen from ToyEast.

But the TX makes up for it.

I haven’t broken anything yet… but the days isn’t over 👿

[Kerosene]

Snailpace – did you get the extra pinions?

I didn’t. :sad::sad::sad:

[betty.k]

THE FREAKIN TRANSMITTER!!!

FERCHRISSAKES! SOMEONE PLEASE TELL US ABOUT THE TX!!!!:D:8ball:

[Aaron]

*laughs* Yeah we all want to know about the Tx….

Spare damper stays will be available from ausmicro.com shortly, still plastic but cheap fixes until we can get a reliable cheap supply of alloy versions.

A.

--
Site Owner Guy.

[snailpace]

Oh Yah the TRANSMITTER dudes!!! No pinion gears supplied man:(, only the stock in the gearbox (haven’t seen what T yet) Keep in mind as they do state that the ABS function only works with iWaver 02 which i also got. If you switch of the ABS the car (02) slams in reverse, ABS on when you slam it in reverse the car stops without (i’d say minimal) skidding. Too fast and too close to a wall won’t help though!

Basically you can dump the old iWaver 01 clear and dark grey jobbies as this one has 10 memories with 3 label for each which is handy for a fleet of cars, only thing you gotta do is swap crystals. At least there is a charging jack, not like the old controller where there was a hole for it!

As you all may have seen the pics on ToyEast’s site, the controller has an LCD display all the stuff that you need to adjust like:
-Steering Dual Rate
-ABS (only on iWaver 02 & 04)
-Digital trim for steering & throttle trim, steering D/R.

Quite handy the steering and throttle response which you can adjust. You can adjust the steering so that it’s gradual on instead of fast left/right which would normally flip/spin the car no matter how fast you steer. Same goes for throttle, can ease it so if you let crazy unco drive your beast, there’s less chance of them pranging.

Nice bright blue LED looks cool but main thing is it performs well and makes up for the tacky plastics and quality niggles. For USD $50 can’t complain too much.

Good way to save money and get 2 vehicles is to buy the iWaver 02 car chassis and the iWaver 04 which you get the controller anyway.

[snailpace]

Actually one major complaint, when i smacked the iWaver 04 truck and snapped the front suspension mount, there’s a horizontal piece of plastic that is glued between that and the rear suspension mount which you cannot remove. Another words you have to replace the front, back and that piece that connects the two as a whole unit! That piece of plastic as holes (left and right of truck) where you push clips from the outside of the body in it, this part is different to the Mini Z MF.

What this means is if you buy the front and rear aluminium suspension mounts, you won’t be able to mount the 04 polcarb body on, maybe that’s a good thing since it’s so crap!

Very annoying. Those with the 04 will know, can someone post a pic if they can as i don’t have a digital camera handy yet:(

[Kerosene]

Bit hard to see any detail.. but better than nothing:

[Kerosene]

Anyone notice the tyres? 😀
Gotta fix that tmrw.

[snailpace]

Thanks to Kerosene for posting the nice pics. That horizontal plastic piece connecting the front and rear shock mount is freakin glued on man! Trying to pry it off will just snap everything else! So far according to ToyEast’s website site, only the front and rear shock mount is available at $1.80 but that horizontal piece aint there! Maybe better to go for the real Kyosho mount which RCMart sell for USD $5.90. Might have to hack that thing with a Dremel :angry:

[snailpace]

Lol! Check my treads and at least they got the direction correct 🙂 While the stickers are fresh, and not to mention not stuck on properly, nows your chance to carefully peel off the misaligned ones and make them right. Must have got some work experience kids from a bus stop to whack the stickers on when churning these out in a hurry:D

[Kerosene]

I took the stickers off and carefully placed them in the bin. 😀

One thing that impressed me was the packaging. ToyEast get so close to making a great product – then stuff it up with things like the crappy stickers and backwards tyres.

[snailpace]

Tend to agree man. Actually i think i might follow your footsteps and carefully place the stickers in the bin too:D Let me know when you smack your suspension mounts! Gotta figure how to get around this one. Haven’t even used the crap polycarb body to smack around yet.

[jamiekulhanek]

can u give us a better review of the ransmitter please, like the quality/feel/range etc etc etc???

PLEAAAAAASE

[jamiekulhanek]

SNAILPACE, can u please post pics of these “quality niggles”???

Thanks

[snailpace]

With the quality, feel and range of the transmitter etc… Comparing to the old iWaver 01 controller, this one feels better. The wheel grip is now soft sponge over the old solid rubber one. Weight and dimensions are about the same. Two noticeable improvements are the power switch which has a definite click on feel (with an electronic confirmation beep) where the old one when you slide the switch sometimes you had to wiggle it around to make contact. And secondly if you remove the antenna it screws back in easily where the old one you had to use brute force to push it past some metal contact to sort of line up the nut thread.

There is a wheel tension adjustment via a screw hole just to the bottom left of the wheel, haven’t tried this out yet but tension seems fine to me.

Power light is a very bright purple blue color which looks cool, much better than the old dodgy 3 crooked LEDs, there’s a voltage reading on the LCD display that also has an alarm that kicks in when the voltage drops to 8.5V. Fresh rechargeables i got a reading of 11.1V.

The batteries (x8 AA’s)sit in a flat tray at the bottom which you can remove, i imagine to be able to charge. The plug however doesn’t seem an industry standard though, looks a bit like a Futaba flat servo plug with a notch.

They’ve defintely improved the controller and looks like they spent more time on this than the 04 truck itself!

I haven’t tested out the range yet, but with the old one i remember driving the car away until you can barely see if is more than enough. I think the range (easily 40-50m) would be the same if not better at the least. It’s definitely more than enough for hooning down your street until it’s barely visible or on any track.

Sorry don’t have a digital camera so can’t show you pics of the quality niggles. Basically what i’ve found:
1. Cheap plastic bits prone to breakage
2. Sticks on the body misaligned
3. No pre-drilled hole on the body (Need 4.0mm drill bit for this)
4. A new horizontal piece “glued” between front and rear suspension mount, break either front or rear then you have to change the whole thing (front and rear with that horizontal piece) See Kerosene’s pictures above.
5. Noisy gears, nore sure if it’s the differentials or meshing issue, sometimes when you reverse then slam it forward can hear some crunching.

I would definitely do the following which would be a bare minimum:
1. Install ball bearings
2. Upgrade motor, iWaver X-Speed works fine without FET upgrade
3. Get rid of the front and rear suspension mounts (they will snap in a front collision) and go aluminium or just get the Kyosho version if you want to save money.
4. Aluminium front knuckles as i think they will go next in a collisio n.
5. Get rid of the plastic wheel nuts, the threaded hole will strip easily. Get the proper aluminium ones.

These upgrades will still be much cheaper than a stock Miniz Mad Force.

Hope this info helps those thinking about getting an iWaver 04, be prepared to break something, it will happen, especially once you put in a beefed up motor and crash!

[snailpace]

Oops what i meants in above post is the “stickers” are misaligned on the body:D. My typing is getting a bit like iWaver these days:dead:

[jamiekulhanek]

Thanks alot snailpace, i’m definately not curious about the IW04 anymore.

Just wondering if you could give me a tiny bit more info on the fit and finish of the transmitter, do all the panels line up, do they have lots of daggy edges?

[snailpace]

Yup no worries, with the fit and finish of the transmitter it’s surprisingly good. The panels are all straight with no jagged edges of left over scrap. All the printed and text are straight and with correct spelling:D They have used a textured grain on the back of the pistol grip and a rubber coating cap on the top edge. There’s also a rubber strip on the front of the pistol grip. I’d give thumbs up to the transmitter, even for price as i think you can get if for USD $25.90 from ToyEast, not sure about shipping though. It’s a good controller to replace your old ones as you can store the memory settings of 10 cars.

[Kerosene]

The finish is actually a lot better than it looks in these pics. I honestly hadn’t noticed any crappy edges until I really started looking.

There’s a few dull bits of plastic here and there – but overall I’m pretty impressed with it. And that led rocks 🙂

[Kerosene]

[snailpace]

Yeah the LED is cool, maybe can use it as a torch to look for your car in the dark! 😀

[betty.k]

kerosene, snailpace, thanks heaps for the reviews:smiley2:

man, i care sooooo little about the cars themselves! that tx is heading my way asap! ima gunna get me an iw02, bargain! all i want is the tx and rx, the rest is just like a freebie!:D:8ball:

[Priest]

well the posty came today woohoo he brought me my 04 though huston we have a problem and its not the car its the Transmitter it dont work all the bells and whistles work but no signal to car at all so i tried it with my 01 same thing 02 same thing though all of them work well with the old clear transmitter

[demonajy]

What a bugger!!
Try swapping out your crystals with the working tansmitter,might be worth a shot

[Priest]

tried that…nothing at all coming from the Tx. great to see iwaver quality control people working hard again…steve at toygrease is gonna get a nice little email over this one.

[snailpace]

Priest…sorry to hear that man and such a bummer just before x-mas! My first 01 Tx went bung on me first time round. Emm..what you call toygrease:D took them 2-3months to get their act together to send me another replacement! You really gotta hammer in the emails and complaints.

Bad news for me now, another hard prang into a metal chair, now my front gearbox meshing is all up the creek, crunching sounds don’t sound too good:sad:…basically no steering! Guess the servo saver wasn’t much of a saver! Might just put in real mecoy mini-z gears in it.

[TallduDe]

maybe the first batch isnt that great, it was the same for the first iwavers.

any news on the overlander iwavers?

[Aaron]

TallDude, they’ll be along in a couple of months I belive.

Bugger about the QC, oh well what can we do? They are cheap.

A.

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Priest]

the tx is an actual futaba im sure of it i opened it up and printed on the board is fdlabs its the same printing on my futaba 6exa and in the back of the manual it says use only futaba crystals. so i would say iwaver has got a special deal on these tx’s

[jamiekulhanek]

I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT!!!!!!!!!

I KNEW IT!!!!!

I figured iwaver wouldn’t have the technology to make these complex radios, and figured that futaba must have made them as this radio has IDENTICAL features to the 2pl, while looking INDENTICAL to the 3pm……

W000000000000000000000000000000000000t cheap futaba radios!!

[peteWah]

Quote:

Bad news for me now, another hard prang into a metal chair, now my front gearbox meshing is all up the creek, crunching sounds don’t sound too good:sad:…basically no steering! Guess the servo saver wasn’t much of a saver! Might just put in real macoy mini-z gears in it.

I don’t think the gears are a true swap, As is the same from a
01 i Waver to a 01 Mini z the casing may be a diffrent size as to not allow for a direct replacement of kyosho gear/gears

I guess you could try but could be up for a rude awakening…

[dgs73]

was reading on a certain other forum that these controllers have a habit of “losing” their programmed settings… (amongst other little niggles) this btw is a Iwaver 04 controller i’m on about…. mzr.com for the curious… and I wanted to get one too. Their being made by Futaba was the icing on the cake… shame the cake turned out to be stale fruit cake.

Edited by – dgs73 on 14 December 2004 16:47:32

[peteWah]

You get what you payed for, Sour grapes

[Priest]

well ive solved one problem the broken shock mount well got bored waiting for the gpm stuff to come in the post so i went and made one of my own.

Take a look
top view

http://members.ausmicro.com/galleries/5830/13BC5F8813BAF0B7.jpg

Front view

http://members.ausmicro.com/galleries/5830/13BED3C413BAF0B8.jpg

problem solved works fine…. now which bit will break next 😀

Edited by – Priest on 14 December 2004 18:42:25

[peteWah]

Good job dude:smiley2:

[bithed]

…gees talk about re-inventing the wheel…lol…priest mate we need to talk..lol…good job though…would you like that piece in carbon now BTW ? lol..

[snailpace]

Yeah nice work Priest! Better get myself a Dremel and try it out. I’ve ordered a real mecoy front servo box and and original gears so that should take care of the front mechanicals. I can imagine there would be slight differences. It’s kinda weird as i’m slowly morphing my iw04 into a Kyosho flavour, then strenghten the suspension mounts with aluminium.

With the controller’s memory, i took out the batteries for at least two hours to charge, put them back in and the memory settings were still intact. Guess it’s got non-volatile memory like the USB memory drives, not bad at all. So far nothing has snapped off the controller yet, fingers crossed:):)

[Priest]

btw i dont own a dremel i did that all by saw,file,and a hand drill(ol Skool):)…in also gonna drill a few holes forward of the pivot to make use of making slightly longer chassis adjustment and bithed ill stay with alloy though i have been thinking how to make the mid chassis carbon……. also kyosho or iwaver should make these 4WD

Edited by – Priest on 15 December 2004 01:52:09

[Kerosene]

Hmmm… my 04 has a problem.
When I ‘free run’ the stock motor (on full throttle) it revs up and down by itself. I thought it might have just been a bad motor – so I tried an old iWaver 02 motor and it smoked and blew up within a few seconds (the motor – not the fets).

Haven’t had a chance to test (sacrifice) another cheap motor.. but I’ve got a bad feeling it’s an electronics prob.

Anyone had a problem like this before?
Sound like a fet thing?

[snailpace]

Good to see good oh mini hard yakka at work! Very impressive. Looking forward to your mod. The part that i’ve snapped is the bits that connects one of the front suspension springs (sorry can’t show pic cos no camera). I’ve tried using araldite expoxy but when i screw the ball connector, the force just breaks it off again. Any ideas anyone? :question:

[snailpace]

Good to see good oh mini hard yakka at work! Very impressive. Looking forward to your mod. The part that i’ve snapped is the bits that connects one of the front suspension springs (sorry can’t show pic cos no camera). I’ve tried using araldite expoxy but when i screw the ball connector, the force just breaks it off again. Any ideas anyone? :question:

[snailpace]

Kerosene, have you tried an iWaver X-Speed motor? That’s running fine in my iw04 without a hitch and would take a lot more to blow that and seeing it’s only USD $0.99 at TE won’t hurt the wallet so much. Could possible be dodgy fets. Maybe try replacing the pair next to the motor terminals without stacking them to confirm.

[Kerosene]

I solved the problem. The motor that came with my 04 was faulty, and just coincidence that the other motor blew.
I chucked in another old iWaver motor I had and it’s all good now.

At $0.99, I might have to get a few of those iWaver motors for spares.

[Priest]

seriously save your money those motors are completely crap thats why they are only worth 99c you better bet is to get an xspeed pro if ya wanna stay with iwaver products ive been running one in mine and nothing wrong yet

[Priest]

i gave the monster a heart transplant now she is running 3×2 stack irf7317 fets and holy sh*t she gets up and boogies now now i need bearings bigtime well need a lot of things bigtime hehehe and where the hell can i get a alloy front servo case everybody is out of stock AHHHHH!

btw has anybody got any ideas to make the stearing a little more torquey it seems stearing is a little slow im wondering a stack of stearing fets might fix the problem though i am not sure

Edited by – Priest on 15 December 2004 14:44:15

[Aaron]

No stack need, just whack a pair of 7389s or 7317s in place of stock.

A.

--
Site Owner Guy.

[Priest]

im gonna nelly and lithion this sucker later on anyway….. she bloody screams with these fets and xspeed pro….just took it for a full drive test(12pm today)still to much bounce for my liking and still nothing broken(thank god)great speed and torque onroad and offroad and the kyosho madforce bodies fit the I04 you just gotta work around getting the old mounts unsuperglued. the orignal body of the I04 is just a vacuum formed lexan copy of the kyosho body nothing more.. just the kyosho one looks heaps better though the lexan body is light which helps keep the CG low so it comes down to looks over weight your choice

[oldtamiyaphile]

I don’t really like the whole Iwaver thing, for the relatively small extra few bucks, I prefer to go with the real deal. The main reason is if I’m about to spend maybe 50-100 hours converting a model, I want to start with the best.

But anyway, I am interested in the TX, does the quality beat the old ones? Can anyone tell me if it works with Epochs? It’s based on the Futaba 2PL and that doesn’t.

[Kerosene]

Not sure if the tx works with Epochs, but the quality is a million times better than the old iwaver transmitters. Feels good to use… nice balance, good resistance on the wheel etc.

I REALLY like the whole iwaver thing. I’m not going anywhere near my MR02 with a soldering iron 👿 I’d rather make a USD$50 mistake than a USD$100+ mistake.

[Author]

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