Jerry-Rigged
Have you seen my LVC?
Supporter
Howdy gang-
This will be my review of the MZ YY2003 – a 1/12 scale 6x6 military truck. This truck is a nice looking scaler truck with full proportional throttle and steering, working LED headlights, 6wd with locked diffs, and a 380-sized motor powering everything.
Banggood sent me this truck for review (two of them actually, first one broke). Thank you Banggood for allowing regular guys like me to review your new products!
For full stats, or to get the truck head over to Banggood –
https://www.banggood.com/MZ-YY2003-...ejian&p=!E16225056684201606A&cur_warehouse=CN
There is also the YY2004 version of this truck, in a slightly different body style, in a grey/green color –
https://www.banggood.com/MZ-YY2004-...ejian&p=!E16225056684201606A&cur_warehouse=CN
My box arrived in pretty rough shape. Banggood did their typical packing job of a layer or two of foam wrap over the box, but it was no match for some angry postal employee –
(note – the box for the second truck I received a month later arrived in perfect shape)
The truck was mostly unscathed inside the box, only the plastic exhaust pipe was popped loose – it was easy to snap back into place. Once everything was unpacked, it looked like this –
Included in the box was the truck, remote, 7.2v 400mah NiCad battery, and a USB-based charger.
Looking the truck over, it really looks nice. There is a lot of detail on this model. About the only place I felt they dropped the ball was the wench hook – it looks a bit silly, but the rest of the truck looks GREAT!
Inside the cab there are seats, a steering wheel, and a dash full of gauges.
Looking at the bottom of the truck, we find 3 solid axles, driven from a center gearbox. All three axles ride on metal leaf springs. All three diffs are locked, and the steering servo is mounted on the chassis, not the axle. The chassis is a metal twin C-channel with plastic cross members design. Tires are a scale looking military/industrial off road tread, made out of a fairly hard rubber.
For the radio, they supply a small-ish pistol style radio. Runs on 4-AA batteries. The Radio has dials for Steering trim, and Throttle DR. Decent radio, I tested the range out to about 100’.
As noted, all three axles ride on metal leaf springs. Here is one complaint I have about this truck – these springs are stiff, so there is very little suspension movement with only the trucks weight. I used a door-shim to try and gauge how high I could lift one tire before another tire came off the ground – best was the front end – I could get almost to the top of the ¼” tall shim. For both of the rear axles, I could only get 1/8” to 1/16” – that is between 2mm-4mm. Not a lot.
The crate in the truck bed hides the battery. The included pack is a 6-cell, 7.2v, 400mah Nicad pack. The Plug is a small version of a Tamiya plug. (After my first run, I swapped the plugs to XT60). The included charger is a USB powered charger, 250ma, with one LED to show charging status. Charge time should be about 1.5 hours, but I have not measured it.
Depending on what you are doing, can be between 6-8 minutes to 15-20 minutes. If you are running on flat smooth ground, the little battery will last a long time. However, if you are trying to crawl, the Nicad will quickly fade to where you don’t have much power. At about 6-8 minutes, I found the battery had faded to where the truck could no longer spin the wheels trying to get over obstacles. Even after this, though, if you move to smooth ground, the truck will run quite a while longer, till the battery finally completely dumps.
I did try the truck with a small 2s, 14500 (AA) 850mah Li-ion battery. Running this battery solved power loss issue, but then you need the external alarm as I don’t think the truck has a LVC. Speed on level ground (surprisingly) felt the same as with a fully charged Nicad. However, it didn’t fade like the Nicad, so you keep the power and speed for the majority of the run.
With proportional throttle and steering, and great scale looks, Driving the truck is a fun experience. It is fast? No, it maxes out at a quick walk, maybe 4-5mph. How does it crawl? Well, the 6 wheel drive hides a lot of the sins in poor suspension. The hard tires don’t help either. But, 6wd for the win here. While the battery is fresh, the truck can get over obstacles pretty good. The center gearbox will sometimes snag on roots and rocks, though. I don’t see this truck as a serious crawler, but it can do enough to have fun on mild trails.
One more negative here is the steering. The stock setup just does not turn the tires very far. Add in the two rear axles with locked diffs, and the turning circle for this truck is kind of huge for how small the truck it – you need about 8’-10’ to do a u-turn. I have not yet had a chance to look at the linkages to see if any easy modifications can be made to help with this.
Back near the top, I said I got two of these trucks. The first one I received broke something in the gearbox on around battery #4, while trying to climb a rocky hill. I tried to open the gearbox to see what was actually broke, but the gearbox is put together in a way that I felt I would need to break it to get it open. No parts are available for this truck, so Banggood sent me a whole new truck. On the third battery, the new truck failed with same issue. I was climbing a sandy hill, and something in the gearbox let go.
After the second truck broke, I went back to the gearbox I pulled from the first truck, determined to get it open. I did figure out how to get it apart without breaking it (Yea!) and found the issue was the pinion slid down the motor shaft, so it was no longer engaging. It was very easy to push it back into alignment – too easy. I suspect it will move again, and have this issue again. The bad news, I broke it trying to put it back together. The issue that makes this hard to do without breaking is the the u-joints, which are attached to the gearbox shaft as a press fit. And unlike the motor pinion, these are a VERY tight press fit. I was able to get it off with only minimal damage to the outdrive and gearbox housing, but trying to press it back on, I broke one of the ears on the u-joint.
One truck failing could be a fluke, but having 2 die the same way with less than half a dozen runs on them, to me, points to a manufacturing issue. This leads to another issue – parts support – there is not any. I cannot find any parts, either on Banggood, nor on a wider Google search. I did talk to my Banggood rep, and he is looking into getting parts support, and getting some feedback to the manufacturer about the motor pinion issue.
UPDATE-
I opened the gearbox for truck #2. In this one, the pinion had not moved, but rather it simply was not holding tight to the motor shaft. The pinion on these trucks is just a press fit, and apparently, that press fit can't hold up to the stress of crawling. I did try to clean up the pinion, and add a drop of CA to glue it to the motor shaft. I was able to get the #2 gearbox back together without breaking anything else, and took the truck for a test drive. Around the house, it was running good, until I ran into a table leg and didn't let off the power right away. This broke the glue on the motor shaft, and the truck is dead again.
Seeing as I have an extra broke truck, I started to tear into it. The cab and the bed come off in two separate parts. However, due to the headlights and main battery, both are attached to the main chassis with wiring.
Here is the main board – all the wiring is plugged into the board, instead of soldered. Each plug then has a dab of what looks like hot glue on it to keep it from coming loose. The three empty plugs here are for the battery (red), motor (top left) and headlights (right). Also note the 5-wire servo lead. The last plug (lower left) is for the power switch.
(I’ll get one of the axles open and post pics. Anything else y’all want to see?)
For $45, I feel this is almost decent little truck. Most of the 1/16 versions of this truck from JJRC or WPL don’t have the proportional controls, so that is nice to see here. Driving this truck is fun. No it is not fast, but as a trail runner / light crawler, I enjoyed it. The stock Nicad battery is a bit of a letdown. On flat ground, you get good run time, but for trail running, it quickly runs out of power to get the truck over obstacles.
BUT – With the current pinion issue, you can't use this as a crawler. If you bind up the drive train trying to get thru a tough spot, the pinion will fail. As a kids car, to drive around the house and the yard, it should do great. One up side to this is the Nicad battery does great on flat ground, so that will no longer be an issue.
This will be my review of the MZ YY2003 – a 1/12 scale 6x6 military truck. This truck is a nice looking scaler truck with full proportional throttle and steering, working LED headlights, 6wd with locked diffs, and a 380-sized motor powering everything.
Banggood sent me this truck for review (two of them actually, first one broke). Thank you Banggood for allowing regular guys like me to review your new products!
For full stats, or to get the truck head over to Banggood –
https://www.banggood.com/MZ-YY2003-...ejian&p=!E16225056684201606A&cur_warehouse=CN
There is also the YY2004 version of this truck, in a slightly different body style, in a grey/green color –
https://www.banggood.com/MZ-YY2004-...ejian&p=!E16225056684201606A&cur_warehouse=CN
On to the review
My box arrived in pretty rough shape. Banggood did their typical packing job of a layer or two of foam wrap over the box, but it was no match for some angry postal employee –
(note – the box for the second truck I received a month later arrived in perfect shape)
The truck was mostly unscathed inside the box, only the plastic exhaust pipe was popped loose – it was easy to snap back into place. Once everything was unpacked, it looked like this –
Included in the box was the truck, remote, 7.2v 400mah NiCad battery, and a USB-based charger.
Looking the truck over, it really looks nice. There is a lot of detail on this model. About the only place I felt they dropped the ball was the wench hook – it looks a bit silly, but the rest of the truck looks GREAT!
Inside the cab there are seats, a steering wheel, and a dash full of gauges.
Looking at the bottom of the truck, we find 3 solid axles, driven from a center gearbox. All three axles ride on metal leaf springs. All three diffs are locked, and the steering servo is mounted on the chassis, not the axle. The chassis is a metal twin C-channel with plastic cross members design. Tires are a scale looking military/industrial off road tread, made out of a fairly hard rubber.
For the radio, they supply a small-ish pistol style radio. Runs on 4-AA batteries. The Radio has dials for Steering trim, and Throttle DR. Decent radio, I tested the range out to about 100’.
Suspension
As noted, all three axles ride on metal leaf springs. Here is one complaint I have about this truck – these springs are stiff, so there is very little suspension movement with only the trucks weight. I used a door-shim to try and gauge how high I could lift one tire before another tire came off the ground – best was the front end – I could get almost to the top of the ¼” tall shim. For both of the rear axles, I could only get 1/8” to 1/16” – that is between 2mm-4mm. Not a lot.
Battery and charger
The crate in the truck bed hides the battery. The included pack is a 6-cell, 7.2v, 400mah Nicad pack. The Plug is a small version of a Tamiya plug. (After my first run, I swapped the plugs to XT60). The included charger is a USB powered charger, 250ma, with one LED to show charging status. Charge time should be about 1.5 hours, but I have not measured it.
Run time
Depending on what you are doing, can be between 6-8 minutes to 15-20 minutes. If you are running on flat smooth ground, the little battery will last a long time. However, if you are trying to crawl, the Nicad will quickly fade to where you don’t have much power. At about 6-8 minutes, I found the battery had faded to where the truck could no longer spin the wheels trying to get over obstacles. Even after this, though, if you move to smooth ground, the truck will run quite a while longer, till the battery finally completely dumps.
I did try the truck with a small 2s, 14500 (AA) 850mah Li-ion battery. Running this battery solved power loss issue, but then you need the external alarm as I don’t think the truck has a LVC. Speed on level ground (surprisingly) felt the same as with a fully charged Nicad. However, it didn’t fade like the Nicad, so you keep the power and speed for the majority of the run.
Driving
With proportional throttle and steering, and great scale looks, Driving the truck is a fun experience. It is fast? No, it maxes out at a quick walk, maybe 4-5mph. How does it crawl? Well, the 6 wheel drive hides a lot of the sins in poor suspension. The hard tires don’t help either. But, 6wd for the win here. While the battery is fresh, the truck can get over obstacles pretty good. The center gearbox will sometimes snag on roots and rocks, though. I don’t see this truck as a serious crawler, but it can do enough to have fun on mild trails.
Steering
One more negative here is the steering. The stock setup just does not turn the tires very far. Add in the two rear axles with locked diffs, and the turning circle for this truck is kind of huge for how small the truck it – you need about 8’-10’ to do a u-turn. I have not yet had a chance to look at the linkages to see if any easy modifications can be made to help with this.
Reliability and parts support
Back near the top, I said I got two of these trucks. The first one I received broke something in the gearbox on around battery #4, while trying to climb a rocky hill. I tried to open the gearbox to see what was actually broke, but the gearbox is put together in a way that I felt I would need to break it to get it open. No parts are available for this truck, so Banggood sent me a whole new truck. On the third battery, the new truck failed with same issue. I was climbing a sandy hill, and something in the gearbox let go.
After the second truck broke, I went back to the gearbox I pulled from the first truck, determined to get it open. I did figure out how to get it apart without breaking it (Yea!) and found the issue was the pinion slid down the motor shaft, so it was no longer engaging. It was very easy to push it back into alignment – too easy. I suspect it will move again, and have this issue again. The bad news, I broke it trying to put it back together. The issue that makes this hard to do without breaking is the the u-joints, which are attached to the gearbox shaft as a press fit. And unlike the motor pinion, these are a VERY tight press fit. I was able to get it off with only minimal damage to the outdrive and gearbox housing, but trying to press it back on, I broke one of the ears on the u-joint.
One truck failing could be a fluke, but having 2 die the same way with less than half a dozen runs on them, to me, points to a manufacturing issue. This leads to another issue – parts support – there is not any. I cannot find any parts, either on Banggood, nor on a wider Google search. I did talk to my Banggood rep, and he is looking into getting parts support, and getting some feedback to the manufacturer about the motor pinion issue.
UPDATE-
I opened the gearbox for truck #2. In this one, the pinion had not moved, but rather it simply was not holding tight to the motor shaft. The pinion on these trucks is just a press fit, and apparently, that press fit can't hold up to the stress of crawling. I did try to clean up the pinion, and add a drop of CA to glue it to the motor shaft. I was able to get the #2 gearbox back together without breaking anything else, and took the truck for a test drive. Around the house, it was running good, until I ran into a table leg and didn't let off the power right away. This broke the glue on the motor shaft, and the truck is dead again.
Internals
Seeing as I have an extra broke truck, I started to tear into it. The cab and the bed come off in two separate parts. However, due to the headlights and main battery, both are attached to the main chassis with wiring.
Here is the main board – all the wiring is plugged into the board, instead of soldered. Each plug then has a dab of what looks like hot glue on it to keep it from coming loose. The three empty plugs here are for the battery (red), motor (top left) and headlights (right). Also note the 5-wire servo lead. The last plug (lower left) is for the power switch.
(I’ll get one of the axles open and post pics. Anything else y’all want to see?)
Overall
For $45, I feel this is almost decent little truck. Most of the 1/16 versions of this truck from JJRC or WPL don’t have the proportional controls, so that is nice to see here. Driving this truck is fun. No it is not fast, but as a trail runner / light crawler, I enjoyed it. The stock Nicad battery is a bit of a letdown. On flat ground, you get good run time, but for trail running, it quickly runs out of power to get the truck over obstacles.
BUT – With the current pinion issue, you can't use this as a crawler. If you bind up the drive train trying to get thru a tough spot, the pinion will fail. As a kids car, to drive around the house and the yard, it should do great. One up side to this is the Nicad battery does great on flat ground, so that will no longer be an issue.
Running video
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