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-   -   Anyone else tried newest IW Pro Boards? (http://mini-zracer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20176)

Taazz 2005.12.18 08:28 AM

Anyone else tried newest IW Pro Boards?
 
I bought two of the newest Iwavers from Tower a couple of weeks ago. They ran ok around the living room and at the school that I teach at but when I got them to the track they were half the speed of the Zs and Xmods. Solution, pop in a stock Z motor. For 5 to 10 minutes things were great. Then the car stopped dead. Range was now 2 inches.

I figured this was a fluke so I did the same thing the next day at the track. Same results. I can only figure that the stock board can not handle the "upgraded" stock motor. Called technical support and they were kind enough to send me two new boards. I insisted on the Pro boards since I didn't need to burn out stock boards and couldn't be comptetitive going back to the stock Iwaver motor.

Upon installing the board and wiring the steering servo just as it was on the stock board, I have no steering. I can get the servo to swing all the way one way or the other when using the centering pot, but there is no gradual adjustment to center the steering and the turning the wheel on the transmitter does nothing. I tried both boards that they sent me plus two boards that I had bought from Tower to use in my Xmods and all do exactly the same thing.

The techs are no help at all. I think they know less than I do. They have ordered a Pro board for themeselves so that they can try wiring it up and see if they can figure out anything.

In the meantime has anyone else tried and had any success with the newest Pro boards released by Iwaver. They are part number IW0209A and come in the new red and black Advance packaging.

Taazz 2005.12.19 09:46 AM

Man, 63 views and no replies. I must be the only sucker out there that thought
these boards would be a good to use in upgrading Xmods and other projects and was stupid enough to spend my hard earned money on them.

briankstan 2005.12.19 09:55 AM

from what I have been reading, I would say that the Iwavers are now below the xmods in quality. Looks like Iwaver really hurt themselves by changing the design, at least before you could fix the Iwaver quality problems with Quality Kyosho Parts.

Brian

bda52 2005.12.19 04:56 PM

Taazz, I think one of the biggest reasons for lack of responses is sales of the new IW in the US might not be very strong at the moment. There was the delay in the release. I believe it was supposed to be released in Aug but got pushed back until the end of Oct. At that point, shops like the one here were taking pre-orders for the Kyosho MA-010 AWD. For me, that is why I passed on the new IW02 and put the money I was going to use to buy it to the AWD. In the summer I will pick one of the IW02's up.

You may want to hunt down one of the "new" IW review threads and e-mail one of the owners for some help. They might just have missed your thread. IW's seemed to have come out on time in most other parts of the world on time and there have been both positive and negative reviews on the car.

leonen 2005.12.20 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by briankstan
from what I have been reading, I would say that the Iwavers are now below the xmods in quality. Looks like Iwaver really hurt themselves by changing the design, at least before you could fix the Iwaver quality problems with Quality Kyosho Parts.

Brian

Brian, Iwaver is still a lot more agile - not fragile - than the xmods. Haven't tried the evo yet, but driving an xMod and then a IW or a K, is like a whole new word.

I have through my hands a lot of the new IW02, and I haven't seen the so many problems people in this forum talks about.

I read the spanish forums and they also speak very well of the new design. I don't know if its that different lots went to the north and south of the world.....

We tried the car in the track and outside of the track..... on tarmats and on foam, on painted wood and on carpet, it always performs wonderfully.

I'll never say it's below an xMod.

EnTg888 2005.12.20 11:03 AM

Leonen or Taazz, does the brakes on your iwaver work? The manual says ABS works like the mini-z brakes(it's activated through the controller)... but for me it does nothing (the car has no brakes to speak of.) Is this a transmitter or another pcb problem?
I want to try a stock mini-z motor... but am afraid.
another quick question - what happened to the 3rd channel button? It's in the software... but there's no button for it.

briankstan 2005.12.20 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leonen
Brian, Iwaver is still a lot more agile - not fragile - than the xmods. Haven't tried the evo yet, but driving an xMod and then a IW or a K, is like a whole new word.

I have through my hands a lot of the new IW02, and I haven't seen the so many problems people in this forum talks about.

I read the spanish forums and they also speak very well of the new design. I don't know if its that different lots went to the north and south of the world.....

We tried the car in the track and outside of the track..... on tarmats and on foam, on painted wood and on carpet, it always performs wonderfully.

I'll never say it's below an xMod.

I have no personal experience with the Iwavers, I thougth about getting one, but after reading through all the review here, I decided against it. there were a few good, but mostly bad comments.

My Local LHS has a few RTR's in stock and they look good and are a good price. I just don't want to take the chance that I will end up with one that Will have lots of problems.

I have several of the xmods, and the generation 1's just sit on my shelf. I haven't driven them becasue the are just terrible.

I did pick up the (new) Xmod EVO, it is a great improvement over the gen 1 and does pretty well in keepig with the Mini-z. Now if they would make is so you could use a better controller with it, it would be that much better. The quality seems improved, but you still have the typical wear and tear stuff. Plus they are even less expensive then the new Iwavers.

Taazz 2005.12.21 09:49 AM

I followed some advice in another thread and swapped the servo motor wires around and got steering. I was also able to get one of the Pro boards to work in an 01 Z after playing around with the wire order.

Ran at least 4 packs of batteries through the Iwaver at the track last night. It is very smooth, handles well, and tracked very well down a 30 ft straight.

I was running mid 9's and 28 laps with my MM Enzo. The Iwaver could only muster a low 11 and 25 laps. I was running 10 degree Iwaver tires in the rear and the tires tha came with it in the front. The Enzo was running a made in Japan stock Z motor (has the curved slot in the end bell) and the Iwaver was running the made in China stock motor (straight slot in the end bell) Perhaps with grippier tires and a the faster made in Japan motor the Iwaver might break into the 10's, but I just don't see it keeping up with a 02 Z.

We can't even run the Evolution Xmods on the same track with the Mini Zs due to the radio interference from the Kyosho and Futaba Radios. The steering on the Xmod is choppy and jerky compared to a Z or even the Iwaver but is a vast improvement over the 1st generation Xmods.

Bottom line if you are going to race it, buy a Mini Z. Otherwise it would appear that Xmods and Iwavers need to be run in their own class to be competitive.

Oh and one of the transmittters stopped working, something which I have read about being a problem. On the other one which I hadn't used until yesterday, the blue light does not come on when you turn the radio on. The lack of quality saga continues.

SteveR1960 2005.12.21 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taazz
I followed some advice in another thread and swapped the servo motor wires around and got steering. I was also able to get one of the Pro boards to work in an 01 Z after playing around with the wire order.

Ran at least 4 packs of batteries through the Iwaver at the track last night. It is very smooth, handles well, and tracked very well down a 30 ft straight.

I was running mid 9's and 28 laps with my MM Enzo. The Iwaver could only muster a low 11 and 25 laps. I was running 10 degree Iwaver tires in the rear and the tires tha came with it in the front. The Enzo was running a made in Japan stock Z motor (has the curved slot in the end bell) and the Iwaver was running the made in China stock motor (straight slot in the end bell) Perhaps with grippier tires and a the faster made in Japan motor the Iwaver might break into the 10's, but I just don't see it keeping up with a 02 Z.

We can't even run the Evolution Xmods on the same track with the Mini Zs due to the radio interference from the Kyosho and Futaba Radios. The steering on the Xmod is choppy and jerky compared to a Z or even the Iwaver but is a vast improvement over the 1st generation Xmods.

Bottom line if you are going to race it, buy a Mini Z. Otherwise it would appear that Xmods and Iwavers need to be run in their own class to be competitive.

Oh and one of the transmittters stopped working, something which I have read about being a problem. On the other one which I hadn't used until yesterday, the blue light does not come on when you turn the radio on. The lack of quality saga continues.

Radio problems referring to the IWaver and not the XMOD?

Taazz 2005.12.21 09:54 PM

Yes, one of the Iwaver transmitters stopped working. Just can't find much good to say about Iwaver and their quality.

machine 2005.12.21 11:08 PM

I don't know, we have iwavers running with Mini-z and things are great. In one of our stock races we had an Iwaver winner. I really don't see the big deal on seperate classes for simliar cars (all being 1/28th) Hey we race Hpi micros with M18 all in the same class way should this be different?

I do agree that the Xmods are in a seperate class as the TX does interfere with everything else. But if that wasn't the case we'd be racing them in the same class as well.

Taazz 2005.12.21 11:16 PM

Machine,

First of all are these the newest Iwavers that are winning at your races or the Mini Z 02 knock offs. I am talking about the newest Iwaver that is completely redesigned so as to not resemble a Mini Z.

Second, the problem we have with the Xmods is not that they interfere with other radios, but that other radios interfere with them. Those running Perfex and Futaba radios do not experience any problems when the Xmods are on the track. The Xmods on the other hand become almost uncontrolable when the above mentioned radios are turned on anywhere close to them.

machine 2005.12.21 11:51 PM

No were not running the new Iwavers yet, not in stock yet. But the Iwavers, or knock offs as you say...of old are doing quite well out here.

No your right about the Xmods i have it backwards in the above post. Anyways if the Xmods didn't have this issue we'd be racing with them as well. If someone thinks they can do well with whatever car so long as it doesn't damage the track or other cars, race it. Different chassis choices means better competion all around. This time next year i'm sure we'll have a large mix of cars at each race. Once we get over the growing pains of a new chassis setup, who knows?

machine 2005.12.22 10:54 AM

Re: Servo problem
 
Have you tried swapping the wires on the POT yet? I've noticed that the Pro boards have the yellow and green wires soldered on the POT wrong. The yellow wire is soldered to 2 leads on the pot and the green wire to one.

Looking at the back on the POT with the leads on the top, solder the green wire to the left lead and the yellow wire to the center and right lead.

I replaced a few stock boards with some pro boards that had a fet upgrade to them and found this out. If you don't change the POT wires over you cannot turn the wheels at all, they remain stuck the the left or right. You can use the boards centering pot to bring the servo to center, but once you try turning the wheels it gets stuck again. This is the same problem you mentioned in your first post.

I did this and the cars steer great.

arch2b 2005.12.22 11:37 AM

the only class difference between all of the manufacturers should be awd and 2wd. otherwise, we run them all together, iwaver, xmods, mini-z's.... i don't care who makes your car at my track so long as it's in some sort of comparable class ie; awd/2wd


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