For my RCSkool here in Istanbul, Turkey we decided to go with the Serpent RTR buggies this year and so I thought I should order one to test and show my students.
Unboxing:
When the package arrived I really did not know what to expect as the car is a great price compared to building a kit car and putting electrics etc in it. I was surprised to see amazing value for money when I opened the box. There are no extras in the box except the manuals which obviously keeps the price down.
I was a bit disappointed not to see any extra stickers but only when I think the way a young student thinks.
OK so I opened the box and cut the cable ties to take a closer look at the car, the car is very solid and great quality compared to others I have seen on the market.
Issue 1:
Not a big issue but the body fit is too tight and so I trimmed the rear of the body (see photo) and also reamed the body pin holes and antenna holes a bit more, once this was done it was an easy process to remove and re fit the body.
So on with the inspection:
I was amazed to see non captured pivot balls and ball ends, this was something of a surprise but could be a good thing for the students, as it makes adjustments and stripping the car down an easier process.
inside the car was a battery cable converter, the ESC comes with a Deans end so Serpent has supplied an extension/converter Deans to Bullet ends so it can be used with any of the two connectors. This was nice for me in that our school chargers have deans connectors made ready. It could cause a problem with students connecting the battery up reversed but I will tell them to keep the battery converter connected to the battery at all times.
You can run shorty or full size batteries in the car due to lots of foam packing that can be used to space either battery in the positions you may need.
Issue 2:
Again not a big issue but we run our cars on carpet so having the gear diff is a huge plus point but we may need to run slippers to calm the car down as when I tested it can wheelie very easily if you do not control carefully due to the grip levels of the carpet.
Track Test:
we had a race indoors the same weekend so I thought this would be a great opportunity to crash test and test performance of the car using our regular drivers.. I put the car on the track and ran for about 5 minutes with amazing results, considering the car has dirt tyres and stock setup it was very very good on the track, it handled nicely and drove very well, I was pleased especially knowing my students at RCSkool will be using the car this year.
I then gave the car to another driver (no names) to crash test it on the track and drive against other drivers who had race kitted cars. I was surprised to see that when he hit a piece of the wood in the track full on that nothing broke on the car at all, watch the video and see the particular crash I am talking about. the performance again stock out of the box with dirt tyres against other cars was great considering.
After the long test I checked the car over and found the steering system had come a bit loose so I stripped and used some loctite on the screws which fixed the car for the future.
Transmitter: Dragon-Rc radio DTS-2, 3-Ch 2.4G Radio Control System
It had a good feel to it and response was good, it has so many adjustments you can make that it may be too many for the beginner (20 in total), I would say maybe Serpent could make 2 menus on the radio one for basic and the other for advanced as then the average user would find it easier to adjust it.
ESC Dragon-RC – Speedo DX-10 WP45:
Can be run sensored or sensorless, it has a lot of adjustments that can be made and you can also buy a fan and a program card from Dragon-RC for the speedo separately.
Programmable items:
Cut-off Voltage
Running Mode
Motor timing
Initial Acceleration
Throttle Percent
Throttle Limit
Percentage Braking
Percentage Drag Brake
Motor Rotation
Neutral Range
A great ESC and feels very nice, and performed well with no issues.
Motor DragonRC motor 9T-3000 kv:
A sensorless motor with great on track performance, I found it to be very fast and smooth on the track.
Steering Servo Dragon-RC digital servo:
With a speed of 0.13s and 6.5 kg and metal gears it performed well, I think I need to change some settings on the radio for the steering but I wanted out of the box testing.
Overall impressions:
I am 100% sure that if anybody wanted a recommendation for a RTR 1/10th buggy I would tell them to buy this car without any hesitations at all, quality is great, car is great out of the box.
“GREAT JOB SERPENT”
Video of unboxing and track test:
Photo Gallery:
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