WPL C24 Intro, Mods and Upgrades

[ograymic]

Hello everyone and welcome to my review and documentation of the WPL C24 1:16 scale crawler. I brought this a couple of days ago and although its my first 4x4 kit, and i dont really have anything to compaire it to, it has blown me away with how capable it is given its price. 

I brought mine for £35 from Amazon but if you are willing to wait you can get the kit for as little as £24 from Bangood direct from China. Bangood also sell a large selection of upgrade and spare parts including a full metal version, metal upgrade packs for various parts, 2 speed gear and transfire box and softer tyres,

 

The  Build

The C24 comes as a kit or ready to run. I went for the kit as i enjoy putting these sorts of things together and because the RTR version uses harder tyres. 

 

When you open the box you know right off the bat that its a cheap model, the parts come in plastic bags and theres a single leaflet with basic instructions. The screws are mixxed together in one bag and i recomend sorting them out before starting the build proper. The instructions don't seem to follow in much of an order with parts being made then not shown in the next panel. You also have to interpolate some steps but its fine if you keep your witts about you. 

Alot of the plastic parts came still mounted to their sprews so a good set of flush cutters or sharp knife is required to remove the excess plastic, You will also need a soldering iron as the motor has no wires attached. Other then those, the only other tool you will need is a philips head screwdriver, all parts are either clipped or screwed in place. 

Asembly can be tricky at some points, you will need to hold parts together and drive a screw in at the same time and the screws sometimes dont find their holes easily as the holes are partialy obscured.

All of the screws are self tapping so be carefull not to over tighten any of them and make sure they are straight as you drive them in. 

The servo housing looks to be used on several other models as it has markings and extra mounting points that are never used. The servo just clips in place and is held fairly well ... but not well enough. (see modifications section).

 

 

First Impressions

I was very impressed by how soft the stock tyres are... well most of them anyway, one was noticably harder then the rest. they are soft enough to deform slightly with just the weight of the model and a small lipo. The suspension is abit wobbly but also soft enouh to allow the full travel under the models own weight and when at the top of its travel the tyres are so close to the bodywork it looks like they are rubbing but i havnt had any noticable issues with it. 

 

 

First drive

Here is a video with some highlights of the C24s first proper offroad drive. Its not all flat out accross grass, from 30 seconds in it gets better, honist!

 

 

Second? Impressions

That drive impressed me alot. In my mind its very capable for a £24 kit and considring i have nothing else to compare it to, its the best 4x4 RC car i have ever used! 

 

Joking aside, The gear ratio seems almost ideal, maybe a tad fast but its close enough, it can spin all 4 wheels in these damp conditions with no issues. The tyres could be softer to allow better grip and that is an upgrade i have already orderd.

Battery life is excelent, its only got a small compartment to store batteries and the only ones i had  that fit were 180mah 2S Lipos... yes i know 180mAh is nothing but it lasted a good 20 to 30min on a single charge. 

 

It wasnt all plain sailing though, the steering servo that was clipped into its housing.... yes it came loose and i couldnt fix it in the field so it loost full range of steering mid way through the drive which leads nicely onto the next section....

 

Modifications

The first upgrade as you can imagine should be to secure the steering servo, I have a 3d printer so i fired up fusion 360 and designed a bracket that uses some of the spare screw holes near the servo.

30 minutes and 2 long (too long) self tapping screws  later and that servo isnt going anywhere. 

 

 

Upgrades

There are more upgrades avalible on Bangood for this kit then i can list so im just goign to talk about ones that i am interested in. 

 

Tyres

First of all are the supersoft tryes, They dont specify directly but the comments reveal they are even softer then the stock tyres on the kits and are so soft they will jsut come off the rims off not glued. This is the first upgrade i have ordered so i will report back on a few weeks when they arrive if that is so.  

Price: £4.61 for all four on 26/10/2020

 

Sound and Light

WPL V3 Gas Version Upgraded Sound System All-in-one Electronics is the title form the product page. it has headers for lights including indicators, headlights , tail lights,  a speaker for sounds (gas and diesel versions avalible) a built in ESC and several servo outputs for the 2 speed gearbox, winches etc. (see product page).  This is the other upgrade i have already ordered as well as LEDs, resistors and other gubbins to make the full set of lighting. Again i will update on how that it when it arrives. 

 

Metal Parts and bearings

You can replace every part with metal on this kit, and they are avalible quiet cheap. This somthing i will do over time as parts brake, the bonus is they offten come with ball bearings rather then bushings liek the defualt kit so it should improve with each upgrade. 

 

Tow bar

This one isnt avalible to buy im afrade but somthing i wanted to add non the less, I took the rear chassis cross memeber and modeled the mounting points for the chassis and pickup bed, i then extended it to the back of the bed and down to make a mounting point for a tow bar. I also designed the ball socket that screws into the mount. 

 

 

I think it realy looks the part and i cant wait to make a trailer for it to pull. 

 

This is all i have done so far, I will update as and when.

Feel free to  add your own advice and upgrades below if you have this or the other 1:16 models by WPL. 

Finaly, thanks for takign the time to read, I hope this helps and if you have any feedback for me dont hesitate to contact me. 

 

 

[Andy-Roo]

That’s a great looking rig with some decent flex 👍

[ghazghul]

I have one of these built as a roller.  Bought it as a kit as soon as I got the C14 RTR.  Spent all my time on the C14 so far, but the C24 is due some attention.  I really like that they made the front grill different and that you can remove the sleeper and it has a proper bed.

 

Looks like they have a better gearbox / motor combo with the kit now now and black chassis rails!

 

Loving the towbar.  plans for a trailer?

[ograymic]

13 hours ago, ghazghul said:

I have one of these built as a roller.  Bought it as a kit as soon as I got the C14 RTR.  Spent all my time on the C14 so far, but the C24 is due some attention.  I really like that they made the front grill different and that you can remove the sleeper and it has a proper bed.

 

Looks like they have a better gearbox / motor combo with the kit now now and black chassis rails!

 

Loving the towbar.  plans for a trailer?

 

Yes i am planning on making a trailer though still not sure what to go for, Somthing like a double axle fold out caping trailer sounds quiet apealing to me atm. Designing  and making that will have to wait untill i get the new tyres though. 

I have printed a couple of extra parts i found on Thingyverse to add to the looks. Not designed by me  but i didnt save the pages for them so cant thank/credit the authers unfortunatly.  The top shows a potential placment for a winch motor. 

 

[Gil771]

How does the ESC and motor hold up with the LI-Po? 

[Crawler2021]

Would you be willing to share the 3D printing files for the trailer hitch with me by chance? I love that

[Rios]

Hi,

It was great reading your post.

IMHO, WPL cars are great value for the money ( even after the recent price increases...😩).

I have assembled a B36KM 6x6, and while building and driving  it I learned a lot of useful skills for my more recent rc cars (my post about the B36:  WPL-B36KM).

For the next upgrade for your car I would recommend the 2-speed transmission with the 370 motor.  Low gear enables you to have a low crawling speed which adds a lot of realism to the car, as well as a lot of control for climbing over obstacles. It also adds weight that helps on said realism and climbing.

Enjoy your upgrades and let us know the news about them.

 

[voorsk]

I just bought the kit version of the WPL C24-1, so I thought I'd resurrect this thread.  🙂

 

I bought it with the excuse that I needed a 1/16 crawler to accompany my son's WPL B36 (a chunky 6-wheeled army thing), and I do so hate mixing scales.  I'm also slightly addicted to buying RC cars and then hardly ever driving them.  🙄

 

So, it's built, but I'd rather not dismantle it for photos, as all the screws are self-tapping into plastic, and I don't want to weaken the threads.

 

 

The differences between this and the standard C24 above are the wheels and softer tyres (from a C44), and the grille and bumper (from a C14).  There's no canopy for the back, but the bed has been painted black on the inside.

 

 

It has a flip-up box behind the cab that reveals the space for the battery.  That's the cheapo ESC you can see inside it, and there's enough space left for a 1000mah LiPo.  The ESC was from a robot I built a few years ago, but it seems to be a popular choice for these cars.  I'm not sure if something better would leave enough space for the battery - I think it'd be too chunky.

 

 

Having pinched the ESC from a different project, it was missing almost all it's wires, so I had to solder them back on.  I maaaay have made the RX wire a bit too long, so there's some spaghetti underneath.  There's not much in the way of metal in this kit, but that was handy, as there were some places where I had to chop off some plastic.  The supplied servo wouldn't fit without cutting off a rod of plastic, for example, and there were some pointless bits of plastic limiting the steering.

 

 

I'm really not sure about the steering setup.  It's at the whim of the suspension, with it turning if the suspension compresses.  I had to modify the suspension, as the springs kept on being pushed over the rods, instead of pushing on them.  I chopped the springs in half (may have been overkill), and put a hammer bead between the spring and the rod to make sure they couldn't bind together. As a result, it sits lower.  Maybe a bit too low at the back, but I still have two unchopped springs and lots of hammer beads to make adjustments with.  🙂

 

 

The interior is really detailed, but may have been designed with amputees in mind, as there's no room for silly things like legs.

 

So.. plans..  I have some! 😀

I've got a metal upgrade kit on it's way from WPL, and a rear canopy.  I'm not sure if I'll use the canopy or not, but it's nice to have the option.  It would easily hide a bigger ESC and battery, which would be nice.

I also ordered some MN90 tyres, as apparently they're very good for doing a wide-wheel mod, and a metal geared servo. 

I'm not sure you can tell from the photos, but one of the wheels was damaged, and is barely holding the tyre on.  The good thing about these C24s is that they're very popular, and lots of people have created their own mods, so there are a few 3D printable wheel options to choose from. 

 

Before all that, I'm going to paint it! No idea what colour..  just not white.  I might take more photos while it's apart. 

Edited June 13, 2022 by voorsk