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Overview:
Horizon opened up a real can of worms when it released the Losi Mini-T, leaving a number of manufacturers scrambling to come up with their own design for a small-scale, full-function, hobby-grade offroad R/C. Tamiya's TLT-1 came to market quickly, but had some flaws and didn't gain a large following. Venom Racing, the folks who bring us the famous little green failsafes & onboard monitoring devices now counter with the Mini Giant 4WD monster truck in 1/20th scale. Is this an ill-conceived move to get a piece of a hot market, or is the Mini Giant a real contender that demands respect? Read on and see what I think, then form your own conclusions!
What You Get:
The truck comes 99% assembled, as shown in the first picture below. All you need to do is hoist the antenna masts and put some decals on the blank body. Note that you'll need a small Phillips-head screwdriver to get the body off (the rear mounts use conventional clips, but the front is held down with two screws). The transmitter antenna screws into place as expected, but the receiver antenna on the truck threw me for a loop (bad pun). The wire is more than twice the length of the included antenna tube. I ended up running it straight up the tube and then spiralling it back down on the outside, and still had a couple inches left over which I looped around the base tightly, securing the end with a strip of electrical tape. I wish an antenna tube cap was included, because the bend of wire at the top of the mast is sharp and also quite exposed. Fortunately I had a few spare caps laying around, but I would recommend that anyone who doesn't at least wrap some electrical tape around the end a half-dozen times or so. If you don't protect this weak point, the wire would surely chaffe clear through at some point.
Preparing the body gave me a surprise as well, but this one was quite pleasant. The included decal sheet gives you not one, not two, but three different graphic styling options. This kit lets you go with a stars & stripes theme, a sparse metal slash with some flame splashes, or the full flame job I ended up chosing. The decals fit together quite well on the body, but it takes very careful alignment to get this to happen. Just take this step very slow & careful and you'lll be pleased with the results. Be sure to follow Venom's recommendation of installing the main graphics first, and windows & grille/headlight pieces last, to cover any slight mis-matches at corners & edges.
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After this, the last thing you need to do to get running is throw in some AA batteries. The transmitter takes the usual 8, and the truck takes 6. Here comes another one of those surprises. Venom introduces the patent-pending Non-Polarity Battery System (NPBS) with the Mini Giant, allowing you to throw your batteries in in any direction, any order. You can line up three positive terminals, then reverse one, reverse the next pair, etc., or if you're obsessive-compulsive you can stick to the old, careful, perfectly alternating pattern of battery insertion. The fact is, it doesn't matter. I hope this innovation catches on quickly and is licensed & adopted by companies in other industries. I wouldn't mind never having to worry about battery order & orientation again, in life, in anything.
Under the Skin:
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Let's take the shell off this little monster and see what it's made of. Starting from the top, there's a very compact, neat receiver/ESC unit. The unit seems a bit smaller than the one that comes with Losi's Mini-T, and has a much tighter, more finely-finished package and appearance. Better still, there's an industry-standard Futaba servo plug right on the top, so upgrading will be a breeze. Sure, the receiver is a 27mhz AM unit, but this is standard for RTR's and keeps costs down. Underneath, you'll find a standard, full-sized servo with plenty of mounting room. You could put in an Airtronics 94358 if you were so inclined! So far, so good. At the back, as already mentioned, is the 6-cell battery holder in a slide-in, slide-out tray that's closed with just one body clip.
The truck's combination transmission/transfer case is mounted just about as low as it possibly can be, at the very bottom of the chassis. I like low CG designs. The motor is perhaps a tad bit higher up than it would be in the most high-performance setup I can think of, but its offset position actually helps center the truck's weight, and also gives accessibility to the motor screws and pinion gear for tuning. It is worth noting right away that the motor screws are, from the factory, too loose. Before you run the truck even once, pop the gear cover off (just takes a fingernail and a little wiggling), set your gear mesh and tighten down the screws until they're very firmly hand-tight.
The gearbox is also quite nicely protected from dirt & dust. I wouldn't submerge it in water or anything, but I wouldn't be afraid to run it outdoors for an extended period of time without tearing it apart & cleaning it up. The center driveshafts are steel dogbones that mate deep into hard plastic outdrives. For an entry-level kit, this is truly excellent design work. The diffs themselves are fully-enclosed 4-spider gear units, and the axle housings are solid and stiff from end to end.
The truck's suspension is a variation on a proper 4-link theme, preserving standard lower links (though plastic) and merging the upper links into solid units. So, it's really a 3-link design, but with a ball joint on the axle at the upper mounting point, you get very good stability with plenty of possible articulation. Tolerances on the link ends are also very impressive for such a small vehicle, and the truck doesn't have an excessive amount of play when held by the axles and wiggled around. The shocks & springs, though, I'm afraid, leave quite a bit to be desired. Like on the Mini-T, these "shocks" are really just spring locators, plastic sleeves with rods that go up & down inside of them. They aren't "friction shocks," no, as there's very little friction involved. Basically, the truck rides on springs. Stiff springs. Very stiff springs. If I had my way, I'd take out 1/3rd to 1/2 of the stiffness of these things. The real problem is that they're overly preloaded, jamming the "shocks" out to full extension and then some even when the truck is on the ground and fully loaded. It's actually pretty easy to dribble the truck like a basketball.
Incidentally, I did see a couple of Mini Giants being driven around on the stunt track at RCX 2004, and while they were a bit bouncy, it wasn't distractingly obvious. I'll have to wait until I take the truck out for a drive, myself, before passing final judgement on the issue.
Finally, I want to make mention of the steering system. Mini Giant designers were faced with an impossible mission when constrained by the need to use a standard-sized servo in such a tiny overall package. Well, they made it work, against all odds. There's a single, wide A-shaped linkage that is activated by a sliding servo arm. It ain't perfect, but it does the job. There's considerable bump steer (compare the last two pictures below... both were taken with the steering servo centered), but at least it is negative bump steer (the wheel that hits the bump turns inward), so the truck shouldn't get too instable. Plus, with those stiff springs, I'm not sure the suspension will deflect enough for the steering skew to have any noticeable effect. Hmm.
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Testing:
Alright, enough with the analysis & hypothesizing. The only way to truly test a vehicle's merits is to run it. I charged up a set of store-bought Energizer 2100mah NiMH AA's, set the transmitter trims and went for a ride. I started off indoors just to get a feel for the truck. It didn't have wheelie-popping power from a standing start, but once the wheels started turning it had respectable pickup and kept pulling right up to the top speed. Turning on linoleum was razor-sharp. I did learn the hard way that the ESC has no forward/reverse delay, though, and it's not hard to do forward or reverse endos if you try multi-point turns & such. There was no issue with rolling in turns, though. The truck also felt quite at home on carpet, barely slowing at all.
Next I threw a comforter out on the floor and scrunched it up in the middle, creating a small crawling arena. The truck felt a bit overgeared for this application, but traction was good and I was able to get around pretty well. My biggest problem was with tipping over backwards when approaching very steep inclines. When I start modifying this baby, I'll definitely be looking to move some weight forward.
Next I took the truck out to the street to open it up a bit. Top speed was a bit lacking (RC Driver magazine clocked one at 10.5mph on generic alkaline AA's). However, the stiff springs really worked well on the road, as I had trouble whipping it into a turn with enough force to get it to tip over. Steering response was very good for a monster truck and I was very impressed with the handling overall.
Finally, I headed for a miniature dirt field & pile to try some real offroading. Much to my surprise and delight, the stiff suspension didn't cause the truck to jostle around as much as I expected. I think once the wheels are vented I'll be even more comfortable with the ride. At slow speeds on the dirt pile I got a fair amount of traction with the big, soft chevrons. It was fun! I still went past the point of no return on inclines a number of times, but I took getting to know the truck's limits as a challenge.
In all, I put 44 minutes on a single charge. Now that's an impressive figure no matter how stringent your standards are.
Conclusions:
The Mini Giant is not a sleek, high-performance track racing machine. The Mini Giant is not an extreme rock crawler. And, alas, the Mini Giant is not a touring car. All of that said, though, the Mini Giant does surprisingly well in each of the environments that it doesn't specialize in. I literally can't think of another R/C I've ever driven that handles such a wide variety of running conditions so well on the whole, especially right out of the box. The suspension is too stiff for hard-core crawling or running on very rough terrain, but that same stiffness is what allows the truck to handle well on flat land.
Alright, now it's time for me to come clean on something. Up to this point in this review, I've been really biting my tongue about something -- customizability. If you know anything about me and my history, you know that I'm a box-stock R/C's worst nightmare. It's quite common that I start modifying a vehicle either as soon as I get it out of its package or after I run one battery charge through it. Since I was reviewing the Mini Giant, I wanted to get and communicate impressions of the box stock vehicle, the same truck any potential buyer would be considering sinking some cash into. Well, the review is done, so now I can let the stops out.
This little truck is a customizer's dream. Take a look at some of the things user cbr74 has been doing to his truck in the Mini Giant Forum. Is that cool stuff or what? The thing is, everything about this truck lends itself to enhancement and modification. The chassis layout is very straightforward and there's a lot you can do to move weight around. The axle units are of a proven design and have lots of places to mount things, so you can switch to a 4-link setup if you want, or tear the driveline out completely and do a fully custom chassis. If you can think of something, it can probably be done with this truck, and without too much difficulty or expense at that.
Speaking of expenses, have I mentioned the price of this little bugger? I've seen street prices of around $150 US. This makes it competitive on store shelves with the hugely popular Mini-T, but adds in standard servo compatibility and upgradability, 4WD, and big tires!
In the final take, if I could only have one R/C and it had to be smaller than 1/10th scale, this would be it. The Mini Giant does not excel in any specific measure (other than pure value), but it is far beyond adequate in every way. With a little bit of initiative and ingenuity, I think this truck can be moved from very good to truly great.
Epilogue:
Over the coming couple of months, you're going to see me really go to town with this truck, taking it down a hopefully unexpected and original path of customization and modification. Want a sneak peak? Check out what I was able to get it to do with stock shocks & springs, with a 5-minute, $0.00 suite of little mods:
You're looking at a no-cost improvement of approx. 65% of vertical wheel deflection over stock, and no, I have not yet vented my wheels.
Oh yeah, baby, me & the Mini Giant, we've got big plans. Big plans.