Redcat Racing Ascent 18 Apex
First, Redcat Racing has been around for 20 years or so. I remember when they first came into the RC scene. They were budget friendly products that didn’t immediately catch hobbyists’ attention. However, they have always been solid products. Fast forward to today. They’re still excellent priced products, offering above average value, and now have a prominent place in the hobby grade market. They’ve proven themselves over the years. I bought the Ascent 1/18 scale Apex. I’ve been using it for some weeks. I have to say, this truck is nothing short of amazing! It is a small truck for sure, compared to other scales that I enjoy. Despite its size, this truck is capable enough to drive routes and rocks above its scale. It climbs rocks and anything in its path like a spider! Seriously, it is crazy how well it can climb. It comes all set up to take out of the box and run. I think I only needed 4 AA batteries for the transmitter. It comes with a small 3S battery that last for about 20-30 minutes of run time, depending on terrain. It has overdrive axle gearing, meaning the front tires spin faster than the rear tires. This causes the truck to pull harder than matching gears, which is a huge plus for climbing, and it’s already equipped. The turn radius is pretty extreme, which is great for climbing and making tighter turns and corners while climbing and driving. Add to that, the space from the ground to the axles is also plenty. This is ground clearance. The more space, the fewer snags on obstacles in its path. The tires are fantastic right from the box! They’re pretty soft and they are fastened with split wheels that bolt together at the tire bead, instead of being glued to the wheel. This allows the tires to be replaced and swapped easily. I did buy Injora aluminum and brass wheels for it. They’re maybe $25 for the set and look sweet on this truck! They also provide low mounted weight that increases its ability to climb even better. There’s some folks who aren’t supportive of rotating weight vs low, stationary, unsprung weight, but honestly, I’ve had no issues with it. You could still use the stock rims and add weight by gluing BBs into the foam, inside the tire, equally spaced. This will do the exact same thing as my brass ring wheels, as it will add useful weight. There are some brass pieces that come installed on the truck, which isn’t stock on the regular Ascent 18 vehicles. The body comes with only the cab installed. The bed comes in a bag and can be drilled and installed by the owner. It’s easy to do. Just drill a small pilot hole, and continue to increase the drill bit size, until the holes are large enough for the bed mounts. If you try to just drill the right size hole without starting small, it could go off center, leave raggedy edges around the hole, or tear a bit of the plastic. Take the extra time and do it the right way. If you run it cab only, it’ll still look cool, and fasten with a single long retaining pin. If you add the bed, it’ll have a pinch retainer at the rear of the bed. It’s a pretty slick setup, which I really like! The front hooks onto two frame mounts, and it’s plenty secure. The stock transmitter is pretty decent for a Ready to Run vehicle. There’s no reason for a beginner to feel the need to replace it immediately. A hobbyist would probably change the receiver to use with a higher end transmitter, because they prefer their own transmitter, and they provide more custom tailored capabilities for control and fine tuning. The red paint looks really nice in the sunlight. This Ready to Run setup is heads and shoulders above many other setups. There’s maybe four or five that are comparable, on the market at this time. Would I buy this for a child? It’s $250. It’s plenty sturdy to handle roll over situations, but not sturdy enough to handle an aggressive five year old, without supervision. I had two sons and have seen the carnage boys can bring to the table. However, if you have a young person, who’s able to manage themselves well, and want an awesome truck that is competitive out of the box, I’d absolutely recommend this truck. I recommend it for seasoned adults, who want to get into crawlers. Don’t let its tiny size fool you. It’s completely capable to run some aggressive terrain. The truck can move so slowly that you can make a pot of coffee and return, and it’s only escaped a matter of inches. The truck does this smoothly! It’s not cogging or lurching to move. It’s just smoothly rolling along. It’s also notably quiet, compared to many vehicles. With 3S power, it’s got plenty of punch to handle difficult obstacles. You could use this as a trail truck as well, even though it’s small. It runs faster than a normal walking pace. I don’t power walk, but I suspect, it would be annoying if you out walk it and have to continually wait for the truck to catch up to you. It comes with a USB charger. With the right amperage plug, you’ll get a faster fuller charge. It’ll charge with a lower amperage plug, but I’m not convinced the charging is equally effective as higher amperage. It charges using the balance lead, with the supplied charger. It monitors the internal cell resistance and voltage, known as Balance Charging. This is important because it minimizes and risk to the user and battery m it increases battery life, and it gets you the maximum charge for the battery. I use a SkyRc D 200 charger for my batteries, instead of the USB charger. I trust my charger, and can better monitor what’s happening with the batteries I’m charging. I can see the internal resistance and know when a battery is on its last leg or becomes a risk to continue using it dispose of. If you do dispose of any LiPo battery, do it properly! They can catch fire, and they aren’t treated like regular trash. Do it the right way, please. I’m not paid by Redcat or Amazon to review any product. I have no dog in that fight. I’m just a guy, who is super impressed with this particular truck, and wanted to provide as much information about that I know I was looking for, before buying it. There’s plenty of videos on YouTube, so you’ll be able to see what this truck can do. As I mentioned there’s at least four other vehicles directly comparable to this on the market. This one outshined them for me, just because of what you get, straight from the box, WITHOUT NEEDING to spend any money upfront to get what this one already has. I’ve attached photos. You can see the size compared to 1/10 scale Arrma Typhon, and a pair of Team Associated 1/14 scale Reflex 14 MT and T models. I also recommend each of those for going faster or just bashing in general. Reflex 14 is a really nice vehicle, but the plastic gears and cheaper bearings held them down. Likewise, the steering servo sucks and should be immediately replaced with a Batan D135F METAL gear servo, I di replace the plastic spur gear, ring and pinions and all of the bearings in the Reflex 14T, which now has a buggy body, because it looks cool. I also replaced the ESC with a regular PROGRAMMABLE Hobbywing ESC to allow additional programming for my use, plus you can use 3S batteries with the new ESC, and the car will go every bit of 50mph. I reduced the shock oil weight to 20w oil, which is perfect for the car. You can clean each differential out, removing the stock grease, and fill them with 5k front differential, 7k center differential, and 3k rear differential oil. Clean the outside of the differential housing with alcohol and a rag thoroughly, and then use clear nail polish and paint around the seam of the differential. It’ll seal it really well and can be easily removed for maintenance or trying different oil weights for your particular requirements. To get the Reflex 14T to where mine is, you’ll be spending money after the purchase. It’s pricey, but it’s an excellent platform and a nice sized vehicle. The center differential is what makes this car a real pleasure to drive. It handles far better than many cars I’ve used. The Reflex 14 stock without batteries and charger was right around $180. The changes I made are not required, except for the servo. Change it. Even though Team Associated replaced it quickly, they sent another plastic geared servo. Batan eliminated any concerns with servo issues. The Reflex 14 MT(monster truck) comes with metal ring and pinions. I still replaced the servo in that one too, with the Batan servo. While not programmable like my other one, it does great on 2S batteries. It cannot run 3S without changing the ESC. It’s a competent basher, and solidly built. You can reduce the speed through Dual Rate, which would make it useable for young people to run. I think it was right around $225? I guess I did three reviews in one, plus a bit about the SkyRc D200 charger, which is a really decent charger for the money. They make excellent products for RC stuff. You’ll probably want a multi connector for the batteries, and you’ll want two of them. It comes with no pigtails for the batteries to charger. The pigtails allow several different types of battery connectors to be plugged into it and connected to the charger to be charged. While I’m thinking about batteries, if you buy Spektrum batteries, which are good batteries, just be aware, that if you buy their G2 style batteries, you’ll be locked in on buying their Spektrum Smart Charger. I’ve not found a way around this because of the Data/Balance gray wire that they use. It cannot be charged with a normal balance charger. I mentioned this because many people, including myself, do not know this before hand, and buy batteries they can’t charge on equipment we already have. It’s a proprietary product, so plan for that. On the upside, their Smart Charger can charge most other batteries as well. It’s got external balance ports, that allow other types of batteries to be balanced charged, but it won’t work with the battery for my Ascent Apex. I hope this helps someone who shares similar questions that I had. Read more
