Radio Shack's ZipZaps Micro RC Cars - Racing and Collecting on a "Micro" Scale
Written: Nov 23 '02 (Updated Nov 24 '02)
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Pros: Highly customizable for the tweaker/enthusiast, easy to use, inexpensive
Cons: Batteries not included
The Bottom Line: Radio controlled racing moves to a smaller scale with these fun, reliable, easy to use customizable vehicles from Radio Shack.
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| nc10's Full Review: ZipZaps Micro RC???Steel Blue Chrysler PT Cruiser ... |
Radio Shack's ZipZaps Micro RC Race Cars are "micro sized", highly customizable, radio controlled race cars, powered with rechargeable NiCaD batteries. Available since late September, Radio Shack now offers a complete line of these cars and accessories, which are about the size of Matchbox or HotWheels cars from 20 or 30 years ago. These small cars, 2 1/2" long and less than 1" high, are the latest fad making its way from Asia and Japan to the United States, and are expected to be one of the "hot" items this year, if initial sales are any indication. Radio Shack, attacks your wallet from two sides with these RC race cars, first by providing a toy thats convenient, fun and easy to use, and secondly, by providing reasonably priced motors, bodies, gear sets, suspensions, and other accessories to customize and upgrade your car, enough to satisfy any collector or tweaker's dreams. ZipZaps are recommended for those 8 years or older. I suspect younger children would enjoy operating the cars, but they'd likely find changing and keeping track of accessories challenging.
Radio Shack sells these RC cars as a starter kit, and in our case I purchased the "Steel Blue PT Cruiser Starter Kit" as a gift for my son. In the kit was a controller/charger w/wriststrap, 4 tires and 4 hubcaps, the PT Cruiser body and chassis, motor, gear, small screwdriver, collector's card, and 11" X 17" owner's manual. Each car can operate only on either the 27 or 49 mhz frequency, so if you are buying two of these, make sure they are on different frequencies if you want to race.
Putting the Car Together the First Time
Putting the cars together is easier than you might think for something with parts this small, especially if you follow the excellent instructions and pictures in the included manual. The main steps are:
- Install two AAA batteries (not included) in the controller. The controller is the size of a deck of cards, and batteries are easy to install, by sliding a cover off the back of the controller, as if it were a transistor radio.
- Put the car together by
------(1) Sliding the hubcaps, wheels and tires on the front axle. Surprising, once in place, the wheels and tires fit well and stay put and seem secure. Tires are easy to change, if you want to try a different style.
------(2) Installing the motor, drive gear and rear axle in the chassis (which includes the rechargeable battery) and securing it with a clip and set screw. This is the only step that requires you to use the included screwdriver. The motors used in these micro racers are actually the same motors that drive cell phone and pager vibrators, and if you search on the internet, you can find a one or two pages describing how to adapt high powered pager vibrator motors to your micro racer. The small screwdriver conveniently slides into a slot in the controller housing, giving you a reasonable chance of not losing it.
------(3) Fitting the body onto the chassis. The body snaps into place firmly, and will not fall off during racing or "accidents". A 2" long coated wire extends from the chassis, through the car body, and serves as the antenna to receive signals from the controller.
- Charge the car. The controller includes a set of charging contacts and mounting clip on top. To charge your car, you turn on the controller, and a green LED turns on. Connecting the car to the mounting clip locks the car into place on top of the controller, which starts the charging process. The green LED turns red, and for 45-55 seconds, the battery in the car is charged. The LED then turns green again, after which you can release the car by pushing a button on the controller, and then have enough power to run the micro car for 3-5 minutes.
Using the ZipZaps RC Car
Once the car is charged, it should be set in on a smooth surface (linoleum, wood floors, tabletops,etc) and is ready to go. Extend the 8" collapsable antenna on the controller, and push the forward/reverse button, and you're off. The controller offers only two "rocker buttons" for control, left/right for steering, and forward/reverse for movement. Only one speed is available. Range of the controller is at least 30 feet, at least inside my home, good if you want to control you car from a distance. However, as the US only allows two frequencies for radio controlled toys, 27 and 49 mhz, this range can hinder operation of more than two cars at a time, as cars on the same frequency would need to be 40 or 50 feet apart. The learning curve on ZipZaps is pretty short, and I and my teenage children found the controls intuitive and easy to get used to with only a few minutes of use. On smooth surfaces, its pretty easy to keep the car running on a straight path, or to turn left or right to avoid obstacles. If the car has a tendency to pull left or right, there is an adjustment on the bottom of the chassis to "align" the wheels to ensure the car runs straight.
The standard ZipZap starter kit includes a 16000 rpm (performance) motor, 12:1 gearing (favors control over performance), and "factory" tires and suspension. If you visit the ZipZaps website (www.zipzaps.com), and plug these parts into the online gear ratio calculator, you'll learn that this motor/gear combination equates to a "scale speed" of 140 mph, and an actual speed of 192 feet/minute, which is about 2.2 miles/hour. 2.2 miles/hour sounds slow, and in the world of micro race cars, this is on the slow side. But most new users will find this speed to be a good balance between control and speed, allowing you to get from one end of a large 30 foot room to the other in about 10 seconds. This allows you some time to maneuver around obstacles, but you have to be pretty quick. Although the smooth surfaces are recommended, these micro cars handle the transistions from wood floors to linoleum well, and even will run on smooth carpets (throw down rugs for example), although carpets cause the speed to drop a lot.
Performance Upgrades
Radio Shack offers several upgrades and enhancements for the ZipZaps. Some of the more interesting ones include:
- A "Performance Booster" kit which sells for $8.00, that includes a 10,000 rpm "precision control" motor, the 21,500 rpm "turbo" motor, three different gear sets, and three suspension bars. With this kit, you can increase or decrease the top speed of your car from a "scale speed of 87mph (120 feet/minute actual) to 274 mph (376 feet/minute actual), allowing enthusiasts to "tune" their car to best fit any race course, emphasizing either speed or control.
- "The Fast and the Furious" Street Tuner Upgrade Kit which sells for $13.00, and also includes the "turbo" motor and an even faster "NOS/Nitrous" motor which increases the top scale speed to 300 mph. This kit also includes different tires, hubcaps, a Mazda RX7 Body, a Mitsubishi Eclipse Body, airfoils, pinstripes, and a few other items to help owners best customize and enhance both performance and appearance.
- Cleaning tools, other car bodies (like the Ford Mustang and PT Cruiser), and barriers and small "pylons" to for setting up race courses. These items run from $2.00 to $10.00.
- A SpongeBob Squarepants and WildThornberry's upgrade kit ($8.00-$13.00 each), which include several different car bodies and accessories fitting in with the themes of these TV shows.
In addition to Radio Shack upgrades, there are a few aftermarket upgrades for these cars such as the NiMH rechargeable battery upgrade, to allow longer run times from one charge, offered at http://www.minircmod.com/. Some of these aftermarket upgrades involve risk, as you must take the car chassis apart, or make modifications to the car.
In Conclusion
Radio Shack's ZipZap's Micro RC racers look to be one of the more popular toys for the 2002 holiday season, being reasonably priced ($20 for the starter kit), widely available, offering a lot of fun for younger children, and the tweaking/upgrade options which might interest older collectors and RC enthusiasts. (And if you're not into racing, we've found that our young cats love to chase these cars around the house). The cars are fairly easy to put together (with really small parts, though), easy to run and control, well built, and inexpensive to operate (we're still on the first set of batteries after one month). Several other brands of Micro RC racers are also available, though not as widely distributed, at websites like http://www.microsizers.com/, http://www.minircmod.com/, and http://www.tabletopracers.com.
Manufacturer's Website:
http://www.zipzaps.com/
http://www.radioshack.com/
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 20
Type of Toy: Radio Control
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older
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