TW-715 Project
Page 1: Unboxing
It wasn't until I received the box that I became convinced this model
isn't actually a Capo product. It says nothing about Capo anywhere
on the package. I don't know whether "TWolf" is a company or the name
of the model. The box is plain black without any particular
ornamentation, but it becomes a lot more impressive once you open it
up. Inside I found a top layer of foam sheet to protect the parts
as shown on the right.
The presentation of the parts in this package is truly incredible.
Each layer of the package is made from dense foam covered in felt with a
snug recess carved out for each part. Every part in these two
layers is metal. I can't tell if the body parts are painted or
not. I suspect the green color is actually achieved through the
anodization process of the aluminum. The top layer includes the
hood, doors, tail gate, and other green aluminum parts. Everything
seems to be machined from billet. The bottom layer includes the
assembled axles as well as the bumpers, roof, and body cage. Even
the roof is thick machined aluminum despite the fact that the real life
truck appears to have a soft top.
The bottom layer of the package includes a couple of internal boxes
containing miscellaneous metal and plastic parts, the wheels and tires,
the battery box, and a plastic case containing all the screws and
hardware. The "L01" box inside the "Mold Parts" box contains the
LCD screens and light controller. At this point I had no idea what
to expect from any of those electronics because there was absolutely no
information about them in the advertising for this model.
There is no point in me spending time knolling out all the contents of
the internal boxes when Kai Oz has done it all for me. The
following photos come straight from his website. This first pair
of images shows the 28 bags which are contained within the "Metal Parts"
box. Most of these aluminum machined parts are used for the
engine and transmission assembly, but some other are part of the
frame. F02 contains the suspension links and F03 the drive
shafts. There is so much good stuff here.
Almost everything in the TW-715 is metal, but here in the "Mold Parts"
box are the other parts in 13 bags, only some of which are
plastic. As previously discussed, L01 was the electronics
box. L02 is stickers and double sided tape, L03 is photo etched
metal parts, L04 is the windshield, L05 is carbon fiber parts, L12
is the springs, and L13 is the shocks. L06, L07, and L11 is injection
molded parts in a translucent black color, mostly for the
interior. L10 contains the seats. L09 is the transparent
acrylic parts for the lights, and finally L08 is the fenders and bumper
covers.
The screws (left) are contained in bags labelled S01-S27 and S33 and
range from M1.4 to M3. As far as I can tell the screws are almost
all stainless (a judgement I made based on the fact that they are not
ferromagnetic, probably a 300 series austenitic alloy). Bags N28-N30 are nuts, and B01-B03 are
bearings. Numbers 31 and 32 are conspicuously absent, but this
does not appear to be an error since I wasn't missing anything.
The bags shown on the right are miscellaneous parts including cable
shields, springs, pins, clips, and a 1.3mm hex driver. The bag of
plastic rod ends is never used.
Finding the instruction manual was a real challenge. The video
instructions are contained on a tiny USB thumb drive shown above and
hidden carefully in the screw box. There are four primary assembly
videos along with a handful of files about the electronics which are
only in Chinese. If you don't speak Mandarin (or maybe Cantonese),
you're on your own figuring out the electronics.
©2022 Eric Albrecht
