Sanwa M11 Radio Control Set

09 February 2007

I finally got my hands on my first high-end racing transmitter - the Sanwa M11.
My set came with an RX-311 receiver, two ERG-RZ high speed analog servos, and a bunch of other goodies.
I had to decide between this, the Futaba 3PK and the KO Propo Helios, but I went with Sanwa since my backup TX is my old Sanwa MX-3.

The front of the transmitter. It's actually a "2 or 4 channel" transmitter.
It doesn't give you full control of the 3rd or 4th channels, but allows channel mixing to make use of them.
However, since the included receiver is a 3 channel unit, this makes the whole set effectively a "2 or 3 channel" system with 3rd channel only available through channel mixing. Sucky!
Later M-11 sets will come with Sanwa's new 4 channel receiver the RX-411.

Some of the goodies that come with the set - a snap-on screen protector (which you can't really see through because it's an opaque smoke colour), a setting cable, a transmitter 1100mAh 8-cell transmitter battery, a 600mAh 5-cell receiver battery and a wall-plug charger for both. The setting cable allows you to plug the transmitter directly to the receiver to set your car up without sending out radio signals - very useful in the pit (note: to do this, you turn on the screen but not the actual transmitter power switch). The wall-plug charger works great for the receiver unit but I ran into some trouble charging the transmitter battery with it. You're supposed to charge it through the transmitter and there is a safety feature (an internal switch) that doesn't allow the transmitter to be turned on while the charger is plugged into it.

After charging it a few times this way, the switch got stuck and I couldn't turn the transmitter on! I plugged it in and out a few more times and when I got it to turn back on, I never used that battery nor charger anymore. In the end, I used the AA-battery tray from the old MX-3 and put in some rechargeable cells (shown here) which I charge externally. I've never had any problem since then, but it's still very disappointing that the included components worked so poorly together.

The menus are very intuitive to use and the screen is the biggest in the history of RC transmitters.
Helpfully, the backlight can be switched between white and tacky blue.

Some hotkey buttons (forgot the actual term. The manual is too thick to re-read) are spread out all around the transmitter. You can set these to bring up the menus that you use most often. The little hole near the wheel is for adjusting the spring tension of the steering.

Other features:
Brake adjustments
Lap timers of all sorts
Two types of exponential settings

Pros: Very nice screen, feels great in my hands, trims in all the right places.
Cons: Heavier than competitors, lacks proper 3rd channel, crappy battery charging method, AA-battery tray not included, quite a big receiver.

My rating: 3 out of 5.