What is going on with this brand new CTW?

Hello everyone.
Last week I ordered a CTW XMAX CQB from Evike.com. Not my retailer of choice, but they were the only ones stocking CTWs at the time. I got the gun earlier this week and have been able to put about 6 rounds through it so far. I just typed up an RMA request form and thought I'd share it with you all, in case anyone else has this problem or knows of any causes or solutions.

Items in question:
The CTW

The Charger
(they sent me the orange one)

The Battery


Detailed Reasons for Return:
CTW: Upon receiving the gun, I plugged in the 11.1V lipo, inserted a loaded magazine, and pulled the trigger. It shot one time before the blue light started flashing, indicating a low battery. When I pulled the trigger again nothing happened, but I could hear a quiet high-pitched electronic hum. I tried a 9.6v and a 10.8v battery as well, neither would cycle the gun.

Charger: I plugged the charger into the wall and plugged the battery into it. Nothing happened, no lights went on. I tried multiple working outlets and wiggled the power cord, this did not help either. Finally I used the car adapter and got the battery charging that way. So the only thing that is wrong with the charger is the wall adapter.

Battery: I left the battery plugged in until the lights on the charging unit started to blink, indicating that it had switched to trickle charging and the battery was full. I put the battery back in the CTW and opened the gun, exposing the gearbox. I pulled the trigger a few times and the gears cycled as they should. Then I closed the gun, loaded a magazine in, and fired. Again, I only got about 3 shots off before the low battery indicator came on. After this, I put the battery back in the charger until it was charged again, then put it into a KWA M4. The gun shot fine at first, but the battery died within an hour of very light use.

Conclusion: I know for sure that the wall adapter to the charger does not work. The battery does not seem to be able to hold a charge either. As far as the CTW goes, I worry that it is some defect in the ECU. Either that or the battery I ordered (recommended to me specifically for the CTW by an evike sales person) is incompatible with the gun, or simply does not work.

RMA END


I want to believe it's just the battery but for two things:

1. The gears cycled just fine before I closed the gun.
2. I could only get off 3 shots with the battery charged fully, and my KWA cycled just fine for the first 45 minutes.



Any help or insight is much appreciated.

look like a defective battery to me. i dont trust evike. my buddies bought stuff from them and they were defective. looks like evike resells return items or defective items. try ordering battery and charger from allbatteries.com 20C is what i would get and if that still fails then you probly have a bad ECU.

1. That charger is junk. You might have saved some money on it but since you can tell what the charge rate is, the charge time and the mAh charged you don't really know what's going on with your charge. The high-end charges tell you all of that AND have cycling features so you can safely discharge then charge your batts to known full capacity.

2. Suspect battery. You have come to the right conclusion on your battery. I used a Firefox 11.1v 20C 11mAh on an ICS with a 130spring for 8 hours solid. I', assuming you're in the US since you ordered from EVIKE. try cheapbatterypacks.com you'll get your order in 3-5 days.

3. CTW .... find someone with a regular NiMH 9.6V and just test it out. If it still doesn't work check the wires leading to the Crane stock ... sometimes they chafe against the body and short out. If that's not the case you probably have a bad ECU.

Thanks for the input everyone.
I tried with a regular 9.6V NiMH and it did nothing but blink at me. I was going to take off the buffer tube and check the wiring, but Evike finally got around to sending me an RMA confirmation and I don't want to void the warranty.

So I'm going to ship it back to them and let them take care of it.
I'll post an update once I get it back.

Thanks again.

I would agree with what has been said previously... I would like to add my personal sentiments though.

I too originally ordered a CQB from Evike. When I got mine, it appeared to be fine for the first day I fielded it. Then, ALL sorts of issues arose for me. I ultimately sent it back to Evike, and told them to fix it. I also told the RMA guy I was working with that I wanted the A1 variant because that is what I had ordered originally, but they were out of stock. They swapped me weapons, and now my M4A1 CTW works great. No issues... Im currently switching out the wiring (getting rid of the bungee wiring) and I have converted to a deans plug for my battery. My personal belief is that the CQB version SUCKS BALLS and they did not do a good job manufacturing it. Many of my team mates also have A1 CTW's, 1 other mate has converted from CQB to A1 for similar reasons. Bottom line, CQB = FAIL and the M4A1 = BADASS

why would the cqb suck compared to the M4a1 when the only difference is the barrel length? i just dont trust evike period. i got CQB version from Hotspot and it works perfect. Hotpot doublechecks every shipment and does a double check and quality control before they ship out.

I too have the CQB version, no issues. I was thinking about this...It maybe that all the early M4a1's have sold out long ago and the only one left are the CQB versions...these being the early 3 wire pre updated electronics versions..maybe the reason so many issues the early one where released kind of as field tests...read that somewhere. thats why the gave those owners free upgrade barrel an electronics. Just some thoughts.