Mechbox Review - Lonex drop-in mechbox
 

So we brought a few of these gearboxes into the country for testing and to see whether or not these would be suitable for sale in Canada. We actually sold one before we even tested them.

Anyway, here's our review of the Lonex drop-in gearbox.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020914.jpg

The version we ordered was the M120SP Original Type for SR16. So it's basically an M120 rear-wired V2 box.
Each box is INDIVIDUALLY serial-numbered.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020915.jpg

Comes in a non-descript brown box, carefully wrapped. Without cracking it open, we're going to pair it with a Lonex A1 high torque/high speed motor and install it into this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020917.jpg


A few first impressions:
* Gearbox shell is chromium-plated and not painted. This means that over time, the coating will not rub off and potentially foul your mechbox. Coating is also quite slippery - means you shouldn't have to do weird things like putting bearings on your tappet plate LOL.
* Feels quite dense
* Reinforced front-end on both the top and bottom of the cylinder window
* 8mm open-faced bearings
* There are no provisions for the fake bolt catch/release in the mechbox.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020919.jpg

* Various "windows" for checking the health/shimming of your mechbox
* Cutout for the anti-reversal latch so you can release the tension in your mechbox before you open it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020920.jpg

Installation into a G&P metal body was very painless. All the holes matched up perfectly and we were able to get the box into the lower receiver and the motor hooked up in less than 3 minutes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020922.jpg
We were pleased to notice that the motor leads were actually the correct length. The drop-in box uses the same quality connectors that Lonex sells separately.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020920.jpg
Chrony results yielded the following:
Average 440fps at a blistering 30rps on a 11.1v 15C lipo.
Variance between shots was also quite low - +/-2fps.
The Lonex A1 motor just laughed at the 450fps spring - this motor should be able to support an M170 spring on 18:1 gears.

Here's a couple of brief videos showing shenanigans (not sure why there's audio lag).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/th_00017.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/th_00016.jpg


On a 11.1v 25C lipo the mechbox was double-shooting on semi due to the immense speed and torque of the motor, thus the 15C lipo. We would recommend a 7.4V lipo and/or a less baller motor but didn't have any handy. (we actually don't own any. LOL!!!)

Now, the teardown:
Gearbox has the standard gearbox screws with locking washers.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020926.jpg

The gearbox opened without incident.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020927.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020929.jpg
The parts list is as follows:
* Lonex Standard blue piston (2nd tooth factory removed, 10 steel teeth)
* Lonex Standard ratio 18:1 reinforced steel gears *Update - Sector delay clips pre-installed*
* Lonex 8mm open-faced bearings
* Lonex heat-treated polished cylinder
* Lonex POM piston head *Update - New boxes shipping with Aluminum heads*
* Lonex low-resistance wiring throughout
* Lonex M120SP spring
* and the usual Lonex small bits

What we liked:
* Probably the first thing we noticed is that we didn't have to chase down the anti-reversal latch and/or trigger. The parts inside the mechbox fit exceptionally well - better than any other OEM gearbox we've opened. The anti-reversal latch sat nice and deep inside its socket in the shell and the trigger didn't budge, even when bumped against or the mechbox shook while assembling the spring

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020932.jpg
* Shim job is quite good for a factory job. Having said that, they could've used one or two less shims, but nonetheless the gears were free-spinning. Also, during test-firing, the mechbox sounded very quiet with no whine (see next point)

* Gears meshed very well. Unbeknownst to most, how the gears mesh against each other will affect how the gearbox sounds. If the teeth between gears mesh perfectly, then you'll hear less gear slop and whine. In this gearbox, whine was minimal and slop was almost nonexistent when turning the gearbox by hand. Also, we didn't have to chase the gears around with a small tool when closing the mechbox - this means the gearshafts mated very well to the bearings.

* Low resistance wiring used throughout.

* Well-greased gearbox. Not too much, not too little. Grease is very similar in consistency and texture to Superlube.

* The gearbox opens and closes with ease due to its exacting tolerances. We didn't have to fight with aligning the gears or the ARL and trigger.

* Lonex's high quality POM piston head instead of their aluminum head and nozzle used. *Update - New boxes shipping with Aluminum heads*
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020931.jpg

What we didn't like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...r/P1020930.jpg
* Lonex's blue piston used instead of the red extreme toughness piston - still though, the blue is better than 80% of the pistons out there.

* No sector gear clip - would've been nice for them to include one given the high rate of fire
***UPDATE*** Now includes metal sector gear clip

* Angle of engagement is only half-corrected via the shaved piston tooth, but the cylinder head would've benefited with a thicker piece of rubber - a 3/16" sorbothane pad would do nicely here. The Lonex rubber piece was removed with minimal effort

* Tamiya connector with a small lead in the back - would've been nice to at least have Deans and/or lengthend the wire lead. Oh well, the box DID say for SR16. This would've worked perfectly for that application.


Conclusion:
Simply put, we were floored by the out-of-the-box performance of the mechbox. Having said that though, it does have some minor annoyances which can and definitely should be addressed before installing into a body. Thankfully, due to the ease of open and closing the mechbox, these corrective tasks can be performed quite easily.

Lonex does offer some other flavours of mechboxes, we'll try to get our hands on these as well as the M100 high-speed gearboxes on our next restock.

Where do I buy one?
HERE:
http://www.airsoftstore.ca/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=35_4



UPDATE: 2013-12-01 - Amendments/updates to the Lonex box via YouTube video review:
http://youtu.be/tpJet7bhBjc

Nice review on the best gearbox on the market!

Nice review
Shell looks of great quality, among other things

And what's the price like?

I bought a Lonex drop-in from Stealth (airsoftstore.ca) for 170$ + shipping

I agree with the AOE correction
I finally got it to fit my proprietary Javelin's

Pros:
Nice wiring assembly, nice, open bearings, well made gears, reinforced mechbox, nicely shimmed (everybody should check bevel gear shimming even with drop-in mechbox to fit their setup), nice piston. I get nice ROF with 9.6v small nimh. Very silent mechbox paired with Guarder ultimate torque-up motor.

Cons: (edit : maybe a wrong personal feeling)
I found the air seal of the piston head very horrible, no compression at all (in my complete drop-in mechbox). Even if I did the o-ring enlargement mod (remove it, put it on the cylinder, heat it with lighter, let it cool down), nothing helped. Once I put a silent piston head, air seal was perfect. I found out the external diameter of the piston head is 12.35mm (if I remember correctly) and 12.55mm ish for the no-name silent.

It's built to last!

I didn't know for the 440fps lol, I'll downgrade it :P thanks

http://www.airsoftstore.ca/index.php...products_id=75

If you're testing the compression by moving the piston slowly in and out of the cylinder, it'll give the illusion of having bad compression.

Most people test their compression by how well it seals when the piston is slow-moving, but really the piston o-ring expands quite a bit when under pressure. What Lonex has done here has used an o-ring that APPEARS to be poor-sealing but actually seals quite well at mechbox operating speed. To test this you need to force the piston into the cylinder very quickly. The plus side of using this size o-ring is that there is very little excess resistance that would otherwise slow down ROF and decrease FPS.

We swapped out the o-ring with an SHS one and while the static compression improved drastically, we actually got LOWER FPS and ROF than before - presumably due to excess o-ring resistance.

The 440fps number was obtained with the Lonex piston o-ring.

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll try it today

Very nice review Stealth. I'm looking into getting one of these for my MP5.

Lonex just sent this video over to us to demonstrate their box.
Freshly removed from a -17C icebox then subjected to 2minutes of continuous fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=PLWt5Pqo8IA#!

So Lonex took our feedback and fed it back to their assembly - the gearboxes now come WITH metal sector gear clips.

Cant wait for my high speed mechbox to arrive. Thanks stealth, you and your guys rock !

What I'd like to know is how long that's been in the freezer for. Could've been one day or one minute. If it's been in for only an hour and the ROF is that low then its not very impressive.

Good point. Another thing is that it does not say what spring is in there.
But then again, it seems like an independent test (as in, not sanctioned by Lonex - just going by the fact that the subject is a Caucasian male).

I don't think an hour or a day would be different in a -17C ice box, there is not that much thermal mass.

prod them for a specific g36 mechbox :P and while you're at it.... a v6 as well.

Stealth, any update on long term use? How are the boxes holding up to regular game use? Stock, out of box, game use? With minor upgrades to correct your "what we didn't like"?

Has anyone tried fitment in a Madbull receiver? I have a torus box that is snug in the MB. Shimmed well and good parts inside but got a sadly impressive burst of triple feeding at OP Deadfall. Theory is that the fitment with the top cover is just slightly off and torqued the mechbox causing something to bind.

I can add some info to this thread, not on long term but from my experience with the gearbox.

For my part the gearbox was a little hard to fit in my G&P body. The fake bolt/bolt cover fit super snug which make the charging handle hard to operate.

The construction of the gearbox is amazingly though. I have a M90 & 6.03 thighbore in my M4 and the FPS is a constant 375.

Really happy with it. So far it has been strong & reliable. Definitely worth it.