Batteries

Posted by Wayne Lundberg on July 20, 2006, 2:04 pm

My local hobby supplier told me that the new battery powered monster RC
models are capable of speeds now achieved by the nitro models, and that
battery life can extend to about two hours of play time, although not to top
speeds. Can this be confirmed through your personal experience? And, do you
know of any method for quick-recharging these batteries? Or do we have to
wait the traditional four hours?

My team is about to buy one of these monsters and convert it into a robot
plus RC control.

Wayne
http://tinyurl.com/m397x

Posted by leeps on July 22, 2006, 6:06 pm

Yes the electric rc dragsters are very fast, some of them will outrun
most cars in the 0-60, but they are just that dragsters, bad things
happen when you take a motor thats used to 7.2 volts and you give it
24. Most electric r/c models are not quite as quick as the nitro models
but they can not be called slow. The battery life however your looking
at 15 minutes if your lucky, unless you drop serious serious dough on a
li-ion pack, your 3 amphour pack with a decent 12 to 15 turn motor will
be dead rather quickly. However charging this same pack is usually
done in about a half an hour. For a bot you can expect much longer
run time because i cant imagine a bot that wants to be peged at 20 mph
all the time, honestly if you want to use a r/c model use the shortest
gearing you can and a 27 turn model to get the speed down, itll be
plenty fast for a bot (unless for some reason you actually need the
speed), itll still accelerate with a load (not that the suspension is
meant to support extra weight), and youll be rewarded with good
runtime. I do have to mention that the rc models have suspension thats
not meant to support extra weight, this can be tuned out to an extent
with a quick change of the springs.
However if your buying your model at radio shack forget most of the
things i said above.

Posted by Wayne Lundberg on July 23, 2006, 12:43 pm

> Yes the electric rc dragsters are very fast, some of them will outrun
> most cars in the 0-60, but they are just that dragsters, bad things
> happen when you take a motor thats used to 7.2 volts and you give it
> 24. Most electric r/c models are not quite as quick as the nitro models

Thanks. No, not a Radio Shack. We've been looking at Krazy Kevin's store in
Chula Vista, who seems to know his business and has an excellent stock of
components for later use. So far, a price of around $300 keeps coming up for
a basic off-the-shelf unit. Padu, up the hill from me, has done wonders with
a monster by adding tons of batteries and is helping us along with sound
advice as well. So anything you could add would be welcome and as time goes
forward we will most likely be looking for moonlight engineering talent on
1099s.

Wayne
http://tinyurl.com/m397x

Posted by leeps on July 23, 2006, 4:03 pm

id be glad to help but i havent been into rc cars for almost 5 years
now so by now most everything i know is outdated, if you have any
questions post em up. Id be glad to help out where i can

Posted by Wayne Lundberg on July 24, 2006, 1:13 pm

> id be glad to help but i havent been into rc cars for almost 5 years
> now so by now most everything i know is outdated, if you have any
> questions post em up. Id be glad to help out where i can

We are using the RC cars as off-the-shelf mobile units upon which most
effort will be in robotics. And we are looking for state of the art talent
to help us as volunteer or paid consultant.

Wayne

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