Batteries???

[TravelinTravis]

Hello all! Looking for some battery knowledge/experience on what I can run and where to source them. I raced a lot from '85 thru '90 and have been recently bitten by the vintage R/C bug big time! In the past month or two I've bought my car, spare parts, modified motors, esc, receiver...etc. Now it's time to focus on sourcing batteries to run. I've been reading the archives/old posts for a while now and my head is spinning with Nicads, Nimhs and lipos So, I'm reaching out for some help/input/experience from the group! All I know is Nicads and finding them in good condition seems like digging for dinosaur bones. I'm assuming the vintage electronics eliminate the Lipos and I'm fine with that for now...might move on to them later. My gear=1/10th On-Road pan car, Novak 410-M1c ESC, Novak NER-2x receiver, Futaba S-132h servo (once I find one or two..lol!) and Twister and Revtech modified brushed motors (13t thru 19t). Will be running only on prepared indoor/outdoor, carpet/asphalt, can am/oval tracks with run times similar to race conditions back in my days (ie. 6-cell 4/5 minutes). Prefer saddle pack style. I've added a pic of my charger...good deal at only $17 so no loss if I want/need to change/upgrade later . Any help/experience and insight on batteries to run would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[GoMachV]

You won’t find performance Sub C cells anymore, nor name brand even. You can source some generics off Amazon or eBay fairly reasonably but you know the numbers are a lie. I have had decent luck with Tenergy batteries from hobby king, and they have a 7.2v stick pack rated 4200mah for $18, and you can see the cells which at least in the old days meant there’s a good chance the way they are assembled you can “open” the shotgun tube and the cells can be reconfigured side to side. Saves time for sure. Worst case scenario you would need to solder them up into a saddle pack. For the money I don’t think you can beat it. Now for the bad news. The digipeak won’t peak em. You will want a more modern charger for nimh. I say more modern because lipo is king now, and even nimh seems ancient. A cheap ac/dc charger will run you $45 but will also allow you to charge lipo in the future as well as everything else

Pack
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-stick-pack-sub-c-4200mah-7-2v-nimh-high-power-series.html?queryID=9b059c8eeb1226c5edc2a6b1848d8c36&objectID=41332&indexName=hbk_live_magento_en_us_products

Charger
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/imax-b6ac-v2-professional-balance-charger-discharger.html?queryID=5fdc8630b751e203362f03c05a3ca81d&objectID=45235&indexName=hbk_live_magento_en_us_products_hbk_price_stock_2_group_0_asc

[GoMachV]

If you are set on using that charger, Amazon does have some loose sub c nicad cells. I’m pretty shocked actually.

[TravelinTravis]

Thanks GoMach....I've seen Tenergy and EBL sub C nicads in google searches. Been leaning towards buying a couple old sanyo nicad packs and buying some individual Tenergy and/or EBL cells to wire up and play around with. I enjoy wiring my own saddle packs anyway. It would be nice to give the old DigiPeak something to do and see if it still works...at least get my $17 out of it .....also good I think for the first shakedown runs of the car, motors and electronics I've bought up over the last month. Nimh's have got me wondering if it's worth the effort and possibly the added size? and if they provide the same old nicad punch? and worried about damaging the vintage esc and motors with added runtime/power of lipo's?...although I guess 4-5 minute timed runs would be ok with my equipment? Basically, I have no clue Thanks for the info...oh...and a big thanks to you for the old RCCA scan link!

[GoMachV]

The nimh were a godsend. Better power, longer power before dumping, and took a beating pretty well. Won’t hurt the electronics at all. The real shock comes when you go from a mild modified motor and 6 cells barely getting 4 minutes to a budget lipo brushless setup and your seeing a half hour at way higher speeds. It’s mind blowing.

[juicedcoupe]

It looks like there are still Tamiya nicd packs available. I don't know if they are still making them or if they are just still on the shelves.

I have a couple Onyx nicd packs that I bought a couple years ago but it doesn't look like they are still available. I had bought them so that I could continue using my old Hitec charger. I later bought a Traxxas charger for nimh.

[TravelinTravis]

Hmmm?! Nimh's....now I'm curious! If going to nimh's , will the sub C size still fit like the nicad sub C's....I hear the size is slightly larger? Looking to fit this in saddle packs....

[GoMachV]

Large capacity nimh are slightly longer. This makes it a tough fit in some like the RC10 that are constrained but on a pan car it’s probably not a big deal.

[coxbros1]

There are a couple saddle lipos that have that indentation on the bottom shaped like the subc cells molded in....i saw one at the onroad track this winter. next time i am there i will look and see what it is...if its still there. As far as your vintage esc and lipos it should be fine, just dont run it too long before checking voltage...say 10 mins or so then check, your brushed motors will start to get hot anyway

[TrAxxxSRac3R]

I second the thought on NiMh... they may be about the only way to go for you in the near term. I too was a racer from the same era... and had packs from Sanyo 1200's, up through the 1400-1500's, and quit racing shortly after the 1700 SCRC's became huge. Funny thing... of all the packs I ran and built... for MY setup, I had a couple 1400 packs that just "felt" right. Perfect punch, charge characteristics, and easy peasy maintenance. If you DO find some old NiCads... let me know. I'd love to see how you get along. Happy Racing!!!

[GeneralZod]

Funny thing... of all the packs I ran and built... for MY setup, I had a couple 1400 packs that just "felt" right. Perfect punch, charge characteristics, and easy peasy maintenance.

I second that about the 1400's. I had my favorite battery as well and it was a Sanyo 1400SCR saddle pack. It just performed well. Liked it better than my 1700SCE pack. I charged the 1400 up not too long ago but I heard a cell pop and several ballooned up a bit so now it serves as display only.

[TrAxxxSRac3R]

Funny thing... of all the packs I ran and built... for MY setup, I had a couple 1400 packs that just "felt" right. Perfect punch, charge characteristics, and easy peasy maintenance.

... I heard a cell pop and several ballooned up a bit so now it serves as display only.

Did you hold a memorial... thank it for its' years of faithful service?

[GeneralZod]

Funny thing... of all the packs I ran and built... for MY setup, I had a couple 1400 packs that just "felt" right. Perfect punch, charge characteristics, and easy peasy maintenance.

... I heard a cell pop and several ballooned up a bit so now it serves as display only.

Did you hold a memorial... thank it for its' years of faithful service?

I was a bit teary eyed........

Likely will run most of my cars with modern lipos and vintage electronics using low voltage alarms since finding good NiMH cells are becoming rare.

[cas22]

 found these factory SCR saddle packs, pretty rare now.
I think i got them with my mates optima mid TOMS conversion kit way back in the 80's
They had yellow sce versions come out later as well but ive never seen one in person.
Cells are long gone internally, so will either repack with NiMh or preferably retrofit LiPo saddles inside the case