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For the life of me I can't decide which forum to post this in, as none seem right. If any of the moderator's think this is in the wrong place, please move it....

I've noticed an increasing number of shelf queen piccies with period electronics and batteries fitted. Although I don't have the patience for this kind of thing normally, I can see why collectors do it - it add's that extra something, makes the cars look ultra-authentic.

My geek-side wants to try this with 2 of my shelf queens, but I'd like to know when the battery types came out. I did a search and found the "Battery Timeline question" thread (locked) but it doesn't seem to have what I want. Has this been done before? I know the search function is poor so I might have missed something.

It goes like this. I post this picture, and hopefully some nice knowledgeable people can tell me roughly when the batteries were on sale.....?

1200 scr's were '86 or so I think. I've don't recall the 1800 sce's though, I suppose somewhere around the early 90's, '93 at the latest. The black 1700's were popping up around '96 or so (I think) and the 2000's maybe around '99. This is all guess work off the top of my head though, I'd wait for someone with a clue to chime in before taking what I say for Gospel

The SCE's were approximately the same time as the SCR's. The SCR's really like to be abused being charged at high amps. They packed a low end punch and when they dumped, they DUMPED. The SCE's you needed to charge at lower amps and had a softer low end punch to them and as you can imagine based on the Mah lasted a bit longer and tapered off gradually when running them. I wasn't in RC long enough past that point to get into the SCRCs.

Any more info on dates id really like to know.

When I started in 93 my first pack was a black 1700 SCRC, so they were out then.

I tried looking around on the net for some sort of battery timeline, but I couldn't find anything. So here's what I can add from memory.

1200scr - mid/late 80's. but, I remember guys I raced with buying them new in the early 90's, too. While the 1400scr's were out.

1800sce - I'm not exactly sure when these came out. Probably mid/late 90's or so. Those were cheap stick pack cells. I'm pretty sure you can still buy them new.

1700scrc - as bugle said, those were out in 93-94. I kinda remember making the switch from 1400scr's to the 1700scrc's in 94.

2000 - I think these came out in 97-98. Somewhere around there.

Great info guys, but don't forget that wonderful P170. 91-92 I think???

I think I raced a Javelin in 1989 and ran 1200scr or 1700sce.

I'm fairly certain 1400scr were out about 1990-91. I remember the first guy at the track who got them went 8 minutes with a stock motor and everybody flipped out (offroad). Previously, it was all 1200scr batteries. I know I was not racing from about 93-97 and the black SCRC 1700s were just being phased out when I got back in. 2000s were the battery in '98 for sure.

When I started Racing in late 87 my first pack was a 7 cell SC1100 Yellow cover with a red print label ( exactly the same as the SCE pictured but the black label was red)

I bought a "matched race" stick pack that was the SCE pictured in early 89 but they had been out for some time before my purchase.( theses were for the modified guys and liked to be run once per day)

My future packs were the red SCR 1200 they were out in between the SC 1100 and SCE 1800's so approx. 88. I was given a team losi top 40 matched pack in 91 as the ranch was having a clearance to make room for the new SCR 1400 that were comming out soon. ( stock guys like me prefered these cells because you could charge them a 9 amps and could be ran a few times per day with minimal decrease in performance and run time)

The SCR1400's were out in summer of 91. I bought the first matched pack from elite speed that my local track had.


The SCRC 1700 was releasd when i was away from racing from 94-96,97.

The SC2000 and the P170's were out when i got back into it in late 97. I went to watch one of my classmates race a Scottsdale Raceway when i was away for school in late 97 early 98 and he had a full fleet of SC2000's and the new at the time p170's.( The SC2000 performance was Great as you all remember, the P170's had good punch but could not match the service life of the sanyo's)

Hope this helps

Cheers everyone, that's all good info. Perhaps I should write a summary of cell type and year released. I'll try to do that when I have some more time.

Wow....that brought back some memories as I ran all of them

I'm 36, and starting to feel old

here is the time line from the roar website as well as the motor one
http://www.roarracing.com/approvals/sbattery.php
http://www.roarracing.com/approvals/smotor.php

I'm almost positive I had 1400SCRs in the fall of '90, definitely had them during the 90/91 winter indoor season.

Ah, the days of a complete charge in like 12 minutes. And when it was cold out they would defrost the windows!

wyldbill wrote:here is the time line from the roar website as well as the motor one
http://www.roarracing.com/approvals/sbattery.php
http://www.roarracing.com/approvals/smotor.php

Those are approval dates, not release dates, right?