Vintage Grasshopper Run

[SMOKE-DOG]

I hadn't taken the Grasshopper out in a while. Nor had I tried to charge the old hump pack I got with the G-Hopper a couple years ago. This 25 year old battery hasn't been charged in over 20 years, theres no way it can hold a charge. I hooked it up to my Novak Ionic-D to see what would happen. 40 mins. later it was ready to go.








I got a good strong run from the vintage battery and the buggy was flying with the Green Machine 2. I can't believe a battery this old can hold a charge. I've had batteries die in a year before. Very impressed.

[j.d.roost]

That's what it's all about! Thanks for the pics.
I can't believe that pack took a charge
Makes me want to grab my old humps and see if the Millennium will put some juice in them.

[j.d.roost]

I just charged a 24 year old 1200 hump pack to at 1.4 amps to 1505ma on my Millennium
It took about 35 min to charge and is warm so by all accounts it really did charge.
What the hell were these cells made of Kryptonite ???
Why are all of my $100 3300/3600 packs dead after two/three years?
If zapping is wrong I don't want to be right.
I have old red scr ni-cads that wont take a charge either so it can't be the ni-cad/nimh thing.
Or can it....Is this some sort of conspiracy ? Did Tamy have the "magic" cells all along
Is there an extra cell hidden in that hard candy shell?
Were the team drivers running broken down Tamiya packs secretly for years?
Honestly I have never been so impressed by a battery since.(I had a killer joke about d-cells and a certain device to insert here,but my wife slapped me in the back of the head)..
I can't wait to see if his pack will actually move my car later this week.
Freaky.

[SMOKE-DOG]

?
Makes no since to me either. I still cant believe it held the charge then powered the buggy for 12 mins. And that thing was moving too. My Orion 3000mah NIMH batteries don't give it that much speed. I forgot NICAD's have more voltage and seem to give it more punch. I also tried to charge some other old NICAD's, all about 15 years old. They charged, and ran pretty good for a couple mins. So why are my NIMH batteries dying so fast? Maybe it was that piece of crap Super Brain 959 I was using the last couple years.

[a01butal]

Perhaps it has to do with the state in which the batt was stored. I read somewhere the old NiCd should be stored fully depleted and the newer style NiMh should be fully charged to prolong life. Don't know anything about Lipos.

[j.d.roost]

That might be. "Back in the day" we would put a resistor across the leads to store them shorted. No matter how you look at it it's still impressive. I did not think my junkey tamiya hump pack would be working 20+ years later.If they were not so bad for the enviroment I guess we would still be running them. I remember going from 2000 nicad to the blue label 3000 nimh (god they were junk).The Ni-cads had more punch for sure.
I am sticking with my conspiracy theory. It was all a ploy to get us to buy more cells

[civilguy]

I am sticking with my conspiracy theory. It was all a ploy to get us to buy more cells

How do you explain lipos then? They want us to go from 6 cells to 2.....

[j.d.roost]

Super Brain 959 I was using the last couple years.


Nope, my 3000+s packs were charged on my turbo 35 or the Orange box.
The Nimh cells just don't hold up I guess.

Don't know too much about lipo durability yet. I know I WONT be trying to put a charge to a 20 year old lipo *BOOM*

[SMOKE-DOG]

Don't know too much about lipo durability yet. I know I WONT be trying to put a charge to a 20 year old lipo *BOOM*

Me neither. I had stepped away from the hobby for a few years a couple years ago and when I came back, I was like what is all this LIPO talk? I'll stick with NIMH but I think they wear out to easily. I just tried to charge a 2 year old Trinity 3300 NIMH pack and It won't hold a charge for crap. Now I did used to run this pack in a scale truck so it did see some abuse... snow, water, mud, but should still work I think. I might have to pick up some NICAD's again, seem more durable. A friend of mine has an old hump pack that we'll try to charge this weekend to see if it too will hold a charge.

Someone on another forum pointed out that I put the tires on backwards. I actually had the left on the right and vise versa. This is kinda embarrassing since I when I first posted this Grasshopper on this site, I had em right and someone thought that they were on wrong and I corrected them. Anyway, I had my 4WD Brat out with me and I was haulin around a spare set of vintage tires incase I needed a change.

[j.d.roost]

Say,that Brat is sweet! What is under the hood?

[scr8p]

Say,that Brat is sweet! What is under the hood?

looks like a tamiya pajero to me, going by the trailing arms in the rear. i don't remember the model number of that type chassis...... cc-01 or something like that.

[SMOKE-DOG]

Say,that Brat is sweet! What is under the hood?

Thanks, Scr8p is right. Here, check it out:

http://www.scale4x4rc.org/forums/showthread.php?t=22501

[scr8p]

i had a nib pajero xb a couple years ago that i was going to either put a king blackfoot body on, or stretch it to use a clod body. didn't do either one and sold it. those nib pajero's were going for some decent money at the time.

[SMOKE-DOG]

Did that a couple years ago. One of my all time favorite trucks.

The XC/CC chassis makes a great base for an inexpensive scale truck. A lot of Tamiya bodies will fit directly with no wheelbase modification.

[scr8p]

i think i remember seeing rc4wd has a kit to make the cc-01 chassis a solid front axle rig. i thought that'd be a cool mod.