What batteries for the controller?

[Trueno]

Hello People,

Just wondering what batteries people use in their controllers as I’ve heard certain ones can screw the cars up. So far I’ve used Energizers without any problems.

Cheers

[PandaBear]

My bro tried nicads and they worked ok; but I use alkalines exclusively for their higher voltage. There’s not much difference between alkaline brands imho – most would come from the same few factories anyway, just brand-engineering.

If I could afford them, Energizer-Lithiums put out about 1.65V per cell. This might put extra oomph in your Bit… but it is cheaper just to charge it longer.

Fresh batteries in the TX is a must if you want to maximise your range. Once they drop below 1.4V each, I find the range drops quite a bit.

[z-beam]

although the voltage is important the milliamperage (mAh) is the factor to be carefull of. some ni-cads at dickies give 1200 mAh and that is a problem if your still powering your bits on single ni-cad (standard) batteries UNLESS you used energiz%r max or ultra d%racells on the first charge. some thing about cell memory and limitations. the % batteries run at 800mAh supposedly.

[Impreza]

I have tried alot of batteries and find that Energiz%r e2 have given me the longest run times by far. I have one car that I have only run (since buying it) with these batteries and It runs a good 30+ seconds longer then other bits-samesetupon other batts.

[PandaBear]

Quote:

Originally posted by z-beam on 23October2002

although the voltage is important the milliamperage (mAh) is the factor to be carefull of. some ni-cads at dickies give 1200 mAh and that is a problem if your still powering your bits on single ni-cad (standard) batteries UNLESS you used energiz%r max or ultra d%racells on the first charge. some thing about cell memory and limitations. the % batteries run at 800mAh supposedly.

Huh? :smiley5:Sorry, you aren’t making sense.

Capacity of the AAs don’t make much difference to charging, apart from how many charges you can make before they’re flat. Voltage however, does affect how fast the car charges and the end-voltage of charging.

Rechargeables (nickel+metal) are chemically defined 1.2V; whilst carbon-zincs are 1.5V. Lithiums are usually 3V per cell but with a different metal electrode, they can be made to ~1.6V. Nicad AAs go up to ~1000mAh whilst NiMH are 1800-1900 nowadays.

Generally you’ll find that alkalines will last longer than even NiMH. Lithiums last even longer but they’re still more expensive than the equivalent multiple of alkalines.

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