TOPIC:

Hi I must start by saying I know nothing about RC things, I brought a Monster beetle about 1986 when I was in my early teens, only used it a couple of times and a mate smashed the front end of it, now after emptying my dads house out I have come across my monster beetle which needs a few new items so my son can play with it (but I might play with it myself and buy him a new one as it seems a shame for him to play all by himself!) Now looking on ebay there are a vast aray of batteries, I need to know if I am better off buying a battery with the same AmH as the original or am I ok to purchase one with more AmH, there is no difference in price but can more AmH cause problems with these old Tamiya's,

Look forward to any information regarding the batteries or anything else Monster beetle related.

Batteries, chargers and speed controllers have moved on a fair bit from the mid '80's, when a 1300mAh Ni-Cad battery, 15 minute clockwork fast charger and the 3 step mechanical speed control were the norm ... halcyon days, but I digress ...

For general car park/garden bashing, there's no need to go for the real high-end racing "Lipo" route (lithium polymer batteries, which require a specialised - and expensive - charger), a fairly cheap NiMH (nickel metal hydride - the replacement for Ni-Cads, with much greater capacities, and less of a "memory effect") will do the job - I rate Vapextech packs quite highly -

fishyjc wrote:

I need to know if I am better off buying a battery with the same AmH as the original or am I ok to purchase one with more AmH, there is no difference in price but can more AmH cause problems with these old Tamiya's,

The mAh (milli Ampere hours) is a measurement for the battery capacity.
Bigger number means longer run times.
mAh will only affect running time, nothing else, so you would want as high number as possible.
Your old batteries typically have 12- 1300 mAh, where today's MiMH have 4000 to 6000mAh. (3-4 times longer running time)

For what to choose, follow Jonny Retro's excellent advice above

-Lars

Many thanks for both of your reply's, the Monster beetle was only ever run for about 1.5 hours so apart from the front wheel my mate broke it should all be good, having said that the lad is only 6 so I might have to see if he likes it, then buy him a new one that may be more robust, back in the day my mate had a hornet and that seemed good, so if they have relisted it, it might be the way to go, didn't really intend on getting into RC cars, but a look at the photo's on this site of the new Avante look great, this could get expensive!.

Many thanks

I feel I have to add that you should be aware that although a bigger Ah value (capacity) battery will give longer run times, there is (in theory) more instantaneous current available, which means bigger 'bangs' & more risk of fire if your electrics are a bit 'iffy'. Some of the lower rated ESCs don't like them either, for the same reason. Just something to bear in mind.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the higher capacity NimH batteries - I've yet to find one that 'performs' as well as a lower capacity NiCd; my 1200NiCds from the late 80s are still far better than any of the 3600 NimHs I've bought, but this could be just the quality of the ones I'm buying (I'm a skinflint...). I prefer to go quickly for 4 or 5 minutes than limp about for half an hour!