GRANITE BATTERY LIFE

[justawfulgamer]

Just got my son a Granite for Christmas and I'm wondering what battery life people are getting with stock batteries. I have the stock 2000 mah and a 3000 mah battery, and driving them in my yard, (wet grass) I am getting about 6-8 minutes each battery before the low voltage thing kicks in and stops it completely.

now that seems rather low to me.
thoughts?

ps. I am very new to the r/c hobby scene. so I pretty much know nothing

 

[LOWTYD]

We got one yesterday too. I'd say our runtime is about the same. First charge was only a couple hours, and the longest I charged it yesterday was 3 hours. I did a "full" charge last night for well over 10 hrs. I assume the provided wall charger goes into a sort of trickle mode after a while. We'll see how that impacts runtime today. I'll let you know.

 

[justawfulgamer]

that's pretty terrible battery time. I was expecting about 10 on a 2000 mah, and maybe 15 on 3000 mah.

 

[LOWTYD]

So.....just ran it after an overnight charge. Basically full throttle through wet grass and heavy leaves. 4 minutes 45 seconds.....
Really not much better than my 7.2v RC's of 20 years ago. Is that due to the batteries or charger or just typicala of the newer cars?

 

[justawfulgamer]

So.....just ran it after an overnight charge. Basically full throttle through wet grass and heavy leaves. 4 minutes 45 seconds.....
Really not much better than my 7.2v RC's of 20 years ago. Is that due to the batteries or charger or just typicala of the newer cars?

Don't get me wrong. I expect less battery life through wet grass and etc. But wow. That's seems bad.

 

[lonee]

If you´re are using brand-new lipo´s so give them some charges to "awake".
My colleagues an mine are using 2s or 3s Lipo´s up to 6200mA in our´s 1:10 cars.
Mainly 2s 5400mA corse these battery are more often here. Normal runtime with a 5400mA
between 15 - 25 min. Depends of the ground where we are driving.
High grass an mud are sucking power like nothing. On those ground I have 15Min runtime with a Nero Big Rock an two 3S 5400mA.
Same with 2 x 2s 6300mA.

maybe you have to choose bigger Lipo´s an put a second in a pocket! ;-)

kind regards,
lonee

 

[justawfulgamer]

Wow! I had no idea they ate through batteries that fast. It makes it seem like the 2000 mah it comes with is pretty much useless.

 

[GaryT]

I have had mine for 2 weeks now. Original 2000 NiMH think lasted a good 15min.. Also bought a 5000 NiMH and 1st and second run a little longer. Think I read to charge them at lower Amps the first couple of times to break them in. So I have been using my multicharger which allows me to select amps to charge at. First couple times at 1 - 1.5 amp charges and figure I will gradually increase to 2 and 5 amps respectfully. It does take a long time to charge at 1 amp. I am a newbie at RC Trucks so might have been doing this all wrong so check around. I have been using LiPo s in Quads though for a while but they act and charge completely differently. I will keep my eye on this thread and learn also.

 

[lonee]

I am wondering a litte, is NiMh so popular in USA? Since i can get LiPo with high c-rates i did not use NiMh as main battery for my models anymore. For the crawler i use LiFe Battery an in the other models LiPo. Doesn't matter if it is a car, boat or something to fly.
With LiPo you will have a better weight / Power balance cause the LiPo´s are much lighter an with the same size you will have more mA´s in it, if you compare it with a NiMh pack. In earlier times i use Samsung 6 cell NiCd 3200mA which where recommended in 1:10 racing, but i could not get NiCd anymore, i swapped over to use LiPo Batterys.
Our final trick with NiMh was to change them just before using with high ampere. But there are miles away with the Power you´ll get with LiPo. If you change in future, you´ll find out that you have a total different car! ;-)

Hope my english was understandable.....
Regards,
lonee

 

[GaryT]

I know where you're coming from on the Lipo use due to weight/power ratio. I think that is why they are used in quads. NiMH batteries are readily available in USA. My thoughts are from a New RC Truck and older person. Meaning that the Lipos appear to offer you much more speed and power in relation to NiMHs. That is fine if want to BASH around your vehicle and tear it up (meaning more money to fix) or Race it. That's what most young people want to do, and maybe I will get to that point. Everyone seems to want to go faster and push it to the limits of burning up there motors and such. For now I am looking at costs and NiMHs are half the cost it seems. I may get bored and can see going to Lipo for longer running times though.

 

[Griffin]

The included NiMH isn't really the greatest. It'll get you running, but you will want to upgrade.

I would suggest getting a good charger as well that does both NiMH and LiPo. It will speed up your charge time. I've got two GForce batteries that seem to do good. The price is low and they fit inside the battery tray. Only downside is that I had to cut off the plug on them and solder on some deans connectors. Not sure if you know how to do that. Regardless, get yourself two or three batteries to increase your run time.

Gary, the other nice thing about LiPo is that you get a constant source of power for the whole charge, unlike a NiMH where you get the most power from a fresh charged battery and then it starts to reduce and by the end of the pack, your truck is running very slow and eventually won't move (not that you should be driving it at that point, bad for the battery)

 

[GaryT]

I agree with you Griffin. Seems I spend most of my time now recharging batteries. Everything runs on them. Grin....

 

[justawfulgamer]

Yea this is for my 6 year old son. So I don't want to dump a ton of cash into something that he is just having fun around our property with.

 

[Griffin]

Then you could just stay with NiMH batteries and get a few of them and a decent charger to keep them charged. I've been in the hobby for awhile so I've amassed a bunch of batteries and chargers. Currently I have two iMax B6 chargers. They do both NiMH and LiPo and can charge up to 5C on LiPo. You should be able to find them online for around $20. Beats the heck out of the stock wall charger that is included.

 

[justawfulgamer]

Yea I already upgraded the charger because the factory one came in defective, it is for sure a worthy upgrade. Its nice to know when the battery is actually full.

 

[lonee]

@Gary,
Ok, so i understand now. Here in my living area the LiPo´s prices are sometimes cheaper if you compare it to NiMh with the sam capacity.
So I was swapped over to use LiPo´s in the most of my models
.
Maybe one suggestion... In some battery packs of Dewalt tools are LiFeo4 cells. This kind of battery ist nice for high power charging and discharging. Also these cells are not so critical concerning deep discharging and much more saver than LiPo-softcase but a little heavier.
All what you need, ist a good charger which can handle this cells. I use two-times 2s1P (6,6V 2300mA) in my crawler. The only negative point, iff you will see so, is that the voltage per cell is a 3,3V. It means that you need a ESC which will provide an adjustable voltage cut off.

I picked up a new but defective Dewalt battery from E-bay and separate the cells. Just two of twelve was broken,
So i had ad least 10 cells -> fife packs after soldering for a very, very cheep price. If i remember correctly, so it was around 10€..

Regards,
lonee

 

[LOWTYD]

Looks like I'll probably upgrade to a lipo and new charger just for a little better performance and runtime. Overall the truck's been great and my son loves it. Is the battery connector supplied the "Dean's " connector? It's kind of a pain to unhook as I prefer not to pull on the wires. There's no good place to grab the connector. My older traxxas plugs were much easier.

 

[lonee]

... i putted all dean´s away from my battery which i use in greater models than 1:18.
I use 4, 5 or 6mm connectors. 4mm in Onroad cars, 5mm Offroad and tx90 in the Big Rock.
I havn´t greater Models than 1:8..... maybe in future?
But,... it is not an issue to solder new or other connectors on the cables. So you can configure you're battery as you like and least it is sometimes cheaper to buy a pack without the main connectors.
On the other hand,.... you can also solder traxxas connectors on it! ;-)

 

[justawfulgamer]

there must be something else wrong with this truck, I timed a full charged battery, 2000 mah, and it lasted 2 minutes before going in to the blinking low voltage mode. that cant be normal.

 

[Kauaiguy]

How cold is it where you live,batterys need to be over 70f degrees to give full perfromance.