advice on using old electronics

[Wahrsuul]

Ok, so here's my situation. All I have is old electronics - a few receiver/ESC combos, old ESCs, and pretty much everything to use/charge old NiCDs. I don't plan on doing any real racing, other than in my own yard with the grands. This will be for my Clods as well as my buggies and truggies.

So, if I want to spend as little as possible on new stuff, what are my options? Should I just go with NiMh batteries and continue on? Or would I get some advantage of trying to go LiPo? I'm guessing I need a new charger at a minimum. I use brushed motors, and honestly from what I'm reading, I don't see a need to go brushless, I don't need the speed/power, I'm dangerous enough as is. If I go LiPo, how much are LVAs, how difficult are they to install and where would I get them? How long do they take to charge vs NiMh or NiCd? You know how impatient kids can be, so I'd like to be able to charge fairly quickly. Also there's the cost of the batteries and run time. Since all my old stuff only ran 4-6 minutes at a time, heat wasn't much of an issue, so that's also a consideration.

[Coelacanth]

That's not an easy question to answer, but most of us here who dug out our vintage RC cars from dusty old boxes and wanted to rejuvenate them went through the same stage. On one end of the scale, you have minimal cost; on the other end, you have optimal performance & low maintenance. Somewhere in between is logical, and that depends on your wallet.

I think it helps to discuss what's different between old electronics and all the new stuff, so you know the pros & cons of modernizing/keeping the old stuff.

1. Batteries: NiCad & NiMH batteries lose their ability to take a proper charge as they age. NiMH batteries--even brand-new ones--lose their charge just sitting around. I've had fully-charged NiMH packs go almost completely dead after sitting for a month or two. LiPo battery technology is far more advanced; as long as they're stored with a partial charge, they will almost never lose their capacity to take a full charge, even years later. They also don't "slow down" as they are discharged, like NiCad & NiMH batteries do; you get consistent performance throughout the range of charge. Of course, going LiPo means you also need a new battery charger.

2. Motors: Brushed motors require maintenance and cleaning, brushes & springs wear, comms get carboned up, and need capacitors to avoid glitching due to electromagnetic interference. New brushless motors are practically maintenance-free. Especially if you buy a motor & ESC combo, glitchy performance is practically a thing of the past.

3. ESC's: You can still buy modern ESC's that will handle brushed AND brushless motors, but most of them are either/or. Choosing a brushless motor & ESC combo is the best way to upgrade with the least likelihood for problems. You can power modern ESC's with old NiMH batteries, but may need to disable low voltage cut-off options as those batteries ideally need to discharge completely, unlike LiPo batteries, which should never discharge below 7.4V (3.7V per cell).

4. Radios: Old AM/FM radios are often glitchy with EMI, have much shorter range and you need to match frequency crystals--and worry about other people who might run the same frequencies. New 2.4 GHz digital radios have a huge range advantage, tiny receivers and short antennae, and all you do is bind a receiver to a transmitter and you're done. No worries about interference from other transmitters or motor/receiver glitching. Also, most modern transmitters can be used to control several different cars just by binding each car's receiver to the transmitter.

So, doing it "the optimal way" is definitely not on the "cheap" side of the scale. I think if you were going to do it in stages, I'd probably suggest going with a modern brushless motor & ESC combo first. You could still use the rest of your old gear. Good combos are all over eBay; Leopard Toro, EZRun, Turnigy, HobbyWing and dozens of clones...full combos can be had for $60-ish and up, which would include the motor, ESC & programming card. I don't think you'd have issues using your old batteries as long as you disabled the low-voltage cutoff feature of the ESC. A 30A to 60A ESC with motor in the range of 13.5T to 17.5T would be a decent upgrade that wouldn't blow up most gearboxes; you can decrease the amount of "punch"--acceleration--by programming the ESC.

Next, I'd probably buy some LiPo batteries and do away with the old NiCad & NiMH batteries. Buy a decent LiPo battery charger while you're at it. You'd have to enable the low-voltage cutoff in the ESC, of course, to protect the batteries from discharging too much and potentially causing a fire. A couple batteries and a charger could probably be had for just over $100-ish.

Last, I'd get rid of the glitchy, fickle old radio gear and make the move to 2.4 GHz. Radio & receiver packages start at about $40-ish (FlySky GT3B is a common example), and have way more features to adjust than old radios. I personally think adjustable endpoints is fantastic, to be able to decrease the amount of servo throw is quite useful.

I hope this helps, and of course there will be other opinions. I agree like you that it's a pretty expensive venture to upgrade everything all at once.

[R Cane]

I have about 25 electric vehicles - 8 or so that I run semi-regularly, and not a single one is brushless or lipo. I like the old school stuff obviously, but as you stated, I also only run in my yard, driveway, and in the street in front of my place. There are no tracks anywhere near me, so I have no place to run something with the speed of brushless motors anyway. You can get some pretty decent speed from the right motor wind / tranny gearing combo with brushed motors.
As far as lipo, I never did the transition because of the safety concerns with my little kids around. Just not worth it to me for the risk. Though it's true that lipo performance is certainly better, as of now at least I run nimh only, from 3500 to 5000mah. With my 10-2 brushed motor and the 3500 battery, I get 10-12 minutes depending how hard I run it, and with a standard 27 turn motor and the 5000 battery, I can get 20-25 minutes on a good day. A lot of factors impact how long your drive time is...vehicle weight, terrain, course layout, your driving style... for me it's never been worth the cost to convert. Plus, like I said, I like old school.

[Coelacanth]

Those are good points, R Cane. If saving money is the main priority, there's no real need to modernize everything. Hell, my Gold Celebration Zebra Optima with mystery black-can brushed 14x2 motor and 8.4V NiMH battery pack is right at the edge of controllable driveability, it's very fast! I kept that car all-vintage, right down to the Futaba Magnum Junior transmitter and original chain drive & dogbones instead of CVD's. It runs like a champ.

With all my other resto-mods, however, I gradually made the transition to brushless motors & ESC's, LiPo batteries and 2.4 GHz radios, and I can honestly say that I truly appreciate the ease of setup, low maintenance and performance, compared to old brushed technology from the mid- to late-80's.

[R Cane]

Sure, there certainly are benefits to brushless, and lipo. Just depends on the direction you want to go.

[Corsa]

Well, as a newby here, I'm in the same boat, I have a few vintage buggies that have all the 27 Mhz gear etc.. and I think I'll leave them as a blast from the past, but if I build up anything else to use more frequently I'll go 2.4 mhz and brushless/Lipo. Stuff's cheap and reliable and has soo much tunability it makes my head hurt!!

It's like most things I guess, (cars etc.. ) the modern stuff we drive evryday is awesome, but the vintage stuff is fun but a bit, well... old.

[R Cane]

That's the one thing I did upgrade on all my vintage runners...the receivers. 2.4 ghz is SO much better, and not very expensive. There's a lot to be said for running 10 vehicles off of a single radio, with no frequency issues...and no limit to how many vehicles you and your crew can run at one time.
Plus the shorter antenna is really nice too.

[BoostCreep]

A little late but here are some thouoghts.

A modern Lipo balance charger charging at 1C (Ex. 4000mAh battery charge at 4 amps) is IMO completely safe.
Mine never even get warm on their way to a full charge if they weren't warm from running when started. It takes
betweeen 25-40 minutes to charge depending on how low the battery was when started. Faster charge rates are
possible but I'm not going to suggest I know enough about it to give you a safe recommendation there.
Even if I were using the older battery technology I'd invest in a new charger. I feel there is legitimate improvement in
this area.

With Lipo's what you get is a much improved runtime over an older NiCad setup. This means fewer charge cycles for
a given amount of runtime. (i.e. keep kids entertained for longer)
Pricing also is not really any different than for a comparable mAh Nimh either.
They are typically smaller and lighter as well.

One of the great improvements over the car electronics is the chargers available now. Most decent chargers will
charge NiCad, Nimh, Lipo and Lifepo battery types. You can also select the exact amperage you want to charge at
if that matters to you at all.

Also speaking of ESC's and such. I just replaced the ESC on one of my Optima Mids. The original was a Ko-Propo CX-IIR that
when powered up would act all crazy. Not sure what's wrong and maybe I'll figure it out one day but for now I just swapped it
out with a 45A brushed ESC from HobbyKing. Cost?? About $12. It also has Lipo low voltage monitoring. Works great so far
(just got it installed last night after using it to test a few motors I have laying around)

As for radios there's one other issue that should be addressed in regards to the newer 2.4ghz systems. Current draw. My older radios
like the Futaba Magnum sport require 8AA batteries where my newer Futaba 3pl only took 4AA. (swapped to a LifePo pack)
So battery cost is way down as they have similar runtimes on a set of batteries.
Also the older stuff is more prone to noise. Seems the servos are more twitchy when sitting still.
Yes they are still completely functional and overall work well. But there is a level of precision available in the newer stuff that
actually makes it easier to control the car. Again that is my opinion for what it's worth.

And yes I currently am running both types. In fact today my son and I are going to run on the track we made out behind the house
in the woods yesterday evening for the first time. Should be fun. (which is why most of us do this I hope)