dwinn85

Hey all, I just ordered a Redcat Caldera 10E ( http://www.redcatracing.com/RC-Cars/.../CALDERA-10E_3)for my very first RC truck and I have a few questions about the battery. First off, how long does a charge usually last from a stock battery and how long does it take to charge the stock one? As with most electronics Ive had, the stock battery usually sucks and I always get another extended battery to replace it. So my next question is what's a good upgrade for this specific truck? I am not familiar at all with RC cars so I'm not interested in rebuilding or replacing motors etc, I just want something that's gonna last longer and I guess give the truck more power (?) I've heard that's what bigger batteries do, so please don't bash me for being ignorant! =) Also I heard that it's smart to buy an external charger for the battery becuase it charges faster? Anyways, if ya'll can please post specific links with you're responses to help me SEE what you're talking about I'd greatly appreciaite it.

nitrosportsandrunner

stock battery will last 12-15 minutes.
takes 5+ hours to for the stock charger to fully charger it.

You can spend $100 to buy a faster nimh charger and a 7cell nimh battery (1 extra cell means more power)

But honestly today lipo batteries are the way to go.

A 2s 30c 5000mah lipo battery will get you 25-30minutes of runtime with more speed than the stock battery.
And a thunder AC 6 lipo charger can charge said battery in 1 hour.

I use sky lipo packs, and have the thunder AC 6 charger myself.

charger: http://www.hobbypartz.com/thac6smbachw.html

Lipo: http://www.hobbypartz.com/77p-sl4400-2s1p-30c-2222.html

under $100 shipped for the charger and 1 lipo. well worth it. the truck's ESC is already setup for a 2s lipo pack. just plug it in and run like a normal battery.

Dads like rc too

Congrats on the Caldera 10E, I still claim this is the most truck on the market for the money, and also what I recommend to anyone that asks for advise on what to start out with. With very minor upgrades this truck will take you anywhere you want to go with it. I took Nitrosports advise last year and tried running a 7 cell nihm in my son's Caldera 10E. All I can say is it was like night and day. At the time I really didn't want to step my then 8 year old up to lipo's yet and I already had a decent nihm charger so it worked out great for me. Right now I run Racer's edge 8.4v nihm's in it, 3300mah. We get about 18 minutes out of a pack. They were about $32 each from RC Planet. If you do enough research everyone will point you to lipo's, for me I wasn't ready to invest in a pile of batteries and have to buy a new charger too. I already had a few 8.4v batteries so I decided to go for the better charger first. I knew that I could upgrade the batteries as needed so for now I upgraded my charger to a 4 bay charger that will charge lipo and nihm's independantly at the same time. It's worked out really well. I figure I'll run these batteries out and slowly experiment with some lipo's down the road. But I guess back to your question if you really want to keep it cheap, you can pick up a single nihm charger for around $25-$30 and another 8.4v nihm. Then with the stock battery you have you'll have two batteries ready to go, then just charge them at night. The smaller chargers will take about 2 hrs to charge a 7.2v - 8.4v battery. Here's a charger that comes with two nihm batteries, but will also charge lipo's if you switch down the road. http://www.rcplanet.com/DuraTrax_7C_...0-dtxp4245.htm