KyleR

Well, after a ~15 year hiatus from R/C, I decided to dig out my old car to see if it'd still run. Lo and behold, but the darn thing still works! Gotta love the bulletproof old-school stuff. Hey, even my old battery still holds a charge, though not for very long anymore. Charge it for 15 minutes, run it for 5 minutes. Charge it for another 15 minutes, run for another 5. But hey, it's still fun.

RC10 Team Car (Black chassis)
Kraft KP2KWP 2ch transmitter (Pistol Grip, 75MHz AM)
Futaba 2ch receiver
1700mAH NiCD 6-cell battery
Trinity Speedworks Sapphire motor (17 turn)
Novak T-4 ESC
and an old MRC RB-485 AC/DC charger

So, now that it's running, I just have to work out a steering servo glitch that I'm occasionally seeing, fix a broken steering servo mount (the plastic cracked, doubt it was my driving - probably poor assembly skills oh so long ago), get a better battery or two (and a newer charger to handle NiMH), and re-learn how to drive the thing.

I opted to try and get this one going first to make sure I'm really wanting to get back in this, and then later I'll go and get something newer and more suited for the area I'm now in.

So, with all that, a couple of questions:
1) Are the NiMH batteries drop-in replacements for the NiCD ones (other than a different charger, of course)?
2) My current receiver is such that I don't have to have a seperate receiver battery pack (powers from the main 6-cell) for it and the steering servo. How much of a power drain is that? Is it worth it, realistically, to get a seperate battery for the receiver/servo or am I only losing maybe 30 seconds to a minute of runtime by using the main battery power?


Thanks, all!

-K