Hi Joe,
Well done on your purchase! That is a great price for those motors![sm=thumbup.gif]
As far as battery goes, here are some thoughts on the subject:
SLA batteries are not a good choice for those motors. The motors require way too much juice and the SLA battery will be unable to deliver it in long bursts. This will end in poor performance & they will easily kill the life of the battery. The AA battery packs won’t be enough for the Astroflight motors either because of their small size.
I believe that NIMH would be the best overall choice for Dauntless. The NIMH cells could keep up with the Astroflight motors just fine. They are also weighty enough to help out with ballast which will be needed anyway. I would go with 12V C or D rated 5000MAH (10 cell) battery pack for EACH motor for best runtime. (They will last about 10-15 minutes cruising with some high speed passes, depending on throttle habits) I would prefer D rated cells for the extra runtime. I believe that SANYO is still one of the leaders for the better quality NIMH packs but there are others as well. The price of NIMH packs has come down significantly in recent years due the popularity of LIPO’s, so you can find really good NIMH cells for the price of a decent LIPO equivalent.
I am also finding 12V 10,000 MAH rated (D) NIMH batteries. They could possibly double the runtime as a 5000 MAH pack, so this could bring your runtime closer to ½ hour cruising with some high speed passes as well, but again, depending on driving habits. I would want these, just because I am a runtime junky.
The price seems a little steep initially but the extra runtime makes it worth while after the bill is paid. Again, this is based on one pack per motor.
If you were nuts like me & fitted Dauntless with a full interior, I would suggest using LIPO as the battery of choice. The completed interior could double or triple the weight of a stock Dauntless so light powerful batteries will be the suggested route. This is to keep the weight down while having the cells take up minimal interior space. At this point I would suggest (2)11.1V 3S (20-25C discharge), 5000 MAH LIPO’s. This will give a heavy Dauntless a good run on Astroflight 25 motors. Some day, I’m sure they will be available in 10,000 MAH, but it will probably be a while before they become available & affordable.
Here is a site pulled from the web with NIMH cells. There are many companies like this around:
[link]http://www.onlybatterypacks.com/items.asp?db=37[/link]
I hope this helps a bit.
-Rich.