jacksonjrs

My Feedback: (6)

I was curious to know if I could replace the nicad battery pack for the receiver that came with my radio with regular AA batteries?? I found a battery case from tower hobbies with a j-connecter already attached to it. My receiver can handle 4.8-6 volts. Will this work (battery case instead of flight pack) or am I gonna screw something up??

The reason I ask this is because I could just get a bunch of AA batteries already charged up and when one set gets drained I could pop in a new set while the drained ones are charging. Also I could get higher MAH batteries and get an even longer flight time (until I run out of gas).

So will this idea work??

Here is a link to the case I'm talking about [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCUG8&P=7]BATTERY CASE WITH J CONNECTER[/link]

Stick Jammer

Yeah, you could do that but it really wouldn't be worth the trouble. Normally the battery pack is wrapped in foam and secured into the fuselage, sometimes in a tight spot. This would make it a PITA to constantly be changing batteries. Get yourself a good DC peak charger, it's much easier and usually only takes 15 minutes or so to recharge the flight pack.

LouW

It will work. You won’t gain anything though if you just use rechargeable AA cells. I had a ½A R/C model where I made the battery box easily accessible and I used alkaline batteries. The batteries would last for several weekends of flying. The problem is that there is no good way to measure the remaining life in the batteries. I would use them until I begun to lose confidence, then put fresh batteries in the airplane and use up the remaining life in the ones I removed in flashlights, etc. I was pretty conservative and there was always some service left. You can get quite a number of flights on alkaline batteries. However, I finally changed over to a ni-cad pack that I could charge before a days flying so I wouldn’t have to guess.

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

I agree. It can be done but probably isn't worth it. Standard AA batteries are NOT rechargeable, you'd have to buy NiCD's or NiMH's.

A better investment would be an inexpensive Peak Detection Cherger. You can find them for around $35.
Dennis-

Yub, yub, cmdr!

Or maybe a new garage when you put the unchargeable AA alkaline batteries in your charger and it blows up, right next to your glow fuel Just kidding

Combat Addict

Just buy another batt pack, charge em both up, and swap em out!

3DFanatic

My Feedback: (5)

I tried this once on the ground just to see. I thought if I could get 6v ouof 4 cells instead of 5 great! Capactiy is pathetic. Just 5-10 minutes of playing with the servos on the groun dropped the voltage down past what I fly at. I'd stick with regular flight packs. NiCd or NiMH 5 cells.

whstlngdeath

My Feedback: (15)

There was a crash at our field this past summer that looks like was caused by the "loose" AA cells in a holder. It's hard to tell since there wasn't much left, but vibration probably worked a cell loose and it fell out of the plastic holder. Also, he had spliced a battery connector to the holder, and that could've failed. I lost a plane this year to battery failure too. The Duraplane 40 has the landing gear screwed in from the outside into wood blocks inside the PVC fuse. They supply pointy wood screws for this and the tips poked through inside the fuse. My battery pack ended up having to be mounted right over the landing gear blocks for CG purposes, and one of the pointy tips of the screws slowly poked its way into one of the cells! It must've caused a short, because I lost complete radio control and just watched it go in. I quickly found the battery pack and it was so hot I dropped it back to the ground. I took the pack apart and found one cell completely melted and a little hole in the bottom of it. Since that day, I now run two receiver packs in my more expensive planes and won't have battery problems again.

Jesse