Hello all. I've been flying my Tower Trainer 40 for a few weeks now with my clubs instructor, its the RTF version, flies perfect, but Im getting interested in getting a higher capacity battery for the RX, and possible the TX as well. the RX battery in the plane now is 4.8v 500mah I believe. One of the batteries Im looking at from RadicalRC is 4.8v 1650mah. I was just curious if Its possible to charge this battery with the wall-wart that came with the original setup, it charges at 50mA according to the tower specs. If so, what kind of charge times can I expect?

and the million dollar question, should I just shell out the money for a cycler/charger?

Thanks! =)

Your charger should charge it fine. As for charge times with a 1650:

1650mAh/50mA = 33 hours.

You will not need to charge it for 33 hours every time you recharge it because you will most likely not be using the entire battery in a day. You just need to replace what you used after a day of flying.

You could get a cycler/charger. One nice thing about that would be that you can take the battery you have now, fly with it a couple of times, then throw it on the charger at the field for a fast charge and then keep flying. Then you do not need to add extra weight to your plane or buy a new battery.

Larger batteries are available for most Transmitters too. It depends on the TX itself. Check with one of the better battery vendors for more info.

I use 2500mAh in all my TX.

Allfat is talking about A fast field charger that is A 12 volt unit and charges up to peak very fast. Great thing to have along in your flight box. Maybe some of the newer ones have A cycler on them?? Mine is an older model and doesn't.
I do have A cycler/charger at home that is an outstanding unit.
Both my field charger and cycler I bought from Horizon, the Double Vision field charger and the Sure Cycle. Both just under 60 bucks. I have several other chargers at home too. My ACE digapace charges 6 batteries at one time from 100 to 1500 mAh.
These are just A couple of items that are out there so when you think it's time to upgrade do the search and see what you like.

If you go for the larger cacity batteries treat yourself to something like a Trition II or Triton Jr that will charge at 10 % of the pack's rating. In a pinch you can "boost" it and charge a pack in two hours (you have to program out the default 90 minutes on the Jr and that's a 45 second nuisance routine that shouldn't be necessary). $80 to $130 initial investment but worlds above the wall-wart charger that came with your tx.