New Zipzaps CARS! From Pixar

[jdbugman]

I poped one on my hobbie peak charger and turned it down to .2 amps. it charged for 6 min and just bairly warmed up the cells. I was BLOWN AWAY. I added the wide tires in the rear and put sugar water down on the driveway and i was still able to get this little guy to spin out.

and i ran it for what seemed like forever i figure 5 mins.

it started to rain so i havent got a chance to time or video it yet.

way to go RS

[hschnark]

You'r doing well. The most I can get out of my latest ZZ SE is about 8 feet on a charge. Its an Aston Martin DB5 chassis with an Escalade body, lights and music. Any easy way to change out the battery or should I just take it back?
Thanks
Hugo

[Gamma Burst]

I was initially running the lights, but was barely able to get 10 laps in. After unplugging the lights I got a few more.

I have only been chagring it once with the controller. I will check the voltage of the batteries after this charge and see if it is near 2.4V. Maybe it will take a couple of charges to get it up to max. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Azimov]

You'r doing well. The most I can get out of my latest ZZ SE is about 8 feet on a charge. Its am Aston Martin DB5 chassis with an Escalade body, lights and music. Any easy way to change out the battery or should I just take it back?

He's talking about charging with a peak charger. This fills the battery slowly so it gets a full charge. The standard TX charger is a quick charger that doesn't even fill the internal battery by half.
When you say you have the newer chassis that comes with the DB5, then I assume you'd have good run times, but you also mention music, so I'm thinking you've added some circuitry to the chassis that is drawing a lot of juice. I don't think you have a reason to take it back if this is the case. You just need to add another battery in parallel to make up for what your music circuit is using. If your music circuit is hooked to another battery seperate from the internal one, then I'd check the batteries in the controller before exchanging it as they may be to weak to give an ample charge. You shouldn't need to replace the battery in a new chassis.

I would start double charging that battery and I bet it does better. The problem with this is like with the zzmt. When the steering peaks out, the steering motor doesn't shut off it's signal so it's drawing the most current whenever you're holding a turn. I'm betting on a track with a lot of turns that this will really affect your battery life.


My plan is to wait until after the movie is long over so they sell these really cheap, as they did the Hulk and Spiderman trucks before any of the others. Then i'm-a get me a few



as for the batteries in the SE..... that's a tough one. I found replacements for the original zz's and have a ton of them, but i never found a place to sell the smaller ones used the SE.

[hschnark]

The lights & music are standard on the ZZ SE Cadillac Escalade Body Kit (600-7548) and are not an add on. I disconnected the sound & lights and now I'm getting ~ 22.5 feet per charge which still seems very poor. I'll test the other Escalade body on a ZZ SE Ford GT chassis for comparison.

This is my third ZZ SE DB5 and the second one that has given me trouble. RS exchanged the second one for this one after it quit completely after about 30 seconds. The first one I bought does not seem to have any problems - yet.

The slow charger is interesting - tell me more.

Thanks,
Hugo

[Azimov]

The lights & music are standard on the ZZ SE Cadillac Escalade Body Kit (600-7548) and are not an add on.

Interesting, I didn't know about this body kit. I would assume then that the factory added circuit is not the problem, considering that you've tested the chassis with this circuit unplugged.

This is my third ZZ SE DB5 and the second one that has given me trouble. RS exchanged the second one for this one after it quit completely after about 30 seconds.

I've never encountered this problem in a new chassis. Especially twice. I have experienced the same symptoms, but always due to low batteries in the controller/charger.

The slow charger is interesting - tell me more.

Do a search for "peak charger" and you should find loads of info.
The basic idea is that a peak charger trickle charges these tiny internal batteries rather than quick charging them with the controller charger. The peak charger senses when the battery is almost full and cuts the juice accordingly to assure maximum fillup in the battery.
The engineers that came up with these little micro cars way back assumed that the quickest possible charge was needed for marketing purposes. That is, they can print "One minute charge and run for 5 minutes". The battery inside of an SE is 2.4 VDC @ around 70 Ma. In order to fill this battery to the rim with juice, you need to charge it for one hour at 2.4VDC @70Ma and you'll get roughly half an hour of run time. But, the marketing guys know that no one, especially kiddies, are gonna wait an hour to run one of these things. So, they put 4 batteries in the charger, that equals 6VDC @ around one Amp. Way to high for the batteries to take it. So, they limit the charge tiime to 45 seconds to one minute. This dumps a small amount of charge into the bottom of the battery very quickly so patience is not taxed, and keeps the battery from exploding. But the capacity of the battery is never filled and you are using less than half it's current (capacitance) volume.

[hschnark]

Thanks for the information. I knew I shouldn’t have been napping during those EE lectures but that was back in the slide rule days and we didn’t have none of this solid state stuff anyway. Actually, one oriental kid was still using an abacus - seemed to work most of the time.
I’ll start by replacing the charger batteries and then try a “peak charger” search.
Would rewiring one of my SE chargers for 3 VDC slow down the process and fill the batteries up?
Thanks,
Hugo

Slide rules are hilarious..... For my EE degree/classes, all we do is throw the numbers in a TI-89 or use Matlab. We actually refer to the 89 as "Jesus."

"What's the answer to this set of 6 simultanius equations? Let's ask Jesus."

Jesus says:

X= 3 + j5
Y = 5.4893
Z = 4.7 E-9
T = 6.34 + j.433
R = 0

[jdbugman]

this is sooo off topic but...

I have a ti89 and we used it for everything. we used to make programs that would just ask you for what info you had and what you needed. then you entered the numbers and it would throw up the answer.

I love that thing. I am going to look for mine tonight. I havent used that for years.

[hschnark]

FYI - I tested the other Escalade body on a ZZ SE Ford GT chassis with a 16,000 RPM motor and got a total running time of 9 minutes and 16 seconds on one charge with the lights and sound on.

NO, I wouldn't believe it either. This is with the old batteries in the charger.

This compares with 20 seconds for the ZZ SE DB5 chassis, 21,500 RPM motor and an Escalade body with lights and sound. I think the DB5 is sick right out of the box - again.

Hugo

[Azimov]

I think the DB5 is sick right out of the box - again.

Weird. Well, that means the problem is indeed the internal battery, or a component problem on the PCB. I'd bet on the battery at this point. If you have a spare SE battery lying around you could try swapping it out.
EDIT: Try a different motor in the DB5. Maybe the one from the Ford GT that did so well. Was thinking maybe the motor is pulling to much juice, but I doubt it.

[hschnark]

I have a bunch of motors but no spare batteries. I also have three more ZZ SE's so I think I'll do some running time tests on those just for fun.
The DB5 seemed to do a little better a while back with a 10,000 RPM motor so maybe I should try one of my spare 16,000 RPM motors.
Hugo

The batteries do seem to go bad, which is unfortunate. Testing the other cars will atleast let you isolate the problem.

[hschnark]

Just an FYI update.

1 st DB5 (600-7081). Running well (so far) with a very heavy custom body.

Orange Mustang (600-7054). Ran for 24 minutes on one charge with no lights.

Blue Ford GT (600-7051). Ran for 9 minutes & 17 seconds on one charge with a Cadillac Escalade body with lights and sound connected.

Blue Mustang (600-7055). Crapped out after about 5 minutes of running and is not charging properly.

2 nd DB5 (600-7081). Crapped out after about 30 seconds of running and was exchanged for 3 rd DB5.

3 rd DB5 (600-7081). The most I can get out of one charge is ~ 19 seconds without lights.

Hugo