Newbie battery run time Q

[shooter902]

Hi Gang..Just picked up the SE silver Mustang for christmas. Went out last night and got the SE upgrade kit and a 3v battery and a couple of blue LED running lights and installed them (looks pretty cool in the dark)

But, I have a question about run time. I have the NX 34,000 motor and the green gear set in the car. I'm only getting a minute and a half at BEST with new batteries in the controller. That seems awefully short to me? Is that about right?

Thanx guys

Shooter

[shooter902]

I timed it...I'm only getting 40 secs..That can't be right can it??


Thax again

Shooter

Mine was exactly like yours except shorter
run time. I did the EZ SE ADAPTER PLUG MOD and it gives you a lot more run time.
Also I think leaving your SE on is bad to your run time. ANd if there is not enuf milla amps in te batterie the run time will suck.

[kanegs]

First make sure everything is clean. Dust, hair, etc. will slow things down and kill battery life. Also unplug the SE lights (Your 3V running lights are also adding extra weight and can't be helping things).

You can try increasing your battery charge. When the light goes green, turn off the controller an turn it back on again and it will charge the battery some more.

Don't go crazy overcharging, but one or two extra charging cycles hasn't hurt anything on mine, and seems to make it run longer.

I don't have the NX engine so I can't give you a comparable run-time to your setup.

Jeff

[cheesehead]

What is the battery clip mod?
I would go LiPoly and ditch the headlights, as a single cheap 1200 mah Li-Ion (6.00 for two at allelectronics.com, although you will need a 6.00 charger to go with it and some 3.2 volt cutoff Zener diodes) will give 3x the voltage of a 800 mah AAA, with a slightly longer run time.
In addition-the stock batteries are VERY weak, so a set of 2 200 MAH cells (1 internal replacing the 2 70mah cells, 1 external) would give 3x the run time.
Of course, a FET mod by microamps (13.00 plus absurd shipping, as the guy lives in australia) will increase performance and increase runtime (if you run it at 1/3 the maximum, of course-FET's make the ZZSE a ROCKET).
Alternately, go disposable and get a CR3 (is that right?) 3 volt Lithium camera cell. Sure, they're about 4.00 each in 3-packs, but an hour of runtime is worth it. And best of all, they should fit in the normal battery space!

[clxfiles]

I had the same prob as you and was very concerned that the batteries in the SE were just worthless and I'd have to figure out how to get new batts. That all changed when I started using an old peak charger that I had to charge them. Now my stock batts give me about 7-10 mins on my stock SE chassis and about 15-20 on my stock ZZ chassis. On my Micro_amps mosfet modded SE chassis I can get anywhere between 10-20 min. I am running the 34,000 NX motor with the red gears on that one. The runtimes variation depends at what amps I charge them at. .1 amps takes longer to charge but gives the most runtime whereas .5 amps only takes about 7 minutes to charge but I get the least runtime.

My advice to you right now would be to do as Kanegs suggested earlier and double, triple and at most quadruple charge your car with the stock setup and new triple As. If you have the opportunity to do one of the many charger mods listed in the forum, I'm sure you will get drastic results in terms of runtime.

I don't know of anyone that has successfully added another battery pack or cell, nor do I know of anyone that has done a Li-Poly on the SE. The chassis setup doesn't have that much space. (The only person I heard of was bdebde) If you did more cells without the mosfet mod, do it in parallel for runtime, since the pcb limits the volts that gets to the motor negating any effect a series connection would give.