Hi Guys,

First post, I have a question regarding the battery that comes with the RC FJ Cruiser.

This thing is powerful, and the truck is awesome, however the battery drains within 20-30 mins and takes forever to re-charge.

I was thinking of getting a better battery and wanted to make sure I was getting something that is compatible with this truck without any modifications.

Will this battery work?
http://www.batteryjunction.com/t1et-wmh9-6sc3300-s.html

If so, what kind of performance gains will I see with the truck? Will it go faster, have more power?

And what type of battery performance will I see? Will the battery last longer?

I am also thinking of getting a rapid charger from Radio Shack, in fact here is a link to it - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2...47&parentPage=family

Will this charger work with that battery?

Is this a good setup? I want to get some more play time with my truck , plus boost the charging times down from the 4 hours its been taking.

Any suggestions?

Thanks Much,

Chris

Welcome to the forum Chris and the New Bright tinkering bug!

The batteries that come with the NB trucks are usually NiCd....it's kind of a dying breed of battery. The next generation NiMH is the one your looking for. This type of battery doesn't have memory like the NiCd. So the life of the battery is usually longer overall and the battery is usually charged to it's max capacity if a smart charger is used to charge it, giving you consistent run times. That isn't a terrible price for that new battery and you should notice some performance increase with it as well. Faster acceleration and higher top speeds. The run times will vary with the usage type and environment. Rug vs pavement etc. The harder the load on the motors the faster you will drain your batteries, but generally you will notice longer run times over the stock batteries. Personally I would seek out another solution for the charger & batteries but that is your call. The reason behind my distaste for the charger is your restricted to the type of connector you can use on your battery packs should you invest in different connector types with your growing RC collection.

I'm not real familiar with the fj cruiser connector types so you might need to invest in new connectors and solder on some new battery leads to your ckt board to connect your battery to. The 9.6 battery pack that came with my 1:6 jeep was proprietary to New Bright vehicles so I needed to do that very thing to adapt new other than New Bright batteries. Which also led to relocating the battery pack on the vehicle as it didn't fit in the stock location any more.

Here is a charger with two battery packs for the same exact money as the two products you chose. I use this charger and so far so good. It also comes with ways of connecting different battery connector types. So it's flexible. battery pack & charger
As an added bonus you'll get longer run times and an extra battery pack in the process...a much wiser choice for your hard earned $$.

Hope it helps. Good luck.

Wayne - Is the FJ's battery compartment suited to straight SubC style battery packs as well? If this is the case this would be a no brainer for me. The Tenergy batteries have a good reputation for their discharge ratings. Meaning they are pretty much what they advertise and are built well for relatively short money.