I got my boy a RC Jeep Rockcrawler.

Settle down, we have a F150 too.....

The Jeep charged for the initial 18 hour minimum, the kids played with it until it died.

Plugged it in overnight, went to play, start-stop, start-stop.

I pulled the battery, getting 12.2 volts.

Checked the battery in the controller, 9.1 volts.

Pulled the cover and no wires appear to be loose, in either the controller or the Jeep itself.

It acts just like the smaller version does when it's low on juice, they are by the same manufacturer.

So two questions....

1.) Even if a 12v battery is low, could it read out at 12 + volts?

2.) Customer service says some chargers are known to be troublesome, so I was going to hook my trickle charger on it. It has a 6v and 12v setting. Could I use this?

Thanks,
Blair

 

It's possible the battery has a problem. 12.2 may just be a "surface charge". Install it, run it and then check the battery voltage. Since you said it was a RC, is the battery a NI-CAD? If so, DON'T use a regular battery charger. Don't over amp charge the battery. If you do, it may burn it out or it may explode. Don't charge it at a higher rate the orginal charger.

The OEM charger may be under charging the battery. It could show 12.2 volts, but have no amps to run the motor

.

 

Check the voltage on the battery while it's charging. The voltage should be about 10%-15% higher than the standard battery voltage. When you charge a battery it acts like a resistor. You up the voltage to overcome this resistence and allow current to flow the opposite direction from what the battery wants, (through the positive). If the voltage isn't high enough on the charger, the voltage/charge on the battery will start to equilize before it ramps up to full charge. It'll still measure full voltage with no load, (in this case I assume around 12V), but under load it'll dump quickly - like drop from 12V to 10V quickly and stay there a while before full dump. I'd check your charger. Like Wildcard said, don't use a regular battery charger. I've blown NiCads, it's like a shotgun shell going off. Check your voltage and if it's not over, call customer service.

If your charge voltage is OK, another thought might be a weak cell. Again, a battery under charge is like a resistor. Every battery has a slightly different resistance. This makes them all a little different in how much charge they can take and at what rate. Batteries come from the factory loose in big cases. For most consumer items that take battery packs like cordless phones and RC cars, ect, they just pull the batteries out of the box and solder them into pack. In the better RC stores you'll see batteries, both pack and loose form, that have been 'matched'. In other words someone has taken the batteries out of the case and tested each one individually. Then matched the batteries with the closest numbers for a pack. That way all the cells in the pack will charge about the same, discharge about the same and last about the same amount of charging cycles. The cells out of the case that have the best numbers demand the highest dollars. Not saying the cheaper matched sets are bad, they are much better than just a standard pack for quality. A battery pack is only as strong as it's weakest cell. You have one cell that's weak, the whole pack will act weak. Does this make sense?

Welcome to RC...

 

Betcha this problem wouldn't have happened if you had purchased an RC Ford Truck.

 

Toy RC equipment usually have several batteries. Sometimes there is a battery for the radio control in the vehicle in addition to the power battery. The hand held control will also have a battery.

 

Is that a 'New Bright' RC truck ?

I have 3 of them and they all work great

2 Ford Bigfoots (different scales)
1 Ford Mustang .

I find that using rechargeable AA's in both the Truck & the controls works better than Duracell or Bunny Batteries.

Here's the one I got for $10.00 complete.
It has a crack on the body.

 

Is this a 1/6 scale Nylint Jeep ( orange and blue body). If it is the battery is bad and is a common problem with these trucks. A great source of information about these is at www.rccrawler.com just go to the 1/6 nylint forum and be amazed at all the mods done to these Jeeps.

 

First, thanks for all the great replies.

Sierraben, I got one of the Ford F350's from Radio shack and it's very cool. But I got problems there too......


Darkhorse,

Yea man!!! I couldn't remember the name here at work. My boy got a 1:18 scale at Christmas, what a badass little toy.

We were waiting for the prices to drop on the 1:6, now they are clearing out for sometimes $25 to $45 around here. Most Walmart's have sold out weeks ago.

Thanks for the heads up on the site, I'll head over there and start reading.

They sell the big 12v batterys at Radio Shack.

Might head over and get one.

 

UPDATE:

Got a new 12v, 4.6amp gel-cell from the hobby store.

Runs the RC great.

Apparently, there is a bad batch of the 12v batteries are bad from the manufactorer.

Thanks again,
Blair

 

If you want some real fun check out the real RC cars and trucks they have at a good hobby store and ask about local tracks. It can run some bucks but racing is a whole lot more fun than tooling around in the back yard.

p.s. -Don't embarrass yourself and take a toy RC car/truck to a track...