Originally Posted by
vMaster
Hi all, I will be getting my 2 sons 2WD Traxxas Stampedes for Christmas. I have had nitro in the past, but never electric and don't, as much research as I have done thus far, quite know what battery I need to be getting. I have pretty much narrowed it down to either An 8.4V 7 cell 5000mAh NiMH or a 7.4V 5800mAh 2 cell 20C or 25C. Traxxas or Venom were the 2 I've been thinking about. I am a total newb when it comes to electric. I can't seem to find the info I need as far as general run times, performance in these trucks, etc. Thanks in advance for any help!
Edit: Also, I was thinking about getting the Venom Pro Quad 100W X4 AC/DC 7-amp 4-port charger, has anyone used this? If yes how do you like it?
You definitely want to go with with the 2S Lipo over the NiMh. However, here is the thing about Traxxas. A bunch of guys in my flying club have Traxxas vehicles. Traxxas seems to have a proprietary connector on their batteries that includes a third wire for balance. Most standard batteries have two different connectors; one for power and another for balancing. This video shows the situation
So without some adapters, you won't be able to balance charge a Traxxas battery on the Venom charger. The Traxxas chargers may be underpowered and take a long time to charge a 5800mAh . Even 100W Venom is a bit underpowered for a 5800mAh size battery. It will just take longer to charge than a charger with more power/current. I thnk 200Watts is a good size for 2S 5000-6000 mAh batteries.
This is all probably more than you wanted to hear but there is are some traps out there and some stuff to learn about batteries, connectors, and chargers.
If it were me, I would change the connector on the ESC to something more standard and then use a battery with the mating connector. There are numerous connector choices. Deans is popular with cars. Maybe also XT60. I have all my stuff on EC3 or EC5. But I am comfortable with soldering so changing connectors is not a big deal for me.