sburns

Hey gang

New to the forum. Use to race off road way back in the day 80's and early 90's. I've 3 cars I recently re-aquired which were left at my parents. I have them now.
They are
Losi JRx2
SuperDog Figther
and The Fox.

I'd post photos but still building my forum privileges.
I hope this is ok to ask in this thread but any idea of how much these might be worth?

Thanks!

Unknown Driver

Your best bet is to checkout ebay and facebook marketplace. That Yokomo is easily worth the most, then the Losi, then the Tamiya.

ChocoTaco73

iTrader: (3)

There are also various Losi, Yokomo and Tamiya groups on Facebook which could come in handy if you have questions.

sburns

I never thought about FB groups, I will check that out now. Thanks!

sburns

Should I even attempt to turn them on or charge the batteries?

I know with some vintage computers which have sat for years the capacitors may have gone bad.
The cars all have novak controllers etc.
(wish I could post pics, not yet it seems)

Thanks for the input so far!

Momo5

iTrader: (21)

You won't do any damage by putting a battery in. If they work, Great! If not, they werent going to work anyways...

Black306

With my vintage cars, I tried to run as many original electronics as possible. Like my RC10LSS has a brushed motor used back when I was racing, Novak ESC, and Futaba servo. Only thing I updated was the radio/receiver. Have an old Futaba Magnum PCM 1024. Problem is that it’s susceptible to radio interference and I REALLY didn’t want anything to happen to that car. So, I bought a modern, budget Futaba (capable of running multiple cars) and multiple receivers for each of my vintage cars so I don’t worry about interference.

For my LXT and Dominator, I did buy modern budget ESCs cause the originals were long gone. They still have their motors and servos though.

For the batteries, I didn’t bother trying to charge old NiCads. (Although I did dig up a couple Tekin chargers recently. I might try charging the batteries.) Instead, I made adapter plates for Lipos. This is an example for my Dominator. (My RC10LSS has something similar)

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4755721

Just have to be careful to not run down the batteries too much. Old ESCs don’t have voltage cutoffs, or cutoffs set for lipos, like modern ESCs.

jsr555

iTrader: (18)

Speaking of old batteries, I just found some new old stock 3000 and 3300 Nimh that I plan to build for my HPI Pro 3's. Not sure if they'll take a charge but they will look good

Black306

Just for the heck of it, I checked for voltage and 5 out of 6 packs still had ~2.4V. So I threw one of them on a charger (modern one, not an old Tekin) and it took a charge! Only charged it at 1A for ~40mins, so it wasn’t a full charge, but it did light up a 12v automotive bulb well. (Old school discharge fixture ) Might have to try running a few cycles threw them and see what kind of capacity is left. These batteries haven’t been charged in 20+ years.

RC10_goldNwhite

Back in my NiCD and NiMH Days I used to store the batteries at absolute 0 volts. This was how I prevented memory from forming in a cell, and my racing packs lasted years.
It was quite the process:

1. Fast discharge with multiple automotive bulbs
2. slower discharge on a smaller tray with a single automotive bulb
3. slowest discharge, in a tray that took each individual cell down to 0 using a small LED and a resistor (may be able to dig these things out of my really old box of stuff for particulars, however I remember they were made by trinity)
4. Once each cell in a pack registered at 0.000 volts I would short the entire pack with a tiny gauge wire (28-30 ga)

That is how they were stored. I never had any problems with them and always charged very well, and ran near perfect. This may work on the older cells if you are having problems getting them to hold a decent charge.

Also sorry for bringing a post back from the dead.