I just ordered 8 1/3 AAA 210mah cells for $13 shipped to my house from batterieswholesale.com. And after frying the stock battery by using 6V straight into the car instead of 4.5V, I justed ordered the DuraTrax AC/DC Piranha Digital Peak Charger NiCd/NiMH from towerhobbies for about $50 ($58 shipped).

Now I just have to decide: 4 cells or 5? After taking apart my Speed Racer Spec 1, I am pretty confident I can fit 4 cells in the stock location by putting the cells together vertically side by side, kinda like a hump pack on laying on it's side instead of like the standard "stick" pack orientation laying on it's back. It'll be tight but I'm pretty sure I can make it work. If I have to, I'll cut the plastic battery holder to allow for more room.

I'll put some picks up later to show exactly what I'm thinking.

EDIT: Note below in later posts that the 1/4AAA batteries from http://www.batterieswholesale.com are actually closer to true 1/3AAA cells ! Keep this in mind when ordering from them!

This post has been edited by hobbycar: Jan 31 2003, 07:47 AM

That's too awesome. The run time should be great with those. Let us know how they work out. What a great price too!!

I have read that those 210 mah batteries are a tad to large to be placed in Bits / ZZ's stock ( but im sure they may fit the Epoch). Can someone confirm this ( perhaps this is a different 210 mah 1/3AAA battery froma different manafacturer lol)?

The batterieswholesale.com page indicates that Bit Char-G/Microsizer batteries are single 1/4 AAA size cells while Epoch batteries are said to be 3 1/3 AAA size cells put together into one pack.

EDIT: Note below the the Epoch batteries do in fact use 1/3 AAA size cells like Bit Char-Gs. But http://www.batterieswholesale.com 's 1/4AAA are closer to a true "1/3AAA" size.

This post has been edited by hobbycar: Jan 31 2003, 07:49 AM

Interesting...my local battery specialist has been ordering 120mah nimh batteries as "1/3 AAA" and has been receiving them. On the other hand he has attempted ordering 1/3 AAA 150 nimh and cant seem to locate them.

Regardless....thanks for the info...unfortunate as it may be

I've seen a couple references to these batteries but didn't know where to them. Thanks for the link!

Well the battery pack for my Epoch Spec 1 Speed Racer was not 3 1/3 AAA cells as reported elsewhere because the 3 1/3 AAA cells I got from http://www.batterieswholesale.com are definately bigger . The stock battery pack is made up of 3 1/4AAA cells.

In fact 3 1/3 AAA cells put together side by side is the same size as 4 1/4 AAA cells in a stick pack (which makes sense if you are good at fractions ). See the attached pic.

So I just put three of the cells together so I'll have a 3.6V 210mah pack instead of the stock 3.6V 120mah pack.

EDIT: see my later post. After more research I have discovered that http://www.batterieswholesale.com 's 1/4AAA size cells are actually 1/3AAA size and their 1/3AAA are more like 1/2AAA size.

This post has been edited by hobbycar: Jan 31 2003, 07:50 AM

Oops...forgot the pic. (Notice the "toasted" stock battery that I melted putting 6V directly to it).

This post has been edited by hobbycar: Jan 29 2003, 07:26 PM

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Here's the batteries installed. It's kinda hard to see because I wrapped it in black electrical tape (didn't have time to get good shrink wrap) but it's in there. I removed the "battery holder" and it is in on a slight angle. The fit is kinda tight but that's good because it's not going anywhere. If/when I get the "true" 1/3AAA size cells I think I could fit 4-5 cells under the hood no problem.

This post has been edited by hobbycar: Jan 31 2003, 07:51 AM

Can you believe I forgot the pic again lol (and edit won't let me add a pic to a post that doesn't already have one).

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And here it is happily being charged by my DuraTrax AC/DC Piranha Digital Peak Charger

(Note from self: don't forget to add pic )

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Well the car has been running for over 38 minutes and it's still going strong. I'd keep going but I've got to get some sleep.

Highly recommend the Peak Charger and 3 1/3 AAA 210mAh batteries mod (just make sure you're good at soldering batteries).

Can you compare those batts to a regular AAA? They look like they're 1/2 AAA to me.

BTW, I charge 2 cell cars with a four cell charger

HC, rotating the batteries 90 degrees was a creative solution!

After looking closely I noticed you flipped the middle battery to minimize the length of of wire necessary to connect the positive side of one battery to the negative side of the other battery.

The batteries don't come with the flat metal (tin?) strip to solder to. Did you substitute a wire or have you found a place to get the strips at?

OTP, yeah they seemed a little big for 1/3 AAA size cells. I'll take some more comparison pics with a normal AAA battery when I get home.

slagrec1, thanks. If you think that was creative, wait until I show how to fit 4 or even 5 1/4 AAA cells in Spec 1 - all under the hood :-)

As far as the flipped configuration, I can't take any credit for that as it has been a standard configuration in making battery packs for awhile. Here is an article in RC Car Action showing how to make battery packs for bigger RCs (e.g. 1/10).

For the metal strips I found some small metal pieces from a picture hanging kit that I cut to fit. It measured a closed circuit on the Ohm Meter so it was good enough for me. I just sanded it a little so the solder would stick to it a little better.