Glow plug Batt.

Yes, under the load a glow plug puts on them the voltage is about the same as a freshly charged Ni-Cd. That is all we ever used before Ni-Cds.

Red S. Red's R/C Battery Clinic

Yup. Its what we used before nicads. I remember using those big round ones like tall cans of beer that had two terminals with fingernuts to ignite my old Cox .049 engines.

I used to buy them for 75 cents...

rj

To get enough current (3-4 amps)using D-cells (flashlight size), you may need to wire 4 (or more) cells in parallel. Radio Shack may be able to provide an appropriately wired, battery holder.

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good grief ... I thought was the only one old nuff to remember those days! 8-)

Bruce

"aa2dd" wrote

Being of inquisitive nature, growing up, I had a Cox battery, and took it apart when it went dead.

This was around '68, and the battery was rectangular, with screw down terminals on top.

All I found inside was (I think- it has been a while) 3 or 4 C batteries with jumpers soldered in parallel. I was surprised.

They were D size. Same size battery came in 6 volts with the four cells wired in series.

Red S. Red's R/C Battery Clinic

Almost every home had a couple wired in parallel in the cellar somewhere- for the telephone. You could "borrow" one of them for your modeling when needed and the phone company never knew the difference.

Red S. Red's R/C Battery Clinic

"Red Scholefield" > wrote

That must have been before my time. '58 was when I came into the world.

How often would these batteries need to be changed? Were they just for back-up?

Red being as old as the mountains, you can bet they were used for those old hand cranky things where you needed to shout to Mabel who would hook you up with your best buddy to discuss flying your galloping ghost radio control plane or your latest escapement free-flight model. Think Bleriot.

-- Ray

Red,

You're giving your age away when you answer like that.

EarlOfTroy AMA 40329

Red Scholefield wrote:

I must have gone through a hundred of those things. They didn't last worth squat, and went dead real fast. I finally got sick of batteries that would not clear a fouled glow plug, and didn't last. I bought a 12V lead-acid gel battery - 7 amp hour rating. Built a simply power supply using a 317T driving a 2n3055. Now I can adjust voltage from 1 to 3 volts or so. And surprise surprise - those hard to start engines fire right up! All these years I've cursed those little hard starting cox engines, and all along it was those crappy batteries.

Well, I was a mere lad at the time...

LOL

What did I tell you??

Man, I am falling off my chair here for real. Haven't laughed so hard in years. Can hardly see the screen to type this.

Stop it, Red. It hurts.

-- Ray

Ook, You're about 50 years ahead of the times. In my time they were called doorbell batteries cuz they made you doorbell ring :-). There were no 12V batteries then and positively no gel cells.. I'm talking U-Control in the

Hey Earl, We don't *give* our age away. Occasionally we *offer* it as a token of wisdom and friendship. We paid for it and we treasure it. ;-))

Sorry, you got me by a few years. I didn't hit the CL circuit until the early 70's, when I was a teenager. I think I missed the glory days of the hobby by a few years, unfortunately - it was on it's way out when I hit my peak. In the early 80's I used to go down the street to the armory parking lot every saturday morning and fly. The neighborhood kids would come and watch, and sometimes help .

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hmmmmmmm boy Red, your comments bring back memories. I remember when I was "YOUNGER" when you made a phone call, you rang them up by cranking out the ring. say two longs and three shorts! those were long gone days when we lived in the boonies!!