I was cleaning out a closet yesterday, and came across my old remote control car that I had as a kid. I now live in Australia, but this thing was purchased in the US and is about 20 years old. Having spent enough time cleaning, and still an 8-year old kid at heart, I figured I’d try to get it to work, assuming it still does.
The car itself runs on 8 AA batteries, so no problem there, I think. But the controller seems to take a 9 volt battery. Okay, I thought: I’ll just find a normal 9 volt battery and that should work fine.
But after finding a normal-looking 9 volt battery, I’ve found it doesn’t fit. It appears to be marginally too small for the slot on the back of the controller, and doesn’t sit in place. The positive terminal appears to make contact with the metal in the controller, but the negative terminal doesn’t (there’s a gap of, say, 1 or 2 mm).
The battery I’m trying to use is just a standard 9 volt battery, like this.
So, onto the question: have 9 volt batteries changed in the 20 past years? Alternatively, are American 9 volt batteries a slightly different size to Australian 9 volt batteries?
Reading the label on the 9 volt battery that I was attempting to use, I see it’s a “9V Format-522”. A label on the controller next to where the battery is meant to go says “S-662”. I assume these are battery sizes? When did the world switch from 662 batteries to 522 batteries? The controller also says on it “006P 9V”, if that means anything. Googling for “662” 9 volt batteries reveals nothing, unfortunately.
I got over 8000 hits when I Googled “006P 9v battery”. According to the first two, a regular US 9-volt battery is also known as 006P.
Your best bet is to do what HD suggests and just put some folded cardboard or paper in one or more places to line-up the battery with the contacts. If that doesn’t work you can try moving the metal in the controller slightly for better contact. Be careful not to break anything.
Thanks for the replies. Yeah I was hoping for someone’s google-fu to reveal that 662 batteries where phased out 15 years ago and were replaced with 522 batteries, but you can still buy 662 batteries from 662batteryworld.com! No such luck unfortunately.
So I used paper behind the battery to add to its lengths, and paper underneath the left side of the battery, to raise the that half slightly, to hit the contact. And tape to keep it from falling out of place. And now the remote control turns on, which is good.
Except that the car doesn’t work. I’ve put in 8 AA batteries, and the “on” light doesn’t turn on, but the rear wheels start spinning, at least. But when placed on the ground, the car doesn’t move - presumably the wheels aren’t spinning quick enough. This is without me even touching the remote control, which doesn’t seem to do anything - I can’t steer, accelerate, brake. Don’t suppose anyone knows why it would do this?
So I’ll try tomorrow with 8 new AA batteries - don’t know the ages of the ones I’m using - and hope that work betters, but it looks this car could just be past its use-by date, unfortunately.
When the AA’s wear out you have the problem you mentioned with those old remote cars. New ones should have you driving it around. Sometimes you also have to adjust the receiving units radio frequency to make it run. Don’t worry about that unless the new batteries don’t fix the problem.
Only the battery in the remote is new - I’ll try new batteries tomorrow in the car. I would have thought, though, that even with slightly old batteries, I’d still be able to still steer, accelerate and brake. Instead, the wheels just turn on their own. 'Course, this thing has been sitting collecting dust at the back of a closet for 20 years, so I won’t be too surprised if things are wonky…
Edit: Just read Harmonious Discord’s response - okay, definitely new batteries it is.
The radio receiver relays are the first thing to stop working when the power is low. The usual default for for this cars is forward and they use the relay to allow reverse for the wheels. This is likely because they figure most people want the car to go forward and don’t want to waste current on the relay coil when they don’t have to.
The usual default is “stopped” - there will be one servo which operates the throttle, and another which operates the steering, each controlled by a separate receiver. There’s no difference as far as the car is concerned between forward and backward; to the servo it’s just “left” or “right”, depending on which direction it’s mounted in.
ETA: I think you’re thinking of the ones with just one button on the control where your options are “forward” and “reverse while turning left”, but IME any RC car which takes 8 batteries will have full directional controls.
Yes I am talking about the ones that don’t have stop. They also sometimes had a right or left turn button. The default being straight. I threw away a few of this type this year. remote control cars weren’t all that fun until true incremental steering and stop became standard.
Thanks again for the responses. Had meant to get batteries today, but didn’t get the chance - hopefully tomorrow or Friday.
Yep, this RC car has what I think you mean when you say full directional controls. One joystick-style control that moves left and right to steer in those directions, and another joystick-type thing that can be pushed up or down to move forwards or in reverse. Letting go of that control is used to come to a stop.
Okay, just got new batteries, and tried again. Still the same behaviour. The RC car goes forward by itself, even when the remote control is turned off. And the remote control doesn’t seem to have any effect - forward, reverse, left, right… none of the controls do anything at all. Is there anything I can do to fix this, or should I just throw this RC car out?
I’m sure you need to adjust the frequency which is done with a standard screw driver. It’s impossible for me to tell you how in this thread. Maybe a place were they discuss radio controlled cars is a better place for you to get help.
Why would the frequency need adjusting, if it has never been adjusted before? In fact this being such a cheap RC car ($US80 IIRC, 20 years ago though) I don’t think it’s even possible to adjust the frequency (isn’t that normally only possible on more expensive RC cars?). When the car last worked, the frequency of the car matched the frequency of the controller, so is there any reason why they would be out of sync having just sat in a box in a closet?
Regardless I googled for RC car sites/forums and came up pretty much empty-handed. I’m still open to suggestions from here though…
There were instructions with the cars telling you how to fine tune the frequency for the car receiver. This is done with a screw driver. Cars did need this done sometimes. The symptoms of this adjustment being needed was erratic or no control of the car. If I had found a simple online tutorial I’d have linked it. I’m betting you never used a radio that wasn’t digital or you’d know there can be frequency drift.
I’m not talking about changing to a different frequency band.
Guess I’m out of luck then, huh? Oh well, thanks anyway. I took the thing apart, looking for something that can be adjusted with a screw driver, but didn’t see anything obvious. Looks like it’s going in the trash.
Oh well, thanks anyway. I took the thing apart, looking for something that can be adjusted with a screw driver, but didn’t see anything obvious. Looks like it’s going in the trash.