Need to buy chargers and batteries for club!?!?

[Twopu]

As I mentioned on another post, I plan on starting an rc car club at school. Given $1000 as my budget, I was leaning towards purchasing 5 Rustlers. I'll have about $300 dollars for batteries, chargers, and accessories. I would like to get 10 batteries and 2 chargers but don't really know what direction I should go. Each car will probably run 3-4 times. I was going to go with NiCd but someone mentioned that they don't handle multiple charges well in a day and that they don't run as long as NiMH. Now if I go NiMH the cost per battery goes up and I will have to get a more expensive charger to handle the NiMH. Can someone please help me with this? The cars need to run as long as possible (obvious within reason) and handle the abuse of beginners running multiple times.

Thanks

[kurrz]

I run my nicads multiple times in a day. I think it's actually nimh's that need a substantial rest period before recharging.

[^j!nx^]

If you deside to go the NiMH route buy the GP3300 NiMHs from radioshack. they are like 25$ a pack and very well worth every penny

[unimog404]

With $300 left I would go for the venom 3000mah nimh batteries (http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHUJ9&P=ML) and the Duratrax piranha charger (http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCLD5&P=M)

The venom batteries are rated to take up to 3 charge/discharge cycles per day and the piranha charger will charge each battery in an hour.

[highroller]

The GP3300 are being offered on some sites at discount prices, also try getting in touch directly with some of the battery matching companies (Pro Match, Hefty, Hyperform Racing etc) explain your potiential needs. Some may offer you a better deal by buying in a large quanity. Most of the new chargers are NiMH compatible, some newer versions have features installed for charging Lipo cells. It depends on whether you want AC/DC or DC and what rates you want to be charging at. My favorite is the Tekin 112A DC (124-130 online price range) charger which can be run off the 112C AC other brand may have some charging limits but should work fine. Research and compare chargers that are in your price range.
You could probably get by using two packs in each vehicle with a spare for practice or in case one of the other packs hasn't had sufficient time to cool between charge cycles. Also invest in a pack maintenance items, something like bulbs to discharge the packs after use and something that will equalize the pack before charging (pack equalize help discharge any residual voltage allowing most cells to charge better). You could use a discharge resistor (sold by Trinity) which is the least expensive route.
Nicad can be used twice, sometimes three times in one days but like in the case of NIMH you need to give adaquate time to allow cells to cool. Another thing that happens will multiple uses, while cells may pick up some punch, runtime decreases.