New to rc cars and forum questions about traxxas slash 4x4

Hello I am new to the hobby and picked up a new traxxas slash 4x4 yesterday for my son (self lol). Any tips on battery maintenance charging ect would be appreciated. Here's my Main question though....after purchasing the truck and quick charger and an Orion 4500 mah battery (with adapter to traxxas connector) I have been getting varying run times and power levels. When I ran the truck today the adapter and battery connector on the Orion battery completely melted down and almost caught fire. So I took the battery back and exchanged for a racers edge 5000mah. No problem right? Well I get it home and the truck would not run. So I take it back to the shop and apparently it also fried the speed control module. Has anyone had this happen to them. Did I make a big noob mistake that would cause this? They replaces it free of charge but I still have varying run times and power levels with new battery and module. What am I doing here lol. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. And if I am going about this the wrong way on the forum please don't flame me

Well theres many ways. 1 it was in lipo mode but most of the time it will slow doen and flash, the stock plug adapter with the white plug then the traxxas cooks real easy and ruins the plugs. Also over heating, its not good to run a 5000 or 4500 pack dead and cycle and go again its hard on both battery anc esc/motor. No its not a noob thing to do its just inpatients gets the best of you. Best thing to do is get a good charger that will do lipos and all(you will thank me later) and you can charge choosing ur amps. For example if its a 4500 charge at 4.5 amp, 5000 charge at 5.0 amp, 3200 at 3.2 amp MAX. This wil not overload battery and make it last longest life. Also check temp on esc and motor with heat gun. You never want motor over 160 and esc over 140ish. Do you correct gearing for what ur running for, traxxas includes a extra pinion and tells you what each are for. Also charge battery full everytime or you wont get the power or runtime average everytime. Best bet is solder on traxxas plugs to battery or get a venom pack that already has traxxas plugs on it or a battery that already uses traxxas plugs. Also for charger a venom pro charger is great for around a 100.

if the traxxas vxl esc had thermal shutdown then maybe thats why you get varying run time.

also when i got a venom lipo there was a sheet of paper that told me that i need to cycle the battery like 10 times to get full performance.

get rid of the adapters, go all traxxas or deans. i hear the white tamiya plugs can loose up to 12% of power
nimh batt will varying performance depending on how long the set after charge, how many cycles they have run, and also memory effect.
heres novaks thoughts on nimh care [URL="http://www.teamnovak.com/download/instructions/pdfs/bat_care_sheet.pdf"]http://www.teamnovak.com/download/instructions/pdfs/bat_care_sheet.pdf[/URL]

if your power and run times are varrying by A LOT i would check the batteries because that shouldnt happen. but NIMH batteries over the course of the run they get weaker. but lipos tend to hold there "voltage" longer so they are more powerfull. i would take it off of lipo mode because thats the way they come (when you turn it on the light on the esc is green) for nimhs it needs to be red. to change the battery type mode. turn on the truck let it all get situated then press and hold the blue button on the esc till it makes a little beeping sounds and the light changes from red-green/green-red.....now about the connectors its just a beginner thing when i got my first lipo and brushless combo idk how to solder so i got the adapter because the esc had the white connectors so after afew runs the white connector melted together and luckily i stop running it before it got to bad because what i think happend to you is that when it melted the terminals touched causing the esc to short out. (shit happens) but switch to traxxas connectors/deans/EC5's all great connectors and you will notice a small increase in power as well. hope this helps :)

Back when GM 20s where the big thing think 05 ish we would take them off new units all day. 5-10 miles on them. I bought a set of tires/wheels for 300 my cost when I needed new tires. Was cheaper to get tires and wheels than just tires.