wingman2

Hi guys,

I am in the market to buy some new race packs and chargers. Before I go out and get 5x packs of IB's, or EP's or similar, and chargers for them, what are the merits of going to LiPo?

I know IB's have had a tough time recently with regards to life expectancy, but I don't know enough about LiPo's to make the change. What are the 'balancer's' for? How long do they take to charge? Why do I see a burn bag for them (never seen that for IB's, etc!)?

I just want to know the merits of LiPo's before making the change to them!

I hope that all makes sense guys and I look forward to reading your replies.

All the best,

Chris.

l337

iTrader: (21)

lighter, easier to look after, greater capacity(longer run times) and similar speed.

"LiPo-Balancers eliminate the problem of cell imbalance, allowing your valueable LiPo packs to reach their maximum life span.
Traditional LiPo protection circuits simply terminate the charge when one cell goes above 4.25 Volts. This gradually reduces pack
capacity because the imbalance slowly increases with each cycle. LiPo Balancers allow the charging process to continue until ALL
cells have reached 4.20V while still protecting each cell from overvoltage."

source: http://www.rcmodels.org/csm/lipoman.PDF

Similar time to nimh

Safety precaution, some have "blown up", sort of like all those 4200's that did

Foxxrocket

$$$ One well maintained LiPo will last you years. $$$

Lonestar

iTrader: (14)

There is at least 20 different threads on this forum about nimh vs. lipo...

I think the real question now is

"why the heck stick to NiMH if the track you run at allows lipo and you can afford buying a lipo charger?"

Paul

kschu

iTrader: (16)

Lipo is a long term investment....u wont need to discharge them all u need to do is balance charge them....

the punch will never drop even for few months u using....going Lipo is totally a good decision....

cheehtae

iTrader: (15)

+1

cherokee

iTrader: (1)

There is one negitive...you must never discharge them too low, you must have some kind of cutoff that will stop the car if the voltage gets too low.
This is not too big a deal during a 5-6 minute race but is a very big deal if you are bashing or if you are just running laps.

Darkseid

iTrader: (9)

That pretty much says it all...

rcterp

iTrader: (35)

Lipo was the reason I got back into electric racing. It is a little bit more expensive up front (not nearly as bad as some people think); but for convenience and longevity it is in a class of it's own.

They are easy to charge - plug the pack into the balancer, the balancer into the charger and start it..... easy.

They run FOREVER - upwards of 30 minutes per pack.

Do a little research on what you can afford and buy Lipo, leave NiMH behind, it'll be more than worth it.

Toh WL

iTrader: (6)

Well I say LiPO & brushless bring electric powered cars back to business. I hate brush motors due to high maintainance cost & tedious maintainance routine. I also hate NiMH pack cause they are not easy to maintain & cost.

But if you are using NiMH, you need to replace your charger which supports LiPo. This except if your charger can support it.

A. Rhodes

iTrader: (32)

One nice thing about lipos is being able to charge them up, put them away for a couple of months, and then just put them in your car and run. You could never do that with NIMH. Lipo and BL has deffinately helped save the on-road scene, but it is still in a decline

wingman2

Thanks for the replies guys. I have been thinking about going over to LiPo but the only problem is that I race 1/12th, so the voltage is too high. I have been looking on the 'future of 12th scale' thread and it seems that if you want to run LiPo in 12th, there's a whole bunch of other things you need to change to support them. We'll see, I guess. Any advice on chargers/balancers please? What's hot/not? Thanks guys.

edseb

If you go Orion/Kokam you will not need to balance them very often. Even if you club race at least once a week, you will only need to balance them every 6 months. Now if you go with less stable packs, you will need to balance a lot more often. Something to consider when making your initial purchase.

mok

iTrader: (9)

There are a bunch of chargers that are all OEM-ed from the manufacturer, all with the exact same features and basic design/appearance.

GT Power V5
GT Power V6
Imax B5
Imax B6
Hot Power H6
..

There are many more with names in the format "xxxxx x5" or "xxxxx x6".
IMHO, these chargers represent a cheap and reliable charging solution, with correctly balanced cells.
(some of the cheap chargers do not even though claiming to be balanced!!)

I have 2 of these and find them to be quite functional...
http://rc-mushroom.com/product_info....ducts_id=15397

-Mark

CraigM

iTrader: (34)

stick with nimh until 12th scale decides what its doing. It'll most likely go 3.7v lipo, so you'll need an rx pack to power the electrics and a lower wind motor if you want to maintain the same lap times. There's currently only 1 hardcase 12th scale lipo on the market at the moment, you can read all about it below

http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric...case-pack.html