goregoregadget

I used to be really into r/c cars, my parents raced professionally in the 80's

Now winter is drawing near and I need something to occupy myself with.

Im buying an hpi tc3 electric car from a friend, but I need battery cells for it. And I am clueless.

What are the best bang for the buck batteries?

Which will fit this car?

Which charger should I get?

Thanks!

not home

iTrader: (23)

if you want to spend the money, go lipo. my friends bought the orion 3800 which is 30c and said it was amazing. a charger if your choice. one what is good and charges at a good amp. the venom lipo sharger is pretty good and the ice charger are good.

Duster_360

iTrader: (21)

Some of the hard cased lipos are no bigger than a 6 cell pack so they can fit anywhere a 6 cell pack would. If the esc is not equipped with a low voltage cutoff, you'll need to add a separate one - over discharge (discharge below minimum cell voltage) can damage a lipo to the point its not safe to use.

Lipo offers better run time and weighs much less than NiMH cells. Lipo needs a special charging protocol (CC/CV) that's beeen added to most of the better chargers on the market today. If you decide to go lipo, get a lipo capable charger that has a built in balancer to balance individual cell voltages.

goregoregadget

what do the lipo batteries and chargers run? for something average.

Im ot going to be doing anything competetive with this. just for fun. but id like to get the best balance of performance and run time.

what is the most economical route to go?

thanks for the help

pyro18t

iTrader: (1)

Pssst.... I think you mean a AE (associated) TC3

Whats your budget like, and does the car come with all of the needed electrics I.E. Speed control, radio, reciver, steering servo. These are a few important things. I would also recomend LiPo batteries, but if your on a budget you can always run NiMh's. With a good LiPo battery you can get run times around 20-35mins ( I've gotten 40Mins out of my 6000mah) . With NiMh's it's going to be like 10-15mins TOPS!

Get back to us and let us know so we can help you out

Jay

goregoregadget

My bad, its a complete tc3 with all electronics, radio, lots of upgrades and such for $125

I just need batteries and a charger

How much do these lipo batteries run?

pyro18t

iTrader: (1)

Honestly LiPo's go for 80-125 bucks. But one battery pack can do what 3 NiMh's can do in terms of run time. A decent/good NiMh will cost $30-60

As far as a chrager I would recomend a duratrax ICE($125) and a 10amp power supply(about $30-$45) of your choosing.

there are a few AC/DC lipo/nimh chargers out there, but I don't know any good one that I can recomend off the top of my head. You have to look at a few things as an investment in this hobby like:

Radio
Chrager
Batteries

these 3 things are most skimped on things in RC and probably the most important. Most people will go out and buy a $60 mod motor because they want to "GO AS FAST AS POSSIBLE" but they are using a battery that cost $15 from radio shack, and used a 15min timed charger to chrage it. And then they get disappointed then their run times are 3-5mins(BTW this was me in high school)

If you plan on making this a hobby for you, make the investment where you can. I would start with a good chrager. A good chrager can sometimes save a bad battery, and bring it back to life, and get the most run time possible. I also would look on EBAY that's where I got my frist of 3 duratrax ICE's (none have broken)

I hope this helped, feel free to PM me if you need specific help, or advise

Jay

Duster_360

iTrader: (21)

When I changed from NiMH to lipo, my run time doubled, I was getting 10-12min and now am getting 25-30min runtime. No comparison. Lipos are much easier to live with too - pretty much charge and go. NiMH required more work to keep them in shape.

There are several entry level AC/DC lipo capable chargers available. I have an Ice, but wouldn't recommend it as a 1st charger since it needs a separate power supply and a balancer for lipo. Get a 50watt AC/DC balancing charger and have soem fun. Here is a solid AC/DC charger -

http://www.allerc.com/product_info.p...oducts_id=3367

That would be an all around charger, Lipo, NiMH, a123s etc. There are cheaper ways to go for a charger, You can also look into the Turnigy Accucel-6 from HobbyCity.come, they're $40 plus the overseas shipping.

Have a look in this thread about lipo charger - some more options -

http://www.rctech.net/forum/radio-el...-chargers.html

HoaRC

iTrader: (1)

get these batteries but for this price you might as well get a lipo..

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXMJM3&P=7

HoaRC

iTrader: (1)

also EP4600 are good batteries