Budget LiPo and Charger
 

About to order a MT4-G3, and need to decide on a battery setup and charger.

Currently looking at Turnigy, Zippy, and Gens Ace batteries, because I need to get started on a budget. Of these, which do you think would be best?

Should I run 2x2s or 1x4s, why one over the other?

I'm considering the Thunder T610 charger, is there anything better for the same price?

The MT4 is recommended for use with 35C batteries. If I'm using a cheap battery, should I go with 40C+ just in case factory specs are wrong?

Those brands are all basically the same in the real-world.

Thunder's chargers are fantastic.

Yes, the Chinese un-brand batteries tend have low burst rates, that is, one of their 40C packs may only be rated to burst up to 50C whereas in the more "brand-name" packs often see burst rates double the sustained C rating that is on the pack. That is a lot of mass you're going to be moving so a pack's burst rate may come into play for you.

2x2s - if one of the two packs goes bad, you only have to replace it at less cost than if a single 4s pack goes bad.

I love my thunder ac6 charger! It is great and the re branded losi version cost twice the price! (the losi does have the power brick external though) As for batteries, I would go gens ace.

+1 for the ac6. Hasn't failed me yet.

What do you think of the AC6 compared to T610?

T610 is a 200watt, 10a max charge, DC powered charger. AC6 is a 50watt, 5amp max charge rate AC/DC charger. T610 also has much higher discharge watts, 25 compared to 5watts for the AC6.


Not much to compare, suspect both use the same or pretty close menus and way of working. If you need or plan to use the higher power, T610 is the choice. It will need a power supply...

I dont know the chargers in question, but both mentioned sounds good. I'd recommend getting a decent charger - because a bad charger, might ruin the batts, turning the saved money into pain... So it's good listening to peoples recommendations and get the best you can afford.

If you're getting 4-5000 mAH packs, it'll take about an hour charging with the AC6, while the Thunder can do it twice as fast.

Dont know how many battery packs you plan on buying, but maybe it's worth considering getting fewer packs, and a better charger... A good charger will do your batts good in the long run. And then get more packs down the road, when budget allows...

hi,

anything you need to know about LiPos can be found here:
http://www.rc-heli-review.com/rc-helicopter-batteries

for chargers you could check
http://www.epbuddy.com/

really nice stuff. I use the icharger 208b myself.

I ended up going with 2x Gens Ace 2S 5000mah 40C hard case lipos, and the T601 charger. With the current black friday prices on hobbypartz.com, seems like the best choice. I'll make the powersupply for charger out of a spare PC power supply I have.