I'm not new to RC but have been out of "Off Road" for a while. When I was off
roading The Hornet was one of the hottest cars and Lipo's were unheard of.

Now, I have kids and been flying Blade and Align rotors for a couple of years
and never thought much of getting back into off road until my kids took
interest in it.

Nough' of that. Our household is going to be starting off with three new
machines. A Slash, RC8.2e and a Mini 8ight. I plan on running 3s LiPo for all
three machines but I need to know what the experts would recommend for
charging/balancing and mainly connections. The connections are different than
the ones I am used to and need to know the best way to go about it and what
gear I should have on hand ready to go. I've done a lot of researching but its
getting confusing.

Thanks.

A lot of companys make 3 cell chargers. Any of them would work. As far at connectors go you could go with deans or traxxas. If you are gonna be racing you should check with you local track about 3 cell batteries. Most 2wd short course require 2 cells. And most 8th scale e buggys use 4 cells.

Are you racing or bashing?

FWIW, I always use Traxxas connectors in my 1/10 and smaller RCs.

I use 6.5mm bananas in my 1/8 buggy.

If your going to be running a 3s in the mini 8ight for one of your children be warned it will be really quick 2s is plently to start with in that car.

The racing standard for 1\10 scale is to use 2s batteries, for 1\8th scale it's 4s batteries that are used. I'd recommend sticking with the standard setups. Especially if you ever want to sell anything or try racing at some point.

The Mini 8ight I have no experiance with. Depends on the KV of the motor etc.

Get a charger with at least 100w of output, 3 or 4s needs a descent (Over 50w) charger for sure or you'll be waiting over an hour per battery. For 2s packs a 50w charger will be ok.

get a charger than can charge more than one at a time too. it's a lot cheaper than buying 2 chargers.

hitec seems to be the brand of choice around where I live. they have a nice line of chargers.

the x2 has dual 200w ports

http://www.hitecrcd.com/products/cha...ipment/x2.html

and if you really want some power,

http://www.hitecrcd.com/products/cha...nt/x2-400.html