First post and charger decision.....
 

Hell of a forum you have here! Getting back into the hobby after a 17 year break.

Got myself a new B5M and have the radio and motor/esc already. Just got the batteries and a charger to buy. Taking from searches I have done here and some of my own research, I am going to go with SMC lipos (not sure about shorty or square yet).

I want to keep my charger under the $120 range. I will be racing and swapping 2 packs back and forth. The two im looking at now is the Duratrax Onyx 245 and the Traxxas 6Amp. These seem to be the basic options for my price range that I can see. I like the fact I can charge 2 packs with the Onyx. Any thoughts or other suggestions?

These last charger I used was an old Pro-Tech 702 trickle charger with a 15min dial on it!

Thanks for any input!

Ended up going with the Onyx 245. Should get me going as a good starter charger. Also ordered 2 SMC shorty packs.

Ended up buying a Futaba S3004 servo for the front. Is there a reason people drop loads of dough on steering servos these days? I know there is some nice, fast torquey stuff, but I never ran anything other than S148s and 3003s all my life and never have had problems. Ill give my cheap BB servo a go. Lol.

With the much higher speeds of the brushless systems these days a high speed/torque digital servo is a must. I think you'll very quickly find that an S3004 will be outgrown within minutes! A good steering servo really is a must. The S3004 is very slow 0.2 through 60 degrees and only 4kg torque and plastic geared to boot and so you'll probably break the gears within a few laps.

If you search the forum there are plenty of threads already running on charger choice and servo choice and there are plenty of inexpensive servos that would do the job much better than the s3004!

Thanks for the input Dan! Ill look into something stronger and faster. Would hate to break a servo right away. I wana try to keep it under $50 or so. Time to do some research.

Most people swear by hitec but personally I prefer sanwa/Airtronics. Savox are also good for the price point although some have issues if used on a weak BEC.

For 1/10 offroad 2wd id suggest something at least quicker than 0.12 and a torque of around 7-8kg.

Thanks Dan. I was looking at the hi-tech HS-5565MH (.11 w/163 torque @ 6V) metal gears and dual BBs. Would my ESC power my BEC with a sevro like that without having to run a seperate reciever pack? Its a Novak Impact with 6V BEC. Thanks for the input!

Yep that'll work fine. Enjoy!