Originally Posted by
lil-bump
I thought a fully charged LIFE is about 6.6 vdc you should not need a regulator with a Life. A fully charged NIMH can reach almost 7vdc. If your running a Lipo(8.4vdc) then I would use a regulator.
To be exact:
The voltage cut-off for a 2S LiFe is 7.2V. When finished charging the voltage quickly drops to 6.6 ~ 6.8V.
A fresh NiMh pack, can even go over 7V.
Now you might think that your then better of with a NiMh pack, but I did a check with an IP 1600mAh NiMh an an IP 1450mAh LiFe, both charged and put under load of 1A.
The first 5 minutes, the NiMh had a slight advantage in voltage level, but after 10 minutes, the voltage level of the NiMh already dropped below the level of the LiFe, which for a very long time had a continuous level of about 6.4V....
Because LiFe has a higher output voltage compared to NiMh, you will also have better runtime with it, compared to a same capacity NiMh pack.
Because of the lower internal resistance of LiFe, you will also have more juice left for your steering servo, while under breaking... (that's the theorie, but if it will make you faster....
)