Originally Posted by
RCGaryK
Honestly I don't. My radio works perfectly with NiMH rechargeables. I don't know what their reasoning behind going LiPo was but I know what mine would be. Even with a regulator you could have heat issues. I wouldn't want that inside of my radio honestly. Plus a single-cell LiPo has too low of a voltage output, meaning you would HAVE to use a 2S, and you're right back at the regulator again. Plus the goal was to make this a radio that ran off of 4AA's.
a switching regulator would not cause heat problems, and they don't interfere with cheap chinese radio so I would be very disappointed if they interfered with a Spektrum.
Got to say I agree with you on the using NiMHs though, people see the mods we used to to back in the day with AM/FM radios and think "boy, that's a good idea" not knowing enough to know that the old radios really benefitted from such a mod, whereas it's counterproductive in all modern 2.4ghz TXs as most run on a combination of 5 and 3.3v, which has to be got by regulation. Because radio manufacturers are cheap, the regulators in such radios are invariably cheap linear items - rather than the vastly superior, but slightly more expensive switching regulators - which struggle with no heatsinks and in a sealed case to dissipate the unwanted energy even with alkalines and fully charged NiMHs, never mind a lipo. This is probably not so much of an issue with the 4 cell radios but 4 cell makes it even more unnecessary to run a lipo.
LiFe is a good idea due to its lower voltages, but LiFe's power:weight/bulk ratio is quite poor. There's just no need for a Li of any kind.