Once you go Brushless, You'll never go back to Brushes again!

[Craps]

My Hacker C40 8T motor in my XXX-T along with a Li-Po battery as far exceded my expectations on Power, SPEED and Run Time.

I'll never run brushed motors again!

[HiAmplidude]

Hear hear!

[OptimaMan]

I second that! The day I got into brushless, my brushed motors, Novak controllers, lathe, etc. all went on sale on ebay!

I've also just gotten into lipo cells. I got 5 x3 cells so I have it so the voltage is 11.1 volts and 7500 mah. Safe operating continuous current is 60 amps (according to Kokam). I'll post results soon too.

[k_sw31]

I agree!

I must admit though, when I first got into a brushless, I was a bit discouraged. I had spent, oh, about 3 months saving up for a lehner warrior 7018 combo/basic 5300. At first when I got it, it was okay, however, I had no instructions of how to set it up. Like every other warrior controller, it eventually fried. 4 months later, I got a replacment, but it was even worse, a warrior 4018. Needless to say, it fried in short time for no reason. I removed all the wires and stuff that I could use off of it, and just threw it away.

Eventually I saved up and bought a hacker master competition. Though it is a bit bulky, it has turned brushless into a dream.

In fact, I think I may sell one or two of my novak escs to make some money for a C40!

Brushless rules.

[Craps]

What kind of difference will 11.1 volts make vs the 7.4 volts in my 8000 mah pack?

I noticed a good bit of power difference with the Li-Po over my NiMh & NiCd batteries.

The Hacker BL system with the 8000 mah Li-Po battery will make you have to learn how to drive a different way due to the power gained from the both. You'll stiffer foam in the rear tires like alot of the nitro guys run and make sure all parts are well maintained to compensate for the huge gain in power and run time.

If anybody else buys and installs this system in a truck, please post how satisfied you are with the future of electric racing.

I give it till the end of next year for everybody to switch over to Li-Po batteries for sure and modified truck class should grow with the addition of brushless systems.

Lithium Poly batteries and Brushless motors are the future and are here to stay!

[k_sw31]

Well, do the math. 11.1-7.4=3.7
3.7/1.2=3.08.........

So basically, switching from 7.4 to 11.1 will be like adding 3 cells, or running 9 cells.

I think eventually I will purchase some Li-Polys, but, I am definatly not going to buy a pack when I am hearing about all these fires.

To me its not worth the risk of my house, all my rc stuff and my family for 40 minutes of run time; I'll wait till they have the technology is really refined, and the price has come down.

[Craps]

I think all the fires were in the early stages of Li-Po. With what little experience I have had with the battery I have, it seems to be tougher (lots of hard crashes) than I thought. When broke the nose of the truck Sat, I ran over and was prepared to throw it like it was a grenade, but to surprise the battery is pretty tough.

Like I said before, if follow the instructions on handling and discharging/charging, it doesn't appear to be any problems at all except for it along with the Hacker motor is more truck than I can drive. Now I need to catch up with the truck.

Did you ever think alot of this negative hype about Li-Po's maybe coming from the NiMh & NiCd battery manufactures that see market share disappearing just like the brushed motor manufactures don't want to see brushless coming into racing.

[k_sw31]

Well, all of the "hype" I have seen has been off message boards, where people have burned down cars, etc.

I still prefer to wait a while. I am satisfied with 10-15 minutes of run time for now. Besides, I need to wait until a pack doesn't cost 160$ and I dont need to drop another 100-200$ on a new charger. :)

[Signats]

A picture is worth.............

in each of these pictures the ignition source was Lithium POLYMER batteries.


http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=1478616
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=1193969
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=1336923
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?postid=1394697
http://www.rcstuff.us/battery/lipo/lipo_DNA.html


This might help:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=1628177&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[AudiTT-Quattro]

Other than the recommended safety procedures, storing Li-Poly in a zero atmosphere enviornment doesn't sound too bad all of a sudden...

[Craps]

Did you read the thread about the guy with the helio that blamed it on the charger, but if you read it carefully, he made a mistake by starting a charge at 2.2 amps for 4400 mah pack and an assumption or quess at how long it was charged at that rate by resetting the charge rate to 4.4 amps (1C) during the charging process not knowing how much for how long had been charged. He let's the charger time out at 60 minutes, unplugs and plugs back up the battery and starts charging again when the thing blew up after 15 minutes.

In other words he did not follow procedures as instructed and chose to blame it on the battery charger after in his own words made quesses on the charger when he should have dicharged the battery and started over with the entire process when he discovered "His" first mistake of setting up the charger incorrectly to charge a 4400 mah battery at 2.2 amps (less than 1C).

In other words "He made quesses with the Li-Po charging process"!

They are safe if he had stuck to the rules as instructed.

He also went against rules by leaving it strapped in the helio and leaving it unattended during a critical time after it timed out at 60 minutes and resetting for more charging.

The pictures are scary, but the one story I read appeared to be someone who did not follow the rules as instructed.

Yes Li-Po's are dangerous and so is dropping a lit match in a gallon of gas fuel too! But, the nitro gas fuel has warning labels about keeping it away from open flames like Li-Po's have the same warning about over charging!

Somewhere on the web, I read a thread about a man who tried to intentionally blow one up by over charging. It took almost 20 minutes of over charging with several things happening before it finally blew it up with the battery temp heating up and swelling up before it blew up!

The main thing I read out of all of this, that Li-Pos are not just a set it and forget type of battery. It has to be discharged to the recommended level and recharged at the recommended rate and time. If these are both done correctly, I don't see anymore danger than handling fuel for a nitro truck. Besides the Astro 109 charger set at the highest setting of 8 amps for 1 hour (Charger times out at 1 hour) will be all I need if I follow the discharging/charging instructions correctly.

[Signats]

Craps,

Lipo safety requires a different mind set than Nicad or NiMh. I am glad you have taken the time and effort to educate yourself about these batteries, as you can see by those posts some people just don't get the fact that any use of these batteries in RC vehicles constitutes as research and devolpment because the technology is not mature.

I do not think that Lipo is ready for the mainstream RC enthusiast just yet, can you immagine a 11 year old playing with these?

The guy with the heli made a lot of errors, some of them were detailed in another post of his (about how great they are), and never even made it into the post about the fire.

The burned out Lexus was not a charging mishap, that guy crashed his plane, then placed the wreckage in the Lexus (with his dog!) and grabbed his other aeroplane and went flying. About 15 min. later he heard shouting and looked over to see his Lexus on fire! He was lucky, he managed to save the dog!

Have fun and be safe, thanks for sharing your experience with us, I look forward to getting some of these batteries to experiment with myself, and when I do they will be charged in my fireplace, and a fire extingusher will be added to my pit box.

[Craps]

I just ordered 2 more from Thunder Power.

Talk to Jason at Thunder Power for some more information and to order. He said they are working on not only 6000 mah pack but a 9000 mah pack too that is the same size as a 6 cell pack.

[brutesparkfist]

I've heard that the thunderpower 8000 mah should only be charged at 1 amp. is that true? if not, high high can a 8000 pack be charged?

[Craps]

It is recommended to charge at a rate of 1C, which for 8000 mah battery is equal to 8 amps and should take about 1 hour. That si why the Astro Flight 109 charger I just ordered with 8 amps max charge rate is better than the Shulze 330d with a 5.5 amp charge rate. Both of those chargers are better than the MRC Smart Brain 969 charger I am currently using on the Li-Po battery, which takes about 2 hours to charge 8000 mah at 4.5 amps max.