I know the following may seem like I am completely against LIPO or making use of the latest technology, but I am NOT!!! However I do feel that it needs to be looked at with more than just a theoretical performance advantage in mind.
The big reasons for me at present being against LIPO is that:
1) They don’t fit in my 4wd and others without some serious modification, thus increasing the cost to either get a new car or chassis made, defeating the object that I would save money because I only have to buy a couple of packs.
2) May put new comers off, as the initial price seems slightly higher ok so in the long run you save money, but is a beginner going to be looking long term straight away?
3) LIPO’s all seem different sizes for what ever reason, and despite when they first came out it was said they were all the same performance you can now get 20c, 30c or what ever bringing in the same performance differences and increased prices comparable to sport and competition NIMH’s.
4) Could cause issues for shops with stock of equipment that is no longer popular with racers.
5) I (along with quite a few others) rely on selling my season old batteries at the end of the year to a club / regional racer to help finance my next years purchases. This is either going to end up in me selling them at a seriously low price or not even be able to shift them as the club / regional racer will prefer the ease of use and apparent performance from LIPO. Also as Racingdwarf has said makes equipment such as dischargers almost worthless.
6) Although there may be no significant performance advantage on tracks such as Worksop, Kidderminster or Stotfold that are either low grip or relatively small and technical an advantage would surely be seen at places with tracks of similar size to Oswestry and Talywain. I know in our region we have two tracks where an advantage is had by running brushless, let alone having a slightly lighter car with a smidge more voltage.
7) This is a bit more general and could include the large capacity cells and brushless motors but I feel it takes away some of the driving skills that were required to last a 5 minute race, everyone can now have a really quick car for 5 minutes. Which isn’t always a good thing. Do you really want to be trying to avoid potential unguided missiles as a newcomer gets sucked into thinking that they need LIPO and 4.5 brushless to be competitive.
8) Scrutineering could take longer and be made more difficult.
9) Increase in the number of rules.
10) Certain clubs may chose to get more racing in as LIPO don’t require the maintenance and apparent cooling down period after they have been used. I know it’s already been mentioned in our region that because we only have 3 heats on a good day that we could race every 20 minutes eeek, which is just impractical for anyone not having a LIPO.
So to summarise for me to be able to run LIPO for next year I would have to
1) Change my 4wd chassis
2) Get a LIPO charger and balancer thingy
3) Buy a LIPO (obvious I know)
4) Buy a LIPO charging pouch
5) I can’t sell my old cells, which wouldn’t be competitive against new cells or LIPO as the voltage and run time have dropped off.
6) My discharger and charger are worth almost nothing, as anyone buying something would get one that’s LIPO compatible.
7) It would probably be a good idea to get a voltage thingy for the ESC too as from what people say LIPO don’t like going to flat.
Therefore I reckon it will cost me more than all my NIMH’s cost me this year. I know eventually I will change over like I did with brushless, but I don’t think it’s as cheap as everyone makes out!!
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