Regards the concerns on Vampire (since the thread is about batteries in general)..
All Vampire LIPO's have indeed been proven to be amongst some of the best available now for the past few years in terms of numbers used and performance whilst keeping costs as low as possible.
Ref their website, there is indeed a holding page at present in preparation for an all new site due to be launched later this year, I have seen the early development work on this and it looks to be very good, easy to navigate and full of information and product details.
Regards the instruction manual for the ESC, we have spare printed copies here of these should anyone require one. Naturally one is issued with every ESC in the box and if any user ever needs a spare we can send one to them no problem at all, I am sure this is the same in other countries too who will have a manual suitable for their area too. It has not been something as yet they have ever listed or made available online.
Lastly, regards the upgradeable firmware. It seems people have misunderstood and misquoted what was said. At the time of the SR1 release, it was announced that in their future plans that there would be a USB adaptor and any future firmware updates will be downloadable so customers so they can stay up to date and run the same as the "factory works team" (to quote Vampire at the time), thing is, so far there has been absolutely no need for any updates the original V1 firmware is still what the likes of Darren Bloomfield, Ellis Stafford, Rich Lowe and all of our other drivers use, therefore there has been little point releasing the USB adaptor to date since there has been nothing at all for you to download, simply because it has not been required which would have been a waste of money for the racers. When it was first developed, it was impossible to say this would be the case and that the V1 software would work so well, but it has. However, this is not to say that it will not change in the future and it is still being worked on behind the scenes and any such updates will be a part of the new website when it is launched.
To finish, the SR1 was only launched in the late part of 2011 and has been available for less than two years now, the old website was still live in January and the new holding page (in preparation for the new site) has only been in place for several weeks now....
If anyone has any queries or questions at all regarding any of the Vampire products feel free to email us direct at
[email protected], we will be more than happy to help.