Lipo Experiences

[markwilliamson2001]

Hey guys..

I ran first time with Lipo on Friday, and it was interesting to say the least.
Good points:

Charged up packs (2) on wednesday evening from packet. Took about 25 minutes till they reached 8.40 volts and then pulled them off. Fitted to car, ran without problems, then after 1 race, topped up on charger with balancer.

No assembling, no battery bars or connectors to solder up.
I used the Trakpower 3200 pack which easily lasted 1 race (could maybe have done 2 races on 1 pack). Indoors with a 7.5L, the car was a handful (too much power, would have been okay in a 4wd I expect). Motor, battery and speedo came off cool after race, so all good! Could have got away with a 13.5 brushless I reckon on the tight indoor track with the Lipo Pack. biggest difference noticed was the lack of weight which affected jumping, and high speed balance of the car. I had to add 40g of weight to the front of the car around the servo to balance it up. The car definatly felt more stable with my older GP3300 NIMH's in, but I will try and add more weight to the car to make it more stable soon (fit a slim lead sheet under the lipo pack) and bring it closer to the weight of NIMH cells. I hope in my 4wd car the difference will not be as noticable.

Bad points (my fault really):
I was using 3rd party corally connectors which were a looser fit in the battery than I would have liked. If I rolled the car they came out very easily. I tried an older 'proper' corally on an old piece of wire and it was much more secure. Had to tape in connectors which was a bit unsightly, but worked. Just to change speedo to battery connectors now.

Roll on Lipo!

Mark

[frogger]

Welcome to the revolution I don't even own any other kind of battery for all of my cars which include Micro-T, 3 x Blaze's, B4, B44 and soon to be brushless RC8.

[jimmy]

I've had problems with poor quality corallys - missed my first regional win because of them they heated up because of the poor connection (brand new too!) and desoldered.

You can read my experiences with Lipo in the trakpower review on here - pretty similar really. In the touring car it was a DREAM - really no messing about, recharge after racing and that's it.. loads of power, like the very best team cells + a bit more!

First time in the buggy I found it a handful tbh - but I hadn't adapted my setup - slower motor / lead weights. Since then I've raced the Tamiya Durga with an entire strip of lead next to the trakpower and the car has been awesome and no different to drive from nimh cells, apart from feeling like I had some awesome cells in the car. Come off racing, bang it on charge & back out to marshall.

The only problem I've had was when I left the trakpower in vickys car for two weeks. The large capacitor on the Novak ESC totally drained and ruined the pack - my fault but it just shows you need to take care.

[mark christopher]

mark at worksop the top drivers were ading very little weight, and were adjusting shock/springs to suit the lighter car think niel cragg just added some ontop of his servo

[RogerM]

Well I tried lipo for the first time on saturday on my secreet test track (ok an old BMX course) and really didn't like them!

For me they have far too much punch (I am dropping winds at a pace though and will probably have to go back to brushed, as nobody seems to do 8.5 or 9.5 brushless motors which are on the BRCA list!!!).

I tried them in the car (RB5) with no weight and it ruined the handling ..... now at least I know that the extra weight I've added to the front even when running NiMhs was the right thing to do. I put a piece of stainless steel under the pack which actually brought the weight up to about 5g more than my E-Power 4500s and the handling was back to normal.

Was very interesting and I can see why those people who like loads of punch are raving about them but they are not for me as they are at the moment for sure!

As an aside has anybody run lipo with brushed motors? If so how so the motors hold up??

[mark christopher]

did you try altering your speedo profile? or even radio expo?

[Cockerill]

Originally Posted by RogerM

For me they have far too much punch (I am dropping winds at a pace though and will probably have to go back to brushed, as nobody seems to do 8.5 or 9.5 brushless motors which are on the BRCA list!!!).

LRP/Nosram both have 8.5t motors on the list, Novak/Nosram also have 10.5T (altho this is a separate list). So there is only 9.5 missing, but with a range of sintered/bonded rotor's I'm sure you could get the feel you like.