Introduction of Lipo???

[DCM]

Originally Posted by Benh

Those who appear to oppose LiPos are old hands. As a similie, it's the same as listening to Cantankerous Old Timers that have forgotten what it's like to be young. Or in this case, Old Timers that have forgotten what it's like to be a Noob. This hobby is a Sub-Culture, it's very difficult to get into. It's about fun, driving skills, sociability and getting some newcomers to make up for dwindling numbers. Make it easier, make it level on technology and the driving standards will go up. Or maybe this is your advantage and the fear is, you'll lose it?[/FONT][/COLOR]

haha, now when you have gotton your foot completely out of your mouth..... I know a lot of us 'old timers' as if your young, once your above 30... thats old, lol, who are pioneering LiPo and new Technology...... But we have the ability to pull on experience to maybe hold back a little.

My biggest concern with LiPo, and still is, is safety, from user abuse, where there has to be a state of transition of technology, like ESC's with lipo cut-offs and lipo friendly chargers, as there is so much old stuff out there, it is when it filters down to the lowest club level, that is the biggest concern.

For me, seeing them in use, and understanding what makes em go bang, I am more than happy to use them, and it will bennefit me greatly once me and the brood have fully gone to brushless and lipo (Mr Harris will know what it is like for me at racing).

[Benh]

[quote=DCM;159044]haha, now when you have gotton your foot completely out of your mouth..... I know a lot of us 'old timers' as if your young, once your above 30... thats old, lol, who are pioneering LiPo and new Technology...... But we have the ability to pull on experience to maybe hold back a little.

My biggest concern with LiPo, and still is, is safety, from user abuse, where there has to be a state of transition of technology, like ESC's with lipo cut-offs and lipo friendly chargers, as there is so much old stuff out there, it is when it filters down to the lowest club level, that is the biggest concern.

[quote]

I'm 31. Please don't make me type simile again.
Please let this be the end of it: -
Simile - To Liken one thing to another. Sly as a fox, doesn't mean you're a sneaky ginger
Cantankerous - Disagreeable to change
Appears - To show a one sided opinion not based on fact.

Health and Safety: -

I agree on your points of safety. Let's take the delivery of my LiPo's this morning; containing an A4 sheet of warnings and do's and don'ts. It has all the warnings and guidance required. Then there's the clubs, a requirment for all clubs to ensure their members understand the health and safety issues before racing. After that people may go to regionals, once again compliance required.

Health and Safety I agree is an absolute must and should be taken seriously. However, do we really have to protect everyone from Darwinism? You can't stop stupid people being stupid. If they don't cook their parcel shelf or their hands from an overcharged cell, they will get run over by a train because they were listening to their Ipod whilst crossing the track.

[SlowOne]

Benh, thanks for the reply, but it still doesn't make sense to me. All RTR kits are sold with NiMh, and you're saying you can promote the hobby by getting people to immediately spend another arm, and another leg, on LiPo???

The view people have of NiMh is of IB cells. If you haven't used the latest EnerG, EP and Orion SHO cells, then please don't talk about what NiMh does.

Fortunately, I don't have this problem. The class I run doesn't need LiPo, and isn't suffering any change in participation because it runs NiMh. We can wait around, without spending another penny on an obsolete technology () until the real future arrives. I've spent less than two packs of LiPos on my cells (good ones) and they'll last me a season.

Enjoy your LiPo, but please stop telling me that I have to move on - I don't. NiMh remains the majority power source in electric cars, so try to promote the sport by keeping everyone in, eh?

[mark christopher]

Originally Posted by SlowOne

Benh, thanks for the reply, but it still doesn't make sense to me. All RTR kits are sold with NiMh, and you're saying you can promote the hobby by getting people to immediately spend another arm, and another leg, on LiPo???

The view people have of NiMh is of IB cells. If you haven't used the latest EnerG, EP and Orion SHO cells, then please don't talk about what NiMh does.

Fortunately, I don't have this problem. The class I run doesn't need LiPo, and isn't suffering any change in participation because it runs NiMh. We can wait around, without spending another penny on an obsolete technology () until the real future arrives. I've spent less than two packs of LiPos on my cells (good ones) and they'll last me a season.

Enjoy your LiPo, but please stop telling me that I have to move on - I don't. NiMh remains the majority power source in electric cars, so try to promote the sport by keeping everyone in, eh?

dear mr winton

as has been pointed out did you not have the same view on brushless??
one thing is for sure, the obsolite will be nimh first

[Benh]

Originally Posted by SlowOne

Enjoy your LiPo, but please stop telling me that I have to move on - I don't.

I haven't mentioned excluding NiMh? I haven't told you to move on? My point is, allow others to have the choice. Don't push for their exclusion on what I and others I converse with consider as weak and floored arguments.

All I ask for is the, "allowance for those to make an informed decision"

EoE regionals will suffer as a result of them not being included.

I would be interested to find out what the projected impact, if any, the exclusion of LiPo would be on other regions?

[Benh]

Or - if there would be a negative impact on the inclusion of LiPo's. Would there be any who would say - NO!, I am not entering if you allow them?

This I would find surprising. My NiMh's keep up with LiPo users (of similar driving ability) I don't feel I am at a disadvantage.

[GRIFF55]

I think there would be more people that would say they are not going to race if lipo's aren't allowed

[SlowOne]

There is no issue with LiPos, there is an issue with people who leave the impression that the only way to go it LiPos. Of the six electric classes in the BRCA, only two can use LiPo under their current Rules, and yet all we hear is that Rules have to change to allow LiPos!

If you want to run LiPo in Off-Road and TC Super Stock, knock yourselves out. But please change the rhetoric to be more inclusive of all the people who don't run in those classes, and stop giving the impression that they are not available.

Mark, grow up. BL has not proved to be anything like as easy to use as was promised, which was always my point. It didn't take off until the motors were made to feel more like BR. They have proved more expensive than BR to remain competitive. Failures are not uncommon, and expensive. The Stock classes (10.5) are now much more difficult to set-up as they motors have adjustable timing to sort out as well as ratio.

I use them, they're good enough, and the classes were set up to kill BR. However, I spend as much time on maintenance as I ever did, and as the motors get more and more bullet-proof, the speedos become the weakest link. They're good products, but they are not what was promised. So it will be with LiPo.

As Benh says, NiMh is every bit as good as LiPo, and since you, Mark, have not used the latest NiMh cells, you don't know how good they are. That you cannot be inclusive of all the products in the market to the overall benefit of electric RC is very disappointing.

[Albertini]

Phew...heavy going this thread, but here's my thoughts.

Being relatively newish to the sport/hobby I was amazed at the restrictions in place to rule regionals, almost to the point when I start thinking why bother with it at all.( like some people do now).

In my view the less rules about what you can and can't use the better, its these rules and restrictions that put people off. If you want more people to race you have to open the door wider, allowing lipo's ( and the more reasonably priced ones, not just the 3-4 there are at the moment).

I think it was last year at Eastrax a number of people didn't turn up because there budget 3700 sticks were'nt legal, that was one of my first regionals and it just seem like madness. The same as if your cells have a black end or a red end......gives us a break and let us get our cars to the start line!

OK some rules are for safety, but thats down to the manufacturer to insure, not the BRCA who as I understand provide advice and liability insurance for us ,not our products.

Rip this apart if you want to guys...you'll only find less people trackside.

[DCM]

well, some rules are there to keep the cost down, like the jan 1st cut-off for submitting cells.... this means that one list is produced at the start of the year, so you didn't fork out for 6 packs, then 2 months later, a much better cell comes out, and to be competitive, you got to buy them.

Slowone, I don't think anyne is advocating that everyone must go LiPo, but they can be run in conjunction, and we are only looking at proposals for the 10th off-road. When I get my kids brushless and lipo, for racing, I will go from carrying around about 20 packs of batteris... to 7-8 cells.... far easier, performance is constant too.

As the call about 'not fitting chassis' I remember a lot of issue's when cell capacity when from the ubiquitous GP3700 to the IB4200 cell, the cells were a smidge longer and a smidge fatter, so in the B4, it made the cells tight across the chassis and needing different battery bars, and in some TC's, the slightly fatter cells screwed up the milling of battery slots.

Currently, there are two classes that allo, Super Stock in on-road and Bikes.

[Albertini]

On the submitting of cells or lipos for next year, am I right in thinking that only those cells/lipos sent in by the manufacture are looked at?

Now most budget brands are focused on bashing etc so probably won't submit because they don't focus on racing. Dosen't this in itself push up the price of your kit by reducing the competition?


Is one hardcased lipo much more of a risk or threat as any other thats been homologated.....surely not as they are being used by kids in the street aren't they?

I suppose I'm just fed up with buying overpriced knackered second hand stuff and can't justify the £'s on new. Cheap lipos and the losi 6.5 are on my Christmas list. If I can't race at regionals next year with them, so be it.

[DCM]

you got to look at why they are being homologated to be honest... they are tested to see if they withstand impacts and damage to the cell, which can happen in the racing enviroment. Some of the cells would be fine if run in, say a B4, as if you can damage your cells in there... the car is mostly a write off. But you can't say, well if you cells are in the center of the car, you can use any cells, but if your cells are exposed, you can only use these cells....

Some of the shrink wrapped ones offer no protection at all, and to be honest, I would not be happy using them anyways. At least the hard casing offers a certain amount of protection to the cells.

[mobile chicane]

I only run lipo now and would like to do the southern reigonals next year, I have NO problem with those who still use nimh or nicads as they may prefer to use them or have a restreictive budget, I'm lucky to have enough disposable income to get pretty mutch the latest + best kit, it dosent make me a better driver than those with more talent/experiance.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by mark christopher

dear mr winton

This makes a lot of sense now

[Dreadstar]

Where I have found the real problem with lipo's is in trying to find pack sizes to fit in the 1/18th scale cars,especially the Trinity Spyder.The battery tray is only 70mm longx32mm wide,so you really have to search quite hard to find packs to fit in that small an area,and even then,the ones that you do find,tend to be quite low capacity,i.e. around 900-1000mAh,and they're soft packs too.Even using the nimh cells is a swine because of the battery arrangement,which looks like a humppack on steroids,4 cells on the bottom,with 2 cells piggybacked on top.You try buying that configuration off the shelf . For me,I'm finding that aeroplane Lipo's are about my best bet, but,you don't really have a lot of choice as to the manufacturer,with most of them coming from the far east.

Well,that's my tuppenceworth.

[frogger]

Originally Posted by Albertini

In my view the less rules about what you can and can't use the better, its these rules and restrictions that put people off. If you want more people to race you have to open the door wider, allowing lipo's ( and the more reasonably priced ones, not just the 3-4 there are at the moment).

I agree that too many rules does nothing but put people off. The problem is not so much getting the rules in place for the national series, it's those clubs that stick blindly to those rules and follow them as if they are set in stone. This has a much greater impact on the average racer than a potentially over governed national series (which it may or may not be, not the point of this discussion ).

There is no doubt in my mind that lipo (or another lithium battery type) will replace NIMHs no matter what anyone says. You might as well imbrace it sooner rather than later. There are no arguments anywhere that proves NIMHs better than lipo's as a power source for RC cars/buggies. It's only the stage we are in, the transition period which complicates things a bit. You have folks who have invested quite a bit of money in the old tech that will no doubt have to reinvest to change to the new tech. People will need re-education and a change in habits. But.. it's all worth it.

I find it amazing that people\humans after 10000 years of evolution are still so resistant to change. Even worse is that after 10000 years of evolution we still think farting is funny

[mark christopher]

Originally Posted by Dreadstar

Where I have found the real problem with lipo's is in trying to find pack sizes to fit in the 1/18th scale cars,especially the Trinity Spyder.The battery tray is only 70mm longx32mm wide,so you really have to search quite hard to find packs to fit in that small an area,and even then,the ones that you do find,tend to be quite low capacity,i.e. around 900-1000mAh,and they're soft packs too.Even using the nimh cells is a swine because of the battery arrangement,which looks like a humppack on steroids,4 cells on the bottom,with 2 cells piggybacked on top.You try buying that configuration off the shelf . For me,I'm finding that aeroplane Lipo's are about my best bet, but,you don't really have a lot of choice as to the manufacturer,with most of them coming from the far east.

Well,that's my tuppenceworth.

you looked at trakpowers new 18th range? www.trakpower.co.uk

[JBL]

Please look at the BRCA website, regarding proposals put forward at the AGM in September for LIPO inclusion.

[super__dan]

Looks good, nice one Chris for proposing Lipo, all the other ones look pretty sensibel too.

[Dreadstar]

Sorry Mark,but the Trackpower Lipo's are too big,in either length or breadth.