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gba888

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About gba888

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  • Birthday 12/07/1978

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  1. "google storing lipos in ammo boxes " LOL not really what I wanted to hear, but yeah, that really did make me laugh out loud I'll look into that and see what I find.
  2. Thanks for the clarification on the discharge and what will/will not happen Yes, I definitely had the mental image of running along then all of a sudden the car bursts into flames because the voltage dropped to 3.2v instead of 3.3v LOL. I know a lot of the videos are of people hitting them with sticks with nails in and purposely TRYING to make them explode. The ones that have got to me though are the ones where they are just driving the cars and they start smoking (not necessarily catching on fire, mind you). I've seen quite a few vids with people having LiPo failure mid-flight in planes and whatnot also, but obviously, that's going to do a lot more damage considering the circumstances and could happen with the failure of ANY type of battery. How about this...my MAIN number 1 concern *above all* would be.....the battery while in storage (not being charged/discharged)...just catches fire or has a "meltdown". Any records of *that* ever happening? That's a big concern of mine since I store a lot of my rc stuff for a good bit of the year. I mean if it catches fire while charging...big deal you can put it out. If it catches fire or implodes/explodes in your car...you can get another (in most cases). But...if it sparks a fire in storage.....THAT would be very, very bad. Maybe that's bordering on paranoia, but I figured I'd ask anyway
  3. Hi Guys, Just checking in on the thread First off, I'm not offended by anything, as I said I'm just trying to learn here and figure out what's best for my needs. I have to admit that I've really had some fear struck into me by all the LiPo fire and explosion stories and vids on youtube. I understand that a hard case LiPo is definitely a big improvement over the older soft packs, but I can't say that I agree with the statement about one not being safer than the other when considering LiFe vs LiPo. For instance: if you run each below the cutoff level the LiFe will not be affected whereas the LiPo will. Not sure if it would catch fire or melt or whatever but from everything I've read, you won't do as much damage (if any?) running a LiFe under voltage as much as you would running a LiPo under voltage. So, from a shock/crash perspective, yes, I agree comparing 2 hard cases would be apples to apples, but considering discharging and charging, I think you need to consider the battery technology that's inside. I'm not sure what was meant about jumping through hoops to use LiFe batteries? To me, it seems that LiPo is more about jumping through hoops when you consider how careful you need to be with charging, discharging, charging in a fireproof bag, not bashing "too hard". On the other hand you have LiFe where you simply change your pinion? And that's only if you have a problem with slower speeds. Am I missing something here? Again, I'm not being smart or whatever, I'm just asking because I really don't know. As far as chargers, the skycharger or thunder charger can be had for around $60 and those will charge anything from nimh to lipo to life to nicd. Getting a new charger isn't really an argument in my case because whether I'd go with Lipo OR LiFe, I'd still need a new charger. Ultimately here is how I see it: LiFe = technologically safer, considerably more charge/recharge cycles, slower speeds due to 6.6v LiPo = potentially dangerous unless utmost care is taken, considerably fewer charge/recharge cycles
  4. Just for anyone else who might be following the thread... I found a few different "Venom" batteries that seem like they would work as well with capacities up to 4000mAh in a hard case. Here is a link: http://www.venom-group.com/Store/LiFE That seems to be their main site, but Tower Hobbies carries these as well. Until I get a chance to measure my exact packs or the car battery compartments, I think I'm going to hold off on actually buying anything. I think I'd much rather take the trade off of less power when considering that you can generally get about 4x the charge cycles out of life vs lipo, and you can charge them quicker as well. If you get 2 decent packs it should work out fine enough to have one charged then use the other while the first re-charges. Again, this is likely specific to *my* style of bashing/driving, but that's all that really matters to me when making the decision. I *do* believe that going to life from nimh will be an advantage in 2 ways even considering the lower voltages...the First is that they are considerably lighter which will result in longer run times from an equivalent capacity nimh, and Second, I'm having a tough time finding nimhs for sale that seem to be of decent quality anymore. I had 2 tenergy 3800 packs that went bad on me after only a year (about 4-5 months) of use. I'll gladly pay the extra money and suffer the voltage loss if the life batteries are as long lived and "safe" as I keep reading about. Yes, I know that if abused, anything can go wrong with any type of battery...it's all about statistics though, and I just really don't like the idea of how much care you need to put into charging/discharging and handling lipo batteries. I have enough things to worry about in every day life without adding the worry of watching the batteries as they charge and taking it easy when driving so that I don't give it too much of a shock and whatnot.
  5. What I meant was that I had seen some information that stated that with life vs lipo, voltage cutoff and or regulation was much less of a concern with life batteries. I've read information that states one of the reasons lipo batteries malfunction is due to continued running at low voltages. As far as specifics on the controllers, I know I have 2 brushless systems that offer cutoff, but I'm not sure which tamiya escs I have. The specific info you listed will be good though when I get a chance to check things out. I found dimensions online of a pack that I believe are the same as the nimh 7.2v packs that I have. The dimensions are 135mm x 45mm x 25mm. Going by that and looking at some options here: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/_...ry-LiFePo4.html, I can see there there may be some options above the 2200mah capacity. The biggest issue seems to be some are around 139mm vs the 135mm length, so some modification may be necessary to make those work. I'm still looking and *learning* about battery choices so yeah, some of the stuff I post may not make sense and may be totally wrong, that's why I'm asking in the first place
  6. Thanks for the informative reply! I already researched and discovered just about everything you mentioned as far as the lower speed and capacities. I'm not really concerned about the speed since I'm really only into backyard bashing and will be moving up from nimh anyway. One thing that you mentioned though didn't make sense to me from what I've seen...I've read that life batteries do not require extra voltage regulators..? I have a couple brushless systems that will be no problem to set the cutoff, but I'm not sure of which tamiya escs I have in the boomerang and grasshopper. I'll have to check on that. I already decided that I'll get the "skycharger" or the "thunder" charger since those are basically both the same charger and will handle life, lipo, nicd as well as nimh. I'm going to checkout the 2 links you posted now. I'd just measure my current packs, but they are at my dad's since everything was in storage over the winter.
  7. I'm looking to get a new charger and a battery pack or two. I've decided that I'm going to go from nimh to life/lifepo4 batteries. I have no interest whatsoever in lipo due to the potential dangers. I do not race, only "bash" and lipo is simply not an option for my purposes. The main cars I run are: grasshopper, boomerang, vintage rc10 and an rc10 b4.1. I understand that I need the 6.6v versions of the life packs, but can't find clear options of which packs are available that will *fit* into the space that the nimh 7.2v packs occupy. Can an expert please post some links to packs that will fit into these cars without much modification? The boomerang and the grasshopper have pretty size specific battery compartments. The vintage rc10 is probably the most flexible in that area, though. I just want to get a pack or 2 that will fit in all the cars I mention above. Thanks for any help!
  8. Hey Guys, Just reporting back... put this thing in the boomerang and I was getting about 30 minutes of hard bashing on a 3800mah nimh pack. The best part: I could still touch the motor without getting burnt! The worst part...the right rear lower shock mount somehow stripped out No big deal though, I took care of it with super glue. This was with the stock 15T pinion, too. Definitely not as much cogging as with my RC10 (I attribute this more to weight issues not gearing). One factor that helped a lot...it was only about 65F degrees out each day I tested. For anyone who is on the fence; just go ahead and get one of these systems before they are sold out or before summer is over! (well, depending what country you're in the summer thing may not apply!)
  9. I ended up getting a Leopard 3300 brushless system that was mentioned in the other thread. Here is a link: http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?...mp;#entry385383
  10. Hey guys, I also got one of these leopard systems (3300). My plan is to put it in my boomerang, but just for a test, I put it in my vintage rc10 when it arrived. It's a very nice system! Quality actually seems better than my castle mamba micro pro that I got for my tamtechs. The programming card is AWESOME compared to the stupid time consuming programming method for the castle system. Anyway, the car performed very well, even better than with the AE 3300 system from my B4.1. The motor and esc were getting really hot though b/c of the gear ratio I was running. I called it a day after one battery pack and will hopefully try it out some more later today (if it doesn't rain) with a ratio that will be much easier on the system. Initial outlook is awesome though I need to mention that there was a little cogging depending on what start power I had it set to. No problem at all though once I got above about 20% throttle.
  11. Good story here..... the ONLY way my grasshopper sustained any damage was.... 1. my brother was running it, and I accidentally smashed into the side with an aluminum gold pan RC10 (left light broke off at the body)... REPAIRED 2. again, my brother was running it and he had flipped it over.... I was going to try to turn him right side up (again with the aluminum RC10)...well it wasn't pretty... the back spoiler part of the body had a big chunk smashed out of it because I was running too fast. REPAIRED...and broke again in a flip....REPAIRED again New bodies are only about $20 on ebay, and I already had a spare so no big deal This thing has been catapulted in the air, flipped and smashed into so many trees it's unbelievable. Try that with some other cars and you'll REALLY have parts getting destroyed.
  12. Again, I never had a hornet, but no, rear part never locked up my grasshopper. Here is a link to my grasshopper thread on rc10talk with pics of the shocks: http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=16199
  13. I never had a hornet, but my re-re grasshopper now has oil filled rear shocks! it made a really big difference over the stock plastic spring "toy" shocks. I say go for whichever one you like the looks of best. It's not too big of a deal to add real rear shocks to the grasshopper. Neither have independent rear suspension so the best you're gonna get out of either will be "real" shocks.
  14. Hey Guys, Thanks fro the posts! I'm following up on that brushless combo, but I was also wondering if anyone had thoughts on the following: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti00...=LXKYX5&P=7 I found a review from around 2006 or so that claimed it was a decent controller. Couldn't find much else though. taffer: that looks good but I'm in the us. I'd like to try to get one from a us source to save time/money on shipping.
  15. I was interested in this setup for a boomerang possibly. I saw the following reply by customer support on the product page: "Customer Support Specialist yes is true they wont work with any other brand beside exceed 2.4GHz TX + RX Systems". So, what does that mean exactly? Could I use this with a regular radio system or do I need a 2.4Ghz? or does it mean that the listed brand is the only brand of 2.4Ghz that they'll work with?
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