Getting back into rc after 35 years👍🙂

[Jorgen 56]

First post here

I was one of those kids who never got a Tamiya car back in the days, but those box arts and cars forever stuck in my memory. My friend later got a Sand Rover and I always wanted a car of my own. We had one hobby store in my hometown and I always stopped by looking for them in the window when I passed by unfortunately never getting one. Now I want to get back into the hobby and just finished the Grasshopper rerelease.

Can anyone help me out with the following questions would be very grateful.

 

What would be a good radio, receiver and servo for these retro cars? back in the day it seemed it was all about Futaba. Does Tamiya still do radios? when I google it seems like only older Tamiya radios comes up.

 

I have never driven a rc car with a wheelcontrol, only the two stick one. I'm planning to get a boat as well in the future. What would be the best choice then? stick or wheel.

 

When did ESC replace the MSC? (yes Im that old)😁 was it a particular Tamiya model it was introduced in?

 

I'm confused about the batteries. I understand that Lipos are the best ones but can they be used in these old models?. Were the batteries we used back in the 80s Nimh?

 

What would in your opinion be the next "step" if I want to get another car. I bought the Grasshopper just to see if I was capable of putting it together.👍 It's all about nostalgia for me so performance is not that important but I still want one with a 540 motor. To me its the late 70s to mid 80s cars mostly.

Any help appreciated

/Jorgen 

Sweden 

[Hobgoblin 1059]

Hi Jorgen, welcome.

I cannot really help with the transmitter, I use mostly the wheel/pistol style so cannot really comment. Tamiya I think does still do radios but they are rebranded budget Futaba units I think.  I like the cheaper brands like Flysky because I can have a radio setup for about 50gbp with the ability to store different car settings.

I don't know how much you know or have looked into things but the days of crystals and long aerials is over (no more interference!) 2.4ghz is the main way now,  this means once you have 'bound' your receiver and transmitter together by a simple process they are always locked together and you can run stress free. Modern transmitters often have a feature called model memory. This is basically save states for all your different setups, great if you have more than one car, or in your case perhaps a boat as well. Saves all your servo positions and so on. 

ESC's have been around since the late 70's but Tamiya seemed to not be inclined to include them in their kits until the 2000's at least.  Kit supplied ESC's are never the best option anyway and are normally one of the first things to get changed out. 

Back in the day it would almost certainly have been NiCad's you used. These were pretty hardy and were pretty good at discharging current but are made of fantastically toxic stuff so they've been phased out over the years and replaced with NIMH. NiMH can be charged in the same way but you shouldn't fully discharge them like you would a NiCad. They're slightly less good at supplying current but they are plentiful and cheap for headache free running. Lipos are often used with vintage models, you can buy hard case packs which are the same shape as old stick packs so they physically fit in the same places. They do require a bit more care than the other kind of batteries. Special chargers and somewhere safe to store them. Many have horror stories but a lot stem from not taking the proper precautions. The only hold up is they are much more sensitive to over discharging than nickel based batteries, you can't run them down flat. Most modern ESCs have a low voltage cut off setting for lipo which cuts the system before you can damage the battery. No Tamiya ESC at time of writing has this cut off - go figure. You can buy separate alarms which plug into the battery and will sound off if you're getting low, these are inexpensive and great to use if you're running modern batteries with old tech. 

I'd recommend getting something 4wd as a second car, maybe a Boomerang or Hotshot if you want something mid 80's and Iconic or a Manta Ray/Top Force if you want more performance (1990's)  Pretty much all 1:10 cars run 540 sized motors, but you might be referring to the stock silver can Mabuchi 540.  There are a lot of interesting options around now! 

[mud4fun 1696]

Hi and welcome!

ESC's took over from MSC's in broad use way back in the early 90's. By the late 90's it was very rare to see cars running MSC's as you could buy a cheap and cheerful MTroniks ESC for pocket money.

Neither my kids or I like wheels so we use sticks. Last year we upgraded our old radio systems (40Mhz) to the new 2.4Ghz types. I just bought 3 complete Futaba starter systems (T2HR) from modelsport that were not only cheap (£50 for TX and RX) but also one of the very few remaining bargain stick sets and they have good ergonomics too. I always did like my old Futaba sets, I have several dating back to the 80's and they were much nicer than the old boxy acoms.

I used NiCd's in the 80's and 90's and indeed still use them today, they are far superior to NiMh but you can't get them any more as they were banned under environmental legislation AFAIK. However I would not bother with LiPo if you are just occasionally running a cheapish Tamiya vintage buggy. They require special chargers, careful handling and have numerous issues. I have LiPos but still prefer my NiCd's. You can get 3300-3600mah capacity NiMh racing packs for about £18-20 and they will give 30-40 mins run time with a silver can powered buggy.

I would honestly recommend getting a Hobbywing 1060 ESC and a 3300 overlander NiMh pack for your vintage Tamiya buggies - that would cost you about £18 for the ESC and £16 for the battery and it will provide long run times and is very simple and easy to setup AND the performance will be perfectly 80's like while using modern technology. 

[Jorgen 56]

Thank you so much Hobgoblin and Mud4fun ! for bringing me into the 21th century😀

I really appreciate it. This seems to be a very friendly forum.👍

 

Im just wondering about the ESC, what is the difference between a good one and the kit supplied ESC? Is it faster?

My grasshopper came with theTamiya tble-02s.

 

I just called a store here in Sweden and he recommended the Futaba 3PV radio. Do you know anything about that one?

It comes with the R203GF S reciever

What is the display used for?🙈

 

Thanks

[moffman 5752]

I personally think that their is nothing at all wrong with the supplied esc from tamiya especially in your grasshopper you can still put a hotter motor in it like the sport tuned the tble-02s is a very capable esc yes you can buy better but why would you in your grasshopper put ball races in it would be the very first thing I'd do!

I don't have knowledge of the futaba radio your talking about but the display is to show you the different servo rates etc etc just basically more tunable and you can run more than one car with a single radio just need to buy the extra receivers which then you choose with the display screen you mention! Bottom line is just have fun with messing about with what you have straight from the box and if you feel the need to upgrade then that's fine but what you have at hand straight out of the box is perfectly fine! Just enjoy it?

[Gawdzis71 20]

I can tell you the old NimH 7.2 volt white Humpback batteries were shorter in length than the new flatpack ones - made that mistake already.

Lipo are more compact as are the LiFe and fit the same retro re-release batt compartment dimensions. 

Don't feel too bad - the last RC car I built was a Super Champ in 1985 .

When I bought my re-release Sand Scorcher last year I was looking for the receiver battery 4-pack and the black balloon bag to cover it!! lol. 

[Fabia130vRS 2098]

Hi,

 

interesting questions and I always seem to come accross this kind of issues.

 

mostly being the issues of using a now up to date, lipo battery. as for now I own a 2s 7.4v  ''shorty''  Lipo hard case battery, and a normal size hard case 2s Lipo 7.4V. the amount of capacity is interesting. the lipos I have weigh about 300gr with 5500 and 5000 mAh. (discharge rating 100C) compared to a high discharge NiMH 5000mAh that has about 430gr.

the box shape is a big issue, but from my expirience you can buy 2s 7.4V round shaped lipos.

 

as for radio I reccomend a Sanwa MX-V or a Futaba 3pl thay are about 80€ and mostly come with either two 2 recievers and a servo.

they are in my honest opinion more precise then the flysky gear that has same functions but are about 40-50€

wheel transmiters are easier in my opinion, as you pistol grip the throttle and steer on a wheels as in a real car. left is left right is right  

 

I use a normal charger without possibility to change setting, 4A charging. they are 20$ cheap but now I cant charge my nimhs anymore. old chargers I had are sold or trashed.

so I went striaght to lipos and brushless as I bought a new car.

 

My first rc was a Fighter Buggy RX back in 99.

 

I got to run it brushless first time in 2018. thats when I got back in this hobby.

I can reccomen the Carson Dragster Sensorless brushless combo set. A 60 or 80A esc with a either 8T motor or higher up to 16T. amazing power and works on 2-3s and also offroad friendly.

https://tamico.de/navi.php?a=203444&lang=eng

 

so thats motor and esc less then 50€ each.

also on this site you can find the round lipos and new Tamiya models that come already with the TBLE02 esc that supports brushless and brushed (also LiPo 2s is possible. they do come with a silver can motor. for about the same price almost.

 

and yeah... Welcome  

[mud4fun 1696]

4 hours ago, Jorgen said:

Thank you so much Hobgoblin and Mud4fun ! for bringing me into the 21th century😀

I really appreciate it. This seems to be a very friendly forum.👍

 

Im just wondering about the ESC, what is the difference between a good one and the kit supplied ESC? Is it faster?

My grasshopper came with theTamiya tble-02s.

 

I just called a store here in Sweden and he recommended the Futaba 3PV radio. Do you know anything about that one?

It comes with the R203GF S reciever

What is the display used for?🙈

 

Thanks

Sounds like the store is trying to sell you something you don't need,

The display is useful but not essential and it is more of a gimmick TBH.

A simple two stick system on 2.4Ghz is more than sufficient for vintage buggies IMHO. We run as many as 5 or 6 vastly different buggies off a single Futaba 2THR TX. You simply hold the TX within 50cm of the RX on the car, turn on TX and then turn on power in the car. The TX and RX/ESC sync to the settings on your TX instantly and within a few seconds they will be sync'd. Manually adjusting trim takes all of 5 seconds even with a manual trim lever (and even if you need to servo reverse it only takes a few seconds to flip the reverse switch on the TX) so all these fancy displays with memories are pure gimmicks and grossly overpriced for what they offer.  

For a typical vintage buggy you only need 2 channels (throttle and steering) plus the additional battery slot on the 2 channel RX's can be used for a transponder. There is ZERO need for 3 channel or LED display TX's for vintage buggies, even if you have 100 of them!

All my kids and myself have numerous buggies each. We only have a single TX each. We select a car, sync the TX to the RX after putting in the battery, run it in a straight line to adjust the steering trim and then we are setup to run. We have everything from base model vintage 15mph buggies to race spec 50mph buggies being used with the Futaba T2HR sets and we have had no problems at all with them. They are reliable, cheap, comfortable to hold for hours at a time and are rugged enough to survive the kids dropping them every now and then. They also seem to handle getting wet because we actually ran a race a few weeks ago in a heavy downpour, the TX's got soaking wet but worked fine and are still working fine after being dried off in front of the AGA.

As for the ESC, the kit supplied ESC is fine HOWEVER in our case it proved problematic because we wanted to be able to swap in different motors or batteries depending on the race we were running or the surface we were running in. The HW1060 allows for a vast range of motors and battery types. The kit supplied ESC is limited to 23T an above AFAIK? That caused us problems because even my youngest daughter runs a 19T Reedy motor and my middle daughter runs a 13T Tamiya motor both on 2S LiPo. The kit supplied ESC will not support that so it got annoying having to swap in ESC's each time we switched motors so in the end we scrapped all the kit ESC's and fitted HW1060's into all our cars. We now have a pile of Tamiya ESC's ready to bin.....  

[Super ally 412]

Welcome to the club.I would just like to ask did you put the 380 motor in your grasshopper,as you can put a 540 in it which makes a big difference to speed.You need a 18t pinion gear for this motor as well.

[Jorgen 56]

Thanks for all answers 

Ive thought about getting a better motor 

What would be a fitting one 

Will all 540 motors fit sizewise?

 

Is there a limit how high the batteries mah level can be to be suitable for the car?

Or is highest better?

[mud4fun 1696]

19 hours ago, Jorgen said:

Is there a limit how high the batteries mah level can be to be suitable for the car?

Or is highest better?

Not really, however in general the higher the capacity, the heavier the battery (within the same battery type). So eventually you will hit performance issues, certainly in racing. Not really an issue for bashing though. This certainly seems true of all of batteries NiCd, NiMh and LiPo.  Eg. My 5000mah LiPo weighs 60g more than my 4000mah LiPo (both same manufacturer hard cases). Also our 3600mah NiMh is about 40g heavier than the 3000mah NiMh's.

Our heaviest 8.4v NiCd is nearly 200g heavier than our lightest 2S LiPo despite the LiPo having twice the capacity. So that is one of the key benefits of LiPo, the weight saving. Not a huge issue for bashing but 200g is huge for a race buggy.

My daughter's still use NiMh and a 3600mah pack gives them 30-40 mins run time with a silver can in their buggies, even longer when just running on flat dry tarmac, a little less when running on long wet grass.

We tend to swap to smaller pinions when running off road which helps extend run times in heavy conditions.

 

[Snakehands 124]

On 1/25/2021 at 3:01 PM, Jorgen said:

Thanks for all answers 

Ive thought about getting a better motor 

What would be a fitting one 

Will all 540 motors fit sizewise?

 

Is there a limit how high the batteries mah level can be to be suitable for the car?

Or is highest better?

My advice would be to not upgrade the motor. You're better off researching how to use lipo packs (couple of hours reading and watching youtube vids) and running a 1500mAh 2S pack. That will give you all around better performace. 

[mud4fun 1696]

1 hour ago, Snakehands said:

My advice would be to not upgrade the motor. You're better off researching how to use lipo packs (couple of hours reading and watching youtube vids) and running a 1500mAh 2S pack. That will give you all around better performace. 

a 1500mah 2S? Not sure I'd agree with that suggestion. A 3300 Nimh for £16 will give far longer run times with a silver can than a 1500mah LiPo due to the cut off points. Anyway, 4000mah LiPos are not that much more expensive (£20-25) than a 3300-3600 NiMh now and that combines the extra power of the 2S with the same or better run time. If you are going to move to LiPo I would go for the biggest capacity you can afford as the ESC's will cut out (in LiPo protection mode) meaning you won't actually get 1500mah of usable capacity, more like 1200mah. Also a 4000mah LiPo will give 40+ minutes run time with a silver can with the better performance thrown in too.

[Fabia130vRS 2098]

What you see on tamico.de is a good point to learn.

 

basically any mAh and C rating will work.

 

but for 120A escs ypu need to match the components. Like high C battery and and whats the motor peak W

[Snakehands 124]

11 hours ago, mud4fun said:

a 1500mah 2S? Not sure I'd agree with that suggestion. A 3300 Nimh for £16 will give far longer run times with a silver can than a 1500mah LiPo due to the cut off points. Anyway, 4000mah LiPos are not that much more expensive (£20-25) than a 3300-3600 NiMh now and that combines the extra power of the 2S with the same or better run time. If you are going to move to LiPo I would go for the biggest capacity you can afford as the ESC's will cut out (in LiPo protection mode) meaning you won't actually get 1500mah of usable capacity, more like 1200mah. Also a 4000mah LiPo will give 40+ minutes run time with a silver can with the better performance thrown in too.

Why drag around a load of dead weight? Weight is the performance killer after all. It takes no time at all to change a pack and I just don’t understand the obsession with long run times between pack changes. 

[Fabia130vRS 2098]

6 minutes ago, Snakehands said:

Why drag around a load of dead weight? Weight is the performance killer after all. It takes no time at all to change a pack and I just don’t understand the obsession with long run times between pack changes. 

I am keen to know what kind of car you drive?

my FF03 has sometimes a 3s 1300mAh batterie in it. First of all, totally wrong size. Second rhe extra weight helps better traction. Third, two full throttle runs on a brushless 8T and its half empty.

 

so I dont understand why use a small lipo when I can use a normal size lipo with just about 300gr and run the car for a hour and more.

because thats what I do, I drive the car as long as it can wirh my buddy or alone. And I dont want to change batteries often.

 

no offens but I dont agree with you at that point.

[Grumpy pants 4478]

12 hours ago, Snakehands said:

My advice would be to not upgrade the motor. You're better off researching how to use lipo packs (couple of hours reading and watching youtube vids) and running a 1500mAh 2S pack. That will give you all around better performace. 

An interesting point made me think and I decided that for bashing out with the kids then I’d take the bigger batteries and enjoy longer run times as it’s a faff swapping batteries in the woods or on the beach, but if I was competitively racing or doing speed runs then the small capacity would be the way to go.

[Snakehands 124]

39 minutes ago, Fabia130vRS said:

I am keen to know what kind of car you drive?

my FF03 has sometimes a 3s 1300mAh batterie in it. First of all, totally wrong size. Second rhe extra weight helps better traction. Third, two full throttle runs on a brushless 8T and its half empty.

 

so I dont understand why use a small lipo when I can use a normal size lipo with just about 300gr and run the car for a hour and more.

because thats what I do, I drive the car as long as it can wirh my buddy or alone. And I dont want to change batteries often.

 

no offens but I dont agree with you at that point.

I'm driving vintage stuff like the Sand Scorcher. I didn't think we were talking about modern brushless setups, what with this being the vintage section. Who in their right mind bashes vintage cars for an hour or more? That's just crazy. 

[Jonathon Gillham 4605]

On 25/01/2021 at 2:24 AM, Jorgen said:

Thank you so much Hobgoblin and Mud4fun ! for bringing me into the 21th century😀

I really appreciate it. This seems to be a very friendly forum.👍

 

Im just wondering about the ESC, what is the difference between a good one and the kit supplied ESC? Is it faster?

My grasshopper came with theTamiya tble-02s.

 

I just called a store here in Sweden and he recommended the Futaba 3PV radio. Do you know anything about that one?

It comes with the R203GF S reciever

What is the display used for?🙈

 

Thanks

I have (quite) a few different transmitters ranging from cheap (Flysky GT2) to expensive (Sanwa MT4S) and a few in between (including the Futaba 3PV).  You really do get what you pay for.

Sticks - I have the Futaba 2HR and Flysky FSi6. I have the FSi6 for yachts, they are 6 channel and meant for aircraft i think. They have no spring on the throttle stick, and move in 4 directions, so can also be used for 3 speeds, tanks etc. The FSi6 does far more than the Futaba 2HR which is very basic. The 2HR is fine for vintage Tamiya buggies but you couldn't use it for much. The 2HR is lacking some key features for me and I wouldn't buy another. It trim and reverse on both channels and steering dual rate and thats it. Thats all you need for a Grasshopper, but it wouldn't work on many of my cars wheer I need to adjust servo throw, and using end point adjustment to change top speed is useful when you have friends or kids wanting a turn.

Pistol type

Flysky - worth considering, they havw a lot of features and are cheap, but the quality isnt great. Get the GT3C or better. The GT2 is very basic, the GT3B takes 8AA batteries which is a pain. The GT3C comes with a lipo included which is lighter and cheaper overall.

The Futaba 3PRKA is actually pretty good. It has the end point adjustment on the throttle so is the most basic I would buy.

The 3PV is far better, 10 model memory (stores the settings for each model, choose the model and go) and has all the adjustments you need including for racing. They are quite small so if you havw big hands they may not be that comfortable. My son uses one for his race cars (hes 7, and I got it specifically because its small and has all the adjustments when he was 4). This would be my recommendation as best bang for buck.

Also consider the Futaba 4PV or 4PM if you have the budget. You only buy one once (unless youre like me and buy 7) and they are really nice and you'll be happy with them for years.

Futaba receivers aren't the cheapest (cheaper than Sanwa though)but the clones are cheaper and work well.

Sanwa is the other brand I would look at. Most popular with racers at the clubs I go to. The MTS or MT44 are both worth looking at, or even an M12 if you find one for a good price as they are the old model now. I have the MT4S which is an older model now but it works great. Receivers are more expensive than Futaba, but you can get clone receivers that work well for a lot less than a sanwa one.

What sort of boat? Pistol would be fine for a power boat, you need stick for a yacht. The FSi6 is good for these as you can easily set servo throw which is crucial on my ones.

[mud4fun 1696]

19 minutes ago, Snakehands said:

I'm driving vintage stuff like the Sand Scorcher. I didn't think we were talking about modern brushless setups, what with this being the vintage section. Who in their right mind bashes vintage cars for an hour or more? That's just crazy. 

Uh???

We bash and race our vintage cars for upto 6 hours on a hot summers day!!! All our vintage buggies are heavily used.

Blimey, with a 1500 LiPo I would struggle to finish one 5 min race on wet grass in my Egress. Whereas I can get three runs in on a 5000mah. On dry grass I can get six 5 min races. Why on earth would I want to run a tiny capacity?

All my buggies are generally running the largest capacity I can afford and they are all capable of 40mph+ speeds (depending on pinion and setup) and handle very well.

Also slapping a very light battery into many old Tamiyas will cause balance issues. This is especially true in buggies that have offset longitudinal battery placement such as my Avante2001, Egress and Vanquish. The cars were designed for heavy NiCd's which would balance out the heavy motor and steering servo on the other side of the chassis.

This problem is compounded by fitting super light HW1060 ESC's on the upper deck (right/battery side) as that too results in imbalance. When I first switched to LiPo my Avante handling was abysmal, it would corner better one direction than the other and when jumping it would not fly or land flat, constantly landing on the left side. I then fitted the largest capacity LiPo I could afford (5000mah square section hard case) which is heavier and the balance is restored.

Some buggies with transverse batteries such as Thundershot do benefit from lighter (or more compact)  batteries and in those I run a 4000mah and I'm about to switch it to a shorty.

 

 

[Snakehands 124]

5 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

Uh???

We bash and race our vintage cars for upto 6 hours on a hot summers day!!! All our vintage buggies are heavily used.

 

 

 

I assume you inspect them from time to time? It's not RC heresy to run light packs! I don't have and balance issues with the stuff I run and nor will the TO with his buggy. 

[mud4fun 1696]

14 minutes ago, Snakehands said:

I assume you inspect them from time to time? It's not RC heresy to run light packs! I don't have and balance issues with the stuff I run and nor will the TO with his buggy. 

Uh? Of course they are inspected. They are inspected after each run and are repaired if needed. They are also rebuilt with new bearings and relubed every year. The motors are fitted with new brushes and Comms polished as needed. What an odd question? We have very few breakages because most of the known weak spots have been modified or are fitted with after market parts. Our vintage buggies can and often do hundreds of laps of our rough garden dirt track in one day with no ill effect.

It may not be heresy but I would argue that it is very odd to choose to run battery with the smallest capacity such that it is virtually useless and you get no fun time with your car. My kids and I get 30-40mins of fun per charge on our high capacity packs, in my view a far better experience than getting 5 mins. 

Even my SRB runs a 5000mah LiPo and weight is hardly an issue for that, mine runs mad bull wheels and tyres and heavy alloy decks and total weight is over 2kg but it still gets 30 mins run time on most surfaces.

[Snakehands 124]

2 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

Uh? Of course they are inspected. They are inspected after each run and are rebuilt with new bearings, relubed every year. The motors are fitted with new brushes and Comms polished as needed. What an odd question? We have very few breakages because most of the known weak spots have been modified or are fitted with after market parts. Our vintage buggies can and often do hundreds of laps of our rough garden dirt track in one day with no ill effect.

It may not be heresy but I would argue that it is very odd bro choose to run battery with the smallest capacity such that it is virtually useless and you get ho fun time with your car. My kids and I get 30-40mins of fun per charge on our high capacity packs, in my view a far better experience than getting 5 mins. 

Even my SRB runs a 5000mah LiPo and weight is hardly an issue for that, mine runs mad bull wheels and tyres and heavy alloy decks and total weight is over 2kg but it still gets 30 mins run time on most surfaces.

You implied you ran for a straight 6 hours in reply to my point that an hour of straight running would be asking for trouble.

What is odd about running for about 10 minutes then checking stuff and changing the pack at the same time? Nothing is the answer. To dismiss a 1500 pack as 'useless' is obviously ridiculous. 

[mud4fun 1696]

38 minutes ago, Snakehands said:

You implied you ran for a straight 6 hours in reply to my point that an hour of straight running would be asking for trouble.

What is odd about running for about 10 minutes then checking stuff and changing the pack at the same time? Nothing is the answer. To dismiss a 1500 pack as 'useless' is obviously ridiculous. 

No, but I assumed a certain level of common sense of the reader. Clearly 'we run our cars upto 6 hours a day' means a total daily run time of 6 hours. Obviously there would be lunch, tea, toilet breaks, crash repairs, battery and tyre changes in between runs etc. However we don't want to be swapping packs all the time and having to charge packs after every 5 min race (if you even managed to complete one) is tedious and just reduces the pack life.

Yours isn't a 1500mah usable capacity as you said it was liPo, in that case the LiPo cut off mode will kick in around 1200mah of usable capacity. That would indeed be useless for us because on anything other than a silver can we would not get 5 mins run time from our buggies. I would always recommend people get the higher capacity not the lowest. I may be wrong but my hunch is that most people would want longer run times and less pack charging?

Edit: also we often walk a mile down to our local rec ground for the kids to run their cars. With higher capacity packs they can spend a happy hour down there. Would be a nightmare having to walk back every 5 mins to charge a pack or having to carry ten packs for each car. They just grab a car, stick a battery in and go. They don't even bother taking extra packs most times. 

The only time I would see a very high capacity being an issue is if you really do just 5 mins running because you'd then need to discharge half a LiPo pack before storing it. So yes, in your case, it probably makes sense to use a smaller capacity pack. 

[Snakehands 124]

2 hours ago, mud4fun said:

No, but I assumed a certain level of common sense of the reader. Clearly 'we run our cars upto 6 hours a day' means a total daily run time of 6 hours. Obviously there would be lunch, tea, toilet breaks, crash repairs, battery and tyre changes in between runs etc. However we don't want to be swapping packs all the time and having to charge packs after every 5 min race (if you even managed to complete one) is tedious and just reduces the pack life.

Yours isn't a 1500mah usable capacity as you said it was liPo, in that case the LiPo cut off mode will kick in around 1200mah of usable capacity. That would indeed be useless for us because on anything other than a silver can we would not get 5 mins run time from our buggies. I would always recommend people get the higher capacity not the lowest. I may be wrong but my hunch is that most people would want longer run times and less pack charging?

Edit: also we often walk a mile down to our local rec ground for the kids to run their cars. With higher capacity packs they can spend a happy hour down there. Would be a nightmare having to walk back every 5 mins to charge a pack or having to carry ten packs for each car. They just grab a car, stick a battery in and go. They don't even bother taking extra packs most times. 

The only time I would see a very high capacity being an issue is if you really do just 5 mins running because you'd then need to discharge half a LiPo pack before storing it. So yes, in your case, it probably makes sense to use a smaller capacity pack. 

Err, clue for you: I've got more than one pack. Run for 10 minutes, check buggy, change pack, rinse and repeat. It's laughable to claim that 1200mah is 'unusable' and fun destroying. Anyway, they perform much better without heavy bricks inside them.