New to brushless

[jose.28]

So i picked up an E-MAXX yesterday and I'm new to brushless.
I've herd really bad things about lipo and i was wondering if there where a good brand that has low risk if blowing up lol and also if a 8.4v 5000mah nimh will give me but good run time. Thanks

 

[sur3fir3]

most lipos are low risk for blowing up unless you charge them wrong, puncture them, or overload them. If you are really worried, stick to hard cases. Actually on any MT I would try to stick with the hard cases, when you weigh that much and are going fast, that hard case can mean the difference of a punctured cell or not. I know by now I sound like an advertisement, but check out the lipos over at http://www.smc-racing.net/ They are cheap and of good quality, I have 3 of them now, and have had nothing but great experiences with them.

Since you are new let me give some basic lipo care advice. Don't run your lipos below 3.4v/cell ever. I have my cutoffs around 3.5. If you are going to store the lpo the accepted range is from about 3.7-3.85. Buy a decent used charger, it is better to have a decent used charger than a new piece of crap. Your charger is very important. Cheap chargers are no good, except for maybe checking voltage and balance. Buy a charger in the $100 range if its used, and $150 range if its new.

Before you buy your charger post about it here, and someone here will tell you if you are on the right track or not.

 

[jose.28]

I got a ez peak plus. I was told by my lhs that its a good one to start with.
Right now I'm trying to understand nimh packs that came with the Emaxx.
I got my Emaxx and charger new.
I was researching the lipos and i just can't understand why would anyone buy softpacks
it makes perfect sense to me to go with hard case one.
I was told that gensacearespammers are good along with traxxas.
Just wanted input from ppl that have used lipos.
lol this is why i stuck with nitro cars.
This truck is fun just with the stock 3000mah nimh.
I think its funner the my Tmaxx

 

[wacmartin]

Traxxas lipo's are expensive for what you get.
I just received my 5th and 6th smc racing lipos, imo great battery for a great price and they're hard case.
I go with 40c 5100mah 2s, I got a savage flux and it's the same power system. I would go 3s but at 2s it's fast enough or me. You need atleast a 30c discharge rate and 5000mah to keep that power system happy. In other words you need a constant 150 amps going to esc to not damage it.
Somebody else with more knowledge then me will more than likely chime in here and they can give you more info.
I also didn't know nimh could power that system properly. I thought they advised against it.

 

[tmaxxfreek]

check out these Lipo's, I'm gonna order a few of them soon to give them a try, good prices, and have heard alot of good things about them.

http://www.viciousteknology.com/hardcaselipo.html

 

[jose.28]

Traxxas lipo's are expensive for what you get.
I just received my 5th and 6th smc racing lipos, imo great battery for a great price and they're hard case.
I go with 40c 5100mah 2s, I got a savage flux and it's the same power system. I would go 3s but at 2s it's fast enough or me. You need atleast a 30c discharge rate and 5000mah to keep that power system happy. In other words you need a constant 150 amps going to esc to not damage it.
Somebody else with more knowledge then me will more than likely chime in here and they can give you more info.
I also didn't know nimh could power that system properly. I thought they advised against it.[/QUOTE

It came with 2 3000mah 7cell 8.4v nimh
it seems to move the truck well for about 25 minutes.
i was thinking about going with 2 11.1v 5000mah lipos
just dont know what brand. Not to worried about price as i just dropped $780 clams on this. Rig.

 

[wacmartin]

Yeah that's true but why pay more for less.
Those vicious batteries tmaxxfreak linked seem good, great prices I'd like to know how they do and if I can get them in Canada.

 

[Phins Fan]

I Bought 2 of the Vicious and have had no issues running them in my crawlers and my T4.2 I didn't expect to have any issues in the crawler as the power usage is so slow I knew they wouldn't heat up. Running them in the T4.2 is about the same. For 1 2S 5200mah pack I can get a solid 35-45 minutes of continuous bashing before I hit the LVC alarm.

And Jose .28 - Lipos are not as nearly volatile as people would have you believe. Sur3 has some good pointers to pay attention too. If your going to invest in a quality battery than don't cheap on the charger. A decent charger (even in the $70-$80 range) would be more than suitable for your needs and be able to perform as well as the $200-$250 chargers do. I have used this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thunder-AC6...Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item33840f1285 for 2 years and have another 1 as a back up and have never had any issues with it. VERY easy to use and its on the cheap as well.

 

[sur3fir3]

Traxxas lipo's are expensive for what you get.
I just received my 5th and 6th smc racing lipos, imo great battery for a great price and they're hard case.
I go with 40c 5100mah 2s, I got a savage flux and it's the same power system. I would go 3s but at 2s it's fast enough or me. You need atleast a 30c discharge rate and 5000mah to keep that power system happy. In other words you need a constant 150 amps going to esc to not damage it.
Somebody else with more knowledge then me will more than likely chime in here and they can give you more info.
I also didn't know nimh could power that system properly. I thought they advised against it.

It came with 2 3000mah 7cell 8.4v nimh
it seems to move the truck well for about 25 minutes.
i was thinking about going with 2 11.1v 5000mah lipos
just dont know what brand. Not to worried about price as i just dropped $780 clams on this. Rig.

The thing with batteries is alot of it is just hype. I will say that the SMCs have out performed every other battery I have tried that is labeled the same, or even more. you don't have to spend a ton of money to get a good lipo, just need to be informed. the viscous batts that are listed above seem decent. buy a set of each and see which are better for you. you can get 4 of those batteries compared to getting only 2 venoms or thunder powers for the same price.

 

[wacmartin]

I've only used traxxas, venom, and SMC. By far the best of them is SMC imo. I'm not going to pay more when I'm happy with SMC, $80 for 2 2s 5100mah 40c shipped, $80 is what I'd pay for one of the others with similar specs not shipped. I'm in Canada so the SMC packs are $5 more a pack compared to the American site, $5 is less then what I'd pay in duties so it's worth it to me.

 

[jose.28]

So is the traxxas ez peak plus a good charger then?

 

[sur3fir3]

It will work, If you can get a refund go for it, and try to get something better, but if you can't it will work for ya. I am unsure if it has a discharge feature, I didn't see it listed on the website.. but it might be in the manual. If it doesn't have a discharge feature then definitely get a different one. I picked up an older venom 210 that chargers 2 batts up to 6s at 10A and will discharge 2 packs at 5A. with a power supply for $60. and the venom 210 is 10x better than the traxxas charger.

 

[jose.28]

Ugh! Just paid 100 clams for that! It does seem ez to work with though.
i may just pass it down to my kids and get i better one when i get the lipos

---------- Post added at 9:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:25 PM ----------

Heres the one i got http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...lus&sa=X&ei=Kcf5UcClKYa-9QTk5YEo&ved=0CCkQzAM

---------- Post added at 9:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:27 PM ----------

Humm...... why is a 7.4v lipo more powerful then a 8.4v nimh?
I looked these up. http://www.smc-racing.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=67_97&product_id=117

 

[sur3fir3]

Ugh! Just paid 100 clams for that! It does seem ez to work with though.
i may just pass it down to my kids and get i better one when i get the lipos

---------- Post added at 9:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:25 PM ----------

Heres the one i got http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...lus&sa=X&ei=Kcf5UcClKYa-9QTk5YEo&ved=0CCkQzAM

---------- Post added at 9:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:27 PM ----------

Humm...... why is a 7.4v lipo more powerful then a 8.4v nimh?
I looked these up. http://www.smc-racing.net/index.php?route=product/product&path=67_97&product_id=117

Its more powerful because lipos produce more amperage. Think of it like this voltage = size of your water pipe while amps = amount of water it outputs.

so you can have a 1" pipe at 5 psi, but a .75" pipe at 20psi will output more water...

---------- Post added at 9:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 9:43 PM ----------

I looked up the charger, and I must say its good. Get the optional part so u can charge 2 batteries at once it will make a huge difference for ya.

 

[jose.28]

Sweet! I will order the dual adapter.

 

[sur3fir3]

eventually you will want to upgrade the charger, but at least its not a real cheap one. To figure out the power of a lipo u multiply the Amp hours by the C rating and that give you an estimate of the amperage a certain pack will produce... for example.

2s 60C 5000Mah = 60C * (5000mah/1000)= 300Apms
2s 70C 4500Mah = 70C * (4500mah/1000) = 315Apms

 

[jose.28]

Aaaaaaaaaand i should of listen in math class lol.
Ill have to see what lipos i get the research charging.

 

[jose.28]

So after running the emaxx for a few days I've notice some things i dont like.
hoping an emaxx guru can you sheds some light.


#1 esc and motor ARE NOT WATERPROOF! <-----HATE IT.
#2 it seems that the esc has a slow response sometimes.
#3 can't really feather the trigger for slow claiming.
it shoot off.

 

[Non Crimen]

1.) if you have the Mamba Monster system with a little research you would find that it is not water proof.
2.)if you get the castle link(if you have the mm combo) you can adjust/tune take off as well as a ton of other things
3.) lipos plus a high torque system tend to do that....


Sent from my *PiMP Boy-3000*

 

[jose.28]

It appears that i have that combo.
But i dont see the link plug on the esc. Maybe emaxx comes stock with an el cheapo esc?
I'm running the 8.4v nimh packs that came with it.