Newbie here - recommendation for truck under $350

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Those are the only lipo's I have used, so don't have much to compare them to. They seem to do a good job for me. I get the rated power out of them and they seem to hold up well over time/cycles. Out of 8 packs, I had one lose a cell at 14 months. I still use the other 7 pretty much every weekend for at least 1 cycle. I now have 12 or 14 of their 2S packs. I was buying the large 9000mah 2S packs for my revo, but they didn't fit in my stampede and e-jato very well, so instead of dealing with 2 sized packs, I now just buy the 7200/7400 2S packs. They have a higher C rating anyway and seem to have a bit more pep to them for the entire charge. I use them in my ejato, stampede 4x4 vxl, brushless revo, savage flux hp and now my outcast. I use them in pairs in the bigger trucks.

Not sure if they have EC3 available or not. I use traxxas connectors. I should switch to XT90's... winter project. :)
 
olds97_lss said:
Those are the only lipo's I have used, so don't have much to compare them to. They seem to do a good job for me. I get the rated power out of them and they seem to hold up well over time/cycles. Out of 8 packs, I had one lose a cell at 14 months. I still use the other 7 pretty much every weekend for at least 1 cycle. I now have 12 or 14 of their 2S packs. I was buying the large 9000mah 2S packs for my revo, but they didn't fit in my stampede and e-jato very well, so instead of dealing with 2 sized packs, I now just buy the 7200/7400 2S packs. They have a higher C rating anyway and seem to have a bit more pep to them for the entire charge. I use them in my ejato, stampede 4x4 vxl, brushless revo, savage flux hp and now my outcast. I use them in pairs in the bigger trucks.

Not sure if they have EC3 available or not. I use traxxas connectors. I should switch to XT90's... winter project. :)
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Thanks Olds, I am figuring based on the specs on Tower that the 7400mah SMC 90C will fit perfectly in the granite, and they have EC5 connectors (larger than ec3 I think) available. Thought about buying 2, but might just get 1 to see how I like the speed, then decide to buy another 2S or get a 3S. Luckily I kept my 300W Reaktor charger from my previous life in RC, so as long as it powers up, I can charge just about anything (sadly one at a time).

You guys have been extremely helpful, don't get that on a lot of forums these days!
 
@MiStro I recommend SMC. They offer great LiPo batteries at reasonable prices.
 
WoodiE said:
@MiStro I recommend SMC. They offer great LiPo batteries at reasonable prices.
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Thanks WoodiE. Only thing stopping me from ordering right now is the high shipping cost especially for one battery. I'm not sure if I want to run 2S or 3S, so I'm thinking of buying an HRB off amazon with free shipping to gauge the speed on 2S, and then buy a few more from SMC after I know what I want to run.
 
MiStro said:
Thanks WoodiE. Only thing stopping me from ordering right now is the high shipping cost especially for one battery. I'm not sure if I want to run 2S or 3S, so I'm thinking of buying an HRB off amazon with free shipping to gauge the speed on 2S, and then buy a few more from SMC after I know what I want to run.
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SMC does charge a bit to ship, which is why I usually order 4 packs or more at a time. However, not knowing what you want to run makes it a bit annoying to pay the shipping only to find out you have to pay it again a few days later once you sort it out. Probably not a bad idea to get a cheap/high C lipo off amazon/ebay to try before you commit to a multi-pack order at SMC.
 
MiStro said:
I'll be honest, I don't know much about Traxxas non-VXL models and how they perform. Is there a huge dropoff in performance/increase in maintenance with the brushed?

Am I wrong to prioritize 4WD over brushless for my use case? Would something 2wd but brushless be a better buy and easier to work on when needed? I bought the Revo last time around for it's size and on recommendation from my LHS without doing a ton of research into the differences.

I've heard good things about the redcat models I mentioned (relatively inexpensive, brushless, 4WD, comes with LiPo), but there aren't many upgrades and parts are not as easy to find as they are for Arrma or Traxxas. Also, people on forums don't generally recommend them, but I can't figure the real reason why. For the occasional bashing in my street, yard, and snow, maybe something like this would save me some money in the long run on upgrades (I easily put hundreds into my mini-revo before selling it off).
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Do you already have a nice controller to start with that you can program for multiple rc's?
 
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