In answer to you last question...they are equally as imp't. Look here at RCM, Mike is having a great sale on Poly Quest batts right now. The Hyperion line of G3 is also an excellent battery. Well worth the extra $ IMO. If you could only afford 1 batt. and the ccneu motor, I would go that route...as opposed to getting more inferior batteries, you will be happy you did.

Well if you want 'safe', then nothing can touch an A123 pack on that front, but there are trade offs, such as higher voltage drop under load compared to a standard lipo pack, and lower energy density.

A123:
-Intrinsically safe chemistry, very robust, physically, and electro-chemically
-~100Wh/kg energy density
-~2500Watts/kg
-EDIT: Also, they have a several 1000 cycle life, so they will outlast anything you use them in. You most likely will not use them that many times, simply because newer packs will come out before then, and the physical stress that is put forth from an R/C application such as these.

Newest Lipo packs (eg. - Hyperion G3's)
-Claim to be safer, more consistent, and last 4x longer than last gen. lipo's
-~140Wh/kg
-~4500+Watts/kg


If you want nothing but reliability, then A123 pack is your answer, if you want some more performance but still excellent quality, then Hyperion G3 lineup, Flightpower EON X30's, Neu packs, TP 40C packs, etc... although the HP G3's are the best value, and are up there with the TP 40C packs as far as performance goes, for almost half the cost.

Well I didn't mean safe in that way.

When I first built my conversion, I know that the TrueRC Lipos I had were "borderline". And they did puff pretty quickly.

I know that Lipo is not inherently a "safe" technology, but I meant safe in the sense that, for my set-up, a 30C pack would be much "safer" than the 10C pack I had.

---

So now it's pretty clear that something around 30C would be perfect, but I still don't know if I'd be better off with 1 big pack or 2 smaller ones. Neil said 2, but I'd like to understand why.

And the remaining question I'll have to answer myself is this: buy cheap now, or postpone any RC until next spring when I'll be able to buy better gear... :-)

God I wish RC were my only hobby! :-D

Loa

Here, you can get some killer deals for some clearance, old stock Hyperion packs...

http://aircraft-world.com/shopexd.asp?id=4267 25C, 4350mah, 2-6s packs

http://aircraft-world.com/shopexd.asp?id=4959 30C, 4500mah, 2-6s packs

IMO, I would try the VZ 30C packs, the 25C packs I have aren't the best matched packs, they do perform, but the balance is not so great. These are both Enerland based packs, so you know you are getting good quality cells in your packs.