Lipo
 

can you run these oln BL and if so which ones or are they not recommneded foir bashing?

Did you see this thread?

no but what about flextech?

LiPo and brushless go hand in hand (higher efficiency and less weight).

so better then a 7 cell pack of 3300's? if so which ones and what charger? good for bashing?

The good lipos will out perform the nimh batteries in pretty much every way. They need a LiPo specific charger, and it is important to follow the safety procedures when using them (like any battery).

okay.... i heard that they can explode or something like that? is this ture?

Any battery can explode (a battery is basically stored energy).

oo okay.. so i think i might stick with a good old fashion 7 cell pack cause aren't lipo alot?

LiPo are either expensive or cheap, depending on how you look at it. If you think about them in a similar way to thinking about brushless. The up front cost may be a little higher than other options, but the long term costs will be a lot lower (brushless motors last a lot longer than brushed motors with no maintenance cost either - LiPos batteries have more power, less weight and are capable of up to ten times the number of cycles than a nicad/nimh battery is capable of).

well in that case it is a good deal i guess but aren't they like 100 dollars per battery or more i think?

Not really - 3200 7.4 volt packs go for about 80 bucks - not much more than a good matched GP3300 but at HALF the weight!

Thing about lipos and brushless is that you have the option to go higher voltage - such as 11.1 volts or 14.8 volts.

so what batteries and charger then?

if you plan on keeping your nihm batteries then i would recommend the duratrax ice charger. its about $130 and can do lipo's as well as nihm and nicd.

The ice seems to be a pretty nice charger, but don't forget the power supply!

I was thinking of going with the triton. That way I can charge both my 9 packs at the same time. Is there another charger that is a little better than the triton that has a High cell count. What features does the ice have that the triton dosnt, and would it be worth it because the triton can still charge my 18 cells at once? Will either of the chargers tell you your mah?

If you already have a charger for NiMH, why not just get one dedicated for lipos? Astroflight 109 is a good model.

I have 2 mrc 959 that are raited for 8 cells each. So they dont really do the job either. Does the astro 109 have some features that the ice and triton dont? Would I be able to charge 2 18.5 volt packs running in parallel?

The Astro can charge at 8.0 amp rate and can charge more than 4S. I believe the ice and triton have a cell limit that is lower. Also, the triton can only charge lipos at 2.5 amps max!!! If you have a big 8000 mah pack, it'll take almost 4 hours!!!!!!!!!!

Thats the info I needed, thanx. Any other info or suggestions I should know if I decide to go with this setup.

Any suggestions on where to purchase 2 18.5 volt packs running in parallel? I want to go to lipo's for runtime but I do not know as much as I would like to about them.

The ice charger is a nice one because it can charge all battery types, but for LiPo, the Astroflight is better, as Lipomaxx already stated.

Why not go 3s 4400 mah and get two and put them in series for 22.2 volts instead?

He has an 18 cell controller. It could probably handle it, but it is technically voiding the warranty. I have run 22.2 volts on the 18 cell controllers, but I feel more comfortable with the 30 cell controller for that kind of voltage.

What is the max volts for the 9918. I dont quite understand how the cell count to volts work, if my two 9 cell packs read 12-13volts each then dosnt that make 22-26 volts?? Also if the batt. are 1.2 volts each than I would have thought that would make it 10.8 volts???

When the packs peak, the voltage is higher. This goes for the LiPo as well (22.2 volt LiPo peaks at 25.4 volts). I am not saying 22.2 volts won't work (in fact, I know it works!). I am just saying it is technically beyond the rated limit of the controller.

I'm using 29.6 on a 24 cell speedo... so far no probs... :)

I have used 18.5 volts on a 10 cell controller without problems (and used the bec from the controller!), but if it blew up, I would blame myself. I am confident it would work fine.

Wow! That's good over engineering! From what I heard, generally, it's the BEC that prevents a lot of escs from going above a certain voltage the transistor needs to dissipate too much heat from dropping the voltage low enough. So, the higher the voltage, the less power you should draw from the BEC in order to prevent burning up that transistor.

I believe in controllers where there is no BEC, there is slightly more "overhead". However, if I were to blow up a controller due to overvoltage, I wouldn't blame the company at all. Only myself. As a matter of fact, when I did go 8s on my 24.89, I actually took a big gulp and said to myself, if it blows, I learn an expensive lesson - and then I plugged it in and it worked.