Possible idea for bringing brushless to the pit party (as in racing)

[crazyjr]

I was reading a huge Electric over Nitro in racing thread, in another forum. A lot of the guys admitted that electric looks good, but there is a problem with battery changes. Long story short, i think that a bunch of smokers would jump to electric, if pits were possible without partial disassembly. As i was reading, i got to thinking of the threads on caps here and thought if we could get 10-12 minute runs with a 3 second charge, I think it could go a long way to bringing electric to the masses. I was thinking we could do it like a traxxas EZ start, hand held battery and just plug and push a button. I do not have the expertise to do this, but thought i'd throw the idea out to those who might can do it.

Would this be possible with current capacitor technology?

[glassdoctor]

5 minutes of runtime and 5 sec recharge type of thing would be very cool but not possible with current technology that I know of.

I've been thinking a little about this "problem" with race length and pitting. If the smokers were not stuck on the idea that pitting is somehow a necessary part of a "real" race, we could push limiting the races to about 30 minutes and running bigger lipos like @8000mah. Then we don't need to mess with a battery swap and the headaches that go with it.

30 minutes is a long race. There are many that many races that are 45 minutes, and very few that are 60 minutes. Normally it's only nationals/worlds level events that do this, like the rcpro series finals and roar nats, etc.

[MTBikerTim]

I think the fast swap batteries serum was working on would be a good idea. Definitely achievable with current technology.

[MetalMan]

Only problem with using a capacitor to recharge a battery in a short amount of time is the current. If a 2000mah battery/capacitor would get you 5mins, it would take 1,440amps to recharge in 5sec., if I did my math right ( 5sec = 0.0013889 hours, 2Ah / 0.0013889 hours = 1,440amps). From my knowledge of what's currently out there, I'd say we're pretty far off from that.

[dirt101]

yes I was thinking the same thing on the super high amp rate it would take.
seems like it would liquify the wires or something

[highflier]

A recharge is not the way with current technologies, A easy battery swap is the way to go. I find that swapping batteries is a irritant. A better system could benefit not just racers but the Hobby in general.


Highflier

[BL_RV0]

my idea of a quick-swap would be like, you flip your car over, and take out 2 body clips from the bottom of the chassis, and once you pull those out, theres a big flap under the chassis hinged at one end that opens up, and pop! out slides your lipo when the flap is open, and this "popping" base would have a channel into it where you tuck your wires and connector for very easy and quick access. (like the open end of the base (when the flap is open) would have toyr connector there.) once you have your new battery in, you just shut the "hatch" and put the clips back on, and voila, your racing! all of this should take about 30 seconds. good? bad? only thing i see wrong with my design is that youd have to have very long esc wires. doesnt seem like too big of a problem tho

[aqwut]

Serums quick swap idea would be good.. .. kinda like something that Tyco makes with the 6V and 9.6V.. .they swap pretty fast.. but if serum could make a case for the lipos.. and we'd only take a few seconds to swap batteries... put the batteries on bottom/top/side of the car.. who cares, use high impact plastic and water proof it... Serum.. Get her done bro.. :)

[Sower]

I agree - what Serum was posting was pretty sweet. If the details were ironed out it could be incredible. For example, I could see the body having some kind of hinge point on it to flip up for quick access to the battery. You could put a couple tabs of velcro on the body as well as on the chassis side mud guards to keep it in place while racing. Or you could have a small post coming out of the vertical portion of the mud guards that had a body clip on it. Something along those lines would be sweet and very quick. Does that make sense or is the picture I'm painting a Picasso?

[crazyjr]

Some of you guys missed the point, I was thinking of using the caps in the carand using the battery in the charger. I know lowering the race time is a way, but nobody here likes short races. they say the longer the better. I have 8000mah batteries, but if possible, i'd run my 4900 flightpower over them. I come from an electric background (slotcars) and really do not see a need for 30+minute races for any class

[Serum]

I just updated a bit of the thread guys, to give this a little boost..

This weekend i will finish her to include the plugs. (i spent quite some time on drawing the actual plug, reverse engineering can be a pain, you know.. )

here is the thread;
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8522

[DrKnow65]

Wouldn't we have 3 or 4 minutes to change the battery while the nitro guy's work on getting up to the current lap? ;)

[squeeforever]

I think fuel cells are gonna be the way to go pretty soon. From what I've read its fairly simple to do now, given the right equipment.

[DrKnow65]

I love run time, but I havn't driven long enough in one setting to justify anything more expensive than my lipo's. 45 minutes is a lot driving, do I realy need a car that will do 2-3 hours??? or more???

How hard would it be to get an 1/8th scale racer to do 60 minutes, at better than nitro speed? Or how about 30 minutes? (nitro pits 3 times in one hour, electric pits 1 time= three times as long to change your battery)

[Papa]

No need to worry about pit stops when these rigs will be running in their own class.