Are Zippy Lipos safe with a Castle MMM Speedy?

[jhautz]

This whole discussion is just ridiculous from what I see. I haven't read this whole thread, just pieces of it (as it rather long now), but it really just smacks of CC trying to find something to blame for the early failures of their MMM units. Zippy's being low cost are pretty popular out there and they saw a few failures on the Zippys and bingo. An easy scape goat.

I run many different kinds of packs including zippy 20-30c, zippy flightmax 30c, Neuenergy 30C and 25C, Enerland PQ 25c and 30C, etc... AND I have had many MMM die on me. I prefer not to state the number of replacement that CC has sent me. (Its actually pretty ridiculous.) But now I finally have 3 units that have proven to be reilable. Nothing else has changed in the setups, just the MMM units and these 3 are now lasting. It just ook going through a ton of MMM units that weren't up to snuff to finally find 3 that were.

To be fair, I only had one MMM fail violently. and it wasnt when I was running the zippy packs. The rest were all quiet deaths or small poofs of smoke and dead.

I seriously think this thread is blown WAY out of proportion. And dont get me wrong. I think CC is a great company and makes some really good stuff. But the early MMM units were not a good example of CC's best work.

Originally Posted by RC-Monster Mike

Zippy or Flightmaxx in and of themselves are not a "cause of failure" most likely - its the combination of a lower end battery and unrealistic expectations leading to unrealistic operating conditions.

The same message applies here - if you run lower grade batteries, you must lower your performance expectations and make the appropriate gearing and setup considerations to ensure longevity. :)

I agree to a point Mike, but for most of the people out there, highend stuff is not necessary. Case in point below.

I'll take my Zippy powered Savage (that is used for bashing) and run it against a comparable Savage that's running batteries that cost 3 times what mine cost, and my truck will run right with it. I don't have to lower any expectations with my truck...I actually had to detune it to run it!

Unless you are gearing to the moon and planning to put one hell of a load on your electrical system, as in top speed challenges or the like, I see no good reason to blow $$$$$$ on highend battery packs. The average basher will be served just fine by running the appropriately sized Zippy packs or some other economical packs. I'm a testament to that. Zippys have gotten a bad wrap and frankly, it's not warranted. Many, many people involved in all aspects of this hobby from land to water to air are running Zippys successfully, and that in and of itself speaks volumes.

[Chadworkz]

black mamba, that was perfectly said!

Originally Posted by black mamba

I agree to a point Mike, but for most of the people out there, highend stuff is not necessary. Case in point below.

I'll take my Zippy powered Savage (that is used for bashing) and run it against a comparable Savage that's running batteries that cost 3 times what mine cost, and my truck will run right with it. I don't have to lower any expectations with my truck...I actually had to detune it to run it!

Unless you are gearing to the moon and planning to put one hell of a load on your electrical system, as in top speed challenges or the like, I see no good reason to blow $$$$$$ on highend battery packs. The average basher will be served just fine by running the appropriately sized Zippy packs or some other economical packs. I'm a testament to that. Zippys have gotten a bad wrap and frankly, it's not warranted. Many, many people involved in all aspects of this hobby from land to water to air are running Zippys successfully, and that in and of itself speaks volumes.

curious, waht battery is the other savage running?

because i have the complete opposite results. My NEU outperform my zippy packs any day all day. and dont even get me started on my maxamps....

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by Andrew32

curious, waht battery is the other savage running?

because i have the complete opposite results. My NEU outperform my zippy packs any day all day. and dont even get me started on my maxamps....

Given similar ratings my neu packs have also outperformed zippy packs... Not by a large amount, but enough to justify the addl cost. If you want to push some of these good escs and motors, you need good lipos. Now I have also ran a fair number of zippies and been very happy with their performance.

Originally Posted by Andrew32

curious, waht battery is the other savage running?

because i have the complete opposite results. My NEU outperform my zippy packs any day all day. and dont even get me started on my maxamps....

Racer's Edge packs, which cost a whole bunch more than my Zippys. Our trucks are both comparable to each other, almost transparent really. My intent on posting here isn't to get into a pee-pee match about packs though.

Considering I have my ESC turned down to 30% punch control and my throttle curve is cut way down, the performance I get out of my Zippys is still incredible, and the truck is still bordering on out of control at full throttle. If I were to put the ESC back to default, the truck would be a mess.

The good thing about the Flux is that it doesn't discriminate in the least.....it'll flip and do all kinds of circus tricks regardless of what brand packs you are running. lol

Originally Posted by lincpimp

Given similar ratings my neu packs have also outperformed zippy packs... Not by a large amount, but enough to justify the addl cost. If you want to push some of these good escs and motors, you need good lipos. Now I have also ran a fair number of zippies and been very happy with their performance.

And that's just it. The Zippys give great performance for what you don't have to spend to get it. Sure you can spend more on "competition grade" packs to get a little more punch, but is it really necessary when you can't keep the truck on all 4 tires for any length of time on Zippys? No, not in my opinion if you are a basher just having fun with the truck. For those wanting to set land speed records or those that want to try to time-travel with their Savage, well then, sure the added expense of high-end packs is worth it to wring every last ounce out of the Mamba Monster. I have already mentioned that above.

You know what we need for lipos? Official or at least semi-official groupings. Just like the nimh packs had. Those that were into nimh knew we had entry level sport packs, mid-grade packs, club-level racing packs and uber spendy, matched/zapped, all out competition pro-level packs. Now the lipo companies and industry leaders need to get on board and make it happen. This will help ease the confusion of getting into lipo for the newbies and maybe those not so new to lipo as well.

[Chadworkz]

black, you nailed it again.

[Patrick]

Yeah you always new what you were getting with nimh/nicad matched packs. The 5 year old GP3300 I have here has a label saying cell one is
421 SEC 1.171 AV
16 IR
.90 CutOff 5000vCo (whatever that is)
30A DIS 6.0CHG
and every cell has a label like that. Who knows what different lipos will actually perform like just from looking at their specs.

[Chadworkz]

Yea, with NiXX packs you got truly *matched* cells, but I don't think anyone matches Li-X cells, or does any kind of true testing.

Any one have new info with running Zippy paks they'd like to inform us about? I'm selling my SMC's as they are to finicky and gonna buy Turnigy or Zippys next spring

[JThiessen]

Mine are still holding strong. My brother in law puffed one pack due to likley overdischarge.

[Unsullied_Spy]

For a while I was running my Muggy with stock tires and a 16T pinion (found out later that this was geared for ~90MPH on 6s) and being rather brutal on the throttle and it held up to this for nearly an hour of total use. It held up fine under the Zippies but when I dropped down to a smaller pinion and switched to my Maxamps packs it smoked like a chimney, hmmmm.

Originally Posted by Unsullied_Spy

It held up fine under the Zippies but when I dropped down to a smaller pinion and switched to my Maxamps packs it smoked like a chimney, hmmmm.

Dayum!