12 Volt?

[Claus]

Anybody run 12 volt in their trucks? Any advantages or disadvantages? More power always sounds good, sometimes comes with a heavy price.

[Smiley]

I have it in my wedico truck and in my cattle trailer . Not real sure if there is any difference .

Keith

[9W Monighan]

You would be drawing less current.

[Lil Giants]

I first switch to 12v 15yrs ago b/c I could get a motor about 1/3rd the speed of anything in 7.2v class.

I stuck with 12v b/c everything I have is on that voltage making it easy to swap batteries from one to the next.

The power is good, but there is getting to be some good brushless motors out there with more power, greater efficiently and smoother control over brushed motors that can be used in 7.2v.

Lipo packs are the better choice nowadays for batteries for both even power consumption & space savings. 2s 8.4V for 7.2v class is perfect vs 3s 12.6v for 12v motors is too low for good performance.

[fhhhstix]

For years the common voltage was 7.2V. Tamiya, Team associated, and most other brands used 7.2V and the electronics made were designed for them. I guess that is why I still use the 7.2V packs. Slower 7.2V brushed motors have been around a long time it is just that most did not know about them. Not many guys other then the ones who raced used lathes and knew about lathe motors. Astroflight made puller motors back in the 80's but unless you were into the pulling you probably would not know about them.


I still run NiMh batteries in most of my trucks. LiPos can be smaller but when you get up to 5000mAh batteries the LiPo is still the same size or bigger than the NiMh. Plus with the amount of RC cars and truck that I have it is easy to forget to take out a LiPo and drain it dead and at least with a NiMh I have a chance of saving it.

You can get LiPos that are smaller but you give up run time. Here are some pics of 7.4V LiPos compared to 7.2V NiMh.

A 5000mAh LiPo / 5000mAh NiMh / 1800mAh LiPo / 1600mAh NiMh







With the GRU we use to slow the truck down you will break some thing before the battery wont have enough power to move the truck under a load. My AeroMax hauled Nate's excavator around on 7.2V at Indy

I would say to answer the question there are more electronics out there that are made for 7.2V giving you a better selection to chose from. Just go to Tower Hobbies or Horizon Hobby and search for 12v and see how many esc's come up then search for 7.2V and see the overwhelming amount that come up. Now with brushless motors and 3s LiPos there are more options for our trucks but finding a brushless motor with a low enough kv rating to use with a 3s LiPo does not offer a lot of choices. I do think as LiPos become more popular and smaller with higher mAh and more esc's being made that are 3s capable you will see more in trucks.

Travis