Lipo - to convert or not to convert?

[Lmackattack]

What do you guys think? It seams Lipo is the new trend in battery's. I see most of the R/C world is adapting to them but the trend seams slower with us semi truck guys?

I recently bought a scale crawler and was thinking about going lipo. but currently all I have is 3 year old or older nimh.most are starting to get worn out and weak. Now would be the time to convert if I do it.

thoughts ? pro vs con?

thanks!

[mavrick0]

The only real con is if you don't handle them with care they can bite in you in the butt but so can nimh's. From racing over the years I've seen more then a few nimh and nicd blow a cell and send chemicals and metal flying.

As for pro's you get longer runtimes as you can actually get a full charge on a pack, higher capacities, faster charge times and get a full charge, lighter, cheaper, smaller sizes for daycabs and such to name a few. And really for what we are doing with them they should last a long, long time if taken care of vs. a pack that is used hard for racing.

I think there's a couple of reasons it hasn't caught on much. One is the fact that units like the MFC don't have a lipo cutoff built in. But that's easily handled with a lipo alarm that plugs into the balance port and usually has a visual indicator with a couple of LED's as well a small speaker that yells at you when you hit cutoff. Another is with some of the batteries holders on some trucks, ie: aeromax, knight hauler, were designed around the shape of a normal nimh pack but again that can be worked around.

[Lil Giants]

I have converted to mostly lipo, but still use some NiMH b/c it better fits the voltage that I want to use for certain models & the added weight is a bonus too.

I use Venom 4s & Team Enrichpower 3s, both good quality brand names that have given zero troubles charging or use. Sometimes I balance charge, most of the time I just charge.

I use a HiTec charger, has a wide variety of charging options.

I charge my lipos unattended, but the lipo pack itself is inside a large glass jar with a metal lid just incase there is ever an incident during the charging process... 5yrs later with not one incident & I'm charging lipos nearly everyday.

I use speed controls with lipo cut offs built into them.

The only time I've ever ruined a lipo is when I forgot to turn the model off & the voltage dropped below 2.7v per cell. You can revive a lipo charging with NiMH setting to get the voltage per cell high enough to then recharge on lipo setting again, but the lipo pack is already comprised & it's then just a ticking time bomb after that, whether it's during recharge or in use in the model. I don't take any chances, I just dispose of the lipo.