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Old 28-12-2010
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Matisse Matisse is offline
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Location: Bristol
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Default GT14B Lipos - a guide to what fits right now

Since the GT14's appeared in this country, the team drivers have all been using LiPo batteries, but once i discovered that the RTR car will be coming with NiMh saddle packs, i thought i'd better find out what lipo's we can all use.

Considerations for any battery are;

Capacity (mAh rating)
Discharge (C rating)
Size

and it's the last one that is most important. The Carisma is designed to work with 2/3a sized cells in a saddle formation.
This means that each 3-cell pack will be the following dimensions;

49.5mm long x 26.5mm wide x 16.5mm high

pretty small for a lipo eh!
Thankfully we have a little leeway on the height and width, but the length, not so much.

A little investigation on a team drivers car recently showed me that if we remove the battery posts their is a danger of the lipo fouling the spur gear or the drive shafts, neither of which are a good thing.
I've also heard of at least one company who are waiting for the cars to arrive to develop weighted lipo straps similar to the ones available for 1/10th cars, so keeping the posts is a good thing.

A quick measure of the afore mentioned car showed me that a 52mm long pack should fit nicely, and a 54mm long pack should fit with a little adjustment.

I've spent a lot of time searching for batteries, gone 16-17 pages deep on google searches and called al of the major OEM UK based lipo manufacturers and this is what i have found;


Saddle Packs

UK based;

Carisma 2000mAh Lipo pack - avail from CML distributors soon price not known at the moment.

International;

MaxAmps 1720mAh saddle packs - designed for4 the mini inferno, these look to be a perfect fit @ 49mm long
Expensive as they list @ $49.99 plus a min of $14 p+p, get caught at customs and these could be really expensive!!
avail from www.maxamps.com


Single Packs

UK Based;

Storm 800mah 35C - avail from Logic RC, these packs are listed @ 54mm, but are out of stock so i've not had a chance to measure them. cost less than £10

Overlander Extreme 800mah 40C - These packs were very popular in the sharks a year ago and i'm confident they will fit. (the curent 60C packs are way too long!)

However, the 40C's are no longer in production. I've called Overlander and spoken to several guys there. Although they cannot supply these packs again with their current manufacturer, they are investigating whether something can be done in the future - more as and when i hear back from them.

Loong Max Tipple 800Mah 20-30C - an amusingly named lipo available from www.giantcod.co.uk, @ 54mm long it looks to be the right size. cost less than £10


HobbiesRuz 800mah 25C - listed @ 52mm long and £12 inc postage from www.hobbiesruz.co.uk


International;

Maxamps 1290mah 2s lipo - 49mm long so perfect, but expensive again at $35 + $14 p+p

interestingly Maxamps don't list C rating and claim 100C, which is a bit silly. they have a good rep though so i'm sure they will be powerfull enough

The 52mm packs fit with no probs at all, the 54mm packs will need some trimming on the battery posts.




Right, that's it so far, worth noting is that most manufacturers seems to be moving to longer cells to aid heat dissipation so out challenge is a big one.

it's also worth noting that a lot of sites will list the CELL SIZE and not the PACK SIZE!!
There are some cheap 800mah Kokam lipos on ebay listed @ 49mm, but the pack is over 58mm long, trust me i bought one and have returned it.

I'll try to update this as and when i find out more.
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