How are tracks keeping their doors open now days? Have you looked at weekly attendance at your local tracks? More likely than not, your local track is getting 15-40 entries on a weekly basis, hardly enough to keep the lights on and rent paid. Well, I’ll tell ya how many tracks are keeping their doors open, big “trophy” races. Many tracks depend on trophy races to bring in enough dinero to keep from going under, without them, they simply could not make it.

Depending on trophy races to keep your doors open is not how a “fun” hobby should operate. A “fun” hobby should depend on building up a base of local/not so serious racers that come out religiously every weekend. Having a strong “fun” local base makes noobs feel more comfortable, creating a snowball effect, one that encourages first time racers to come back every weekend, giving a local track a steady growth of new blood.

Walk into an “average” track now days and you’ll find the same 20 hardcore racers you would have found there in 1996. Hundreds of noobs have come, felt uncomfortable and/or totally uncompetitive, and never came back a second time. Those 20 racers are the ones that will go out of their way to win at any cost- from cursing, to not sharing common set-up information, to hacking, to flip’n out on marshals, to generally doing anything to run away potential challengers to their spot as local fast guy. But, these few local hardcore guys (the ones that are willing to travel to race) are the ones keeping most tracks open. Out of their pockets come the $30-$150 entry fees for all those trophy races that keep tracks open. The real question is, how much longer can our hobby keep milking these guys dry every year before they start asking themselves is it really worth it? At what point will the local hardcore guy see that he spent 15k last year for a few plaques and a couple of partial sponsorships? Was spending 15k and missing his kids grow up worth those plaques and partials? Those guys are hardcore, but they aren’t stupid (perhaps a bit obtuse), and many of those aging hardcore guys have just about had enough.

Not helping are some track owners. I’ve talked to several new track owners lately who just can’t wait to hold big races. They see “big” races as the only way to make any money. They see big races as the only way to establish their track as being a “good” one. They really could care less about what their local noobs want, they only people they seem to listen to are the hardcore racers on RC Tech who live 50 miles away but swear they’ll support their track (well, if the makes the rules and the track the way they want them).

Also not helping is ROAR. ROAR gave up on local racing years (decades?) ago, seemingly now only caring about nationals (upon nationals, upon nationals). After seeing dwindling membership year after year, they seemingly came up with the brilliant idea of holding as many different national races (and classes) as possible. They seemingly think the only way they can make more money is via entries to their national events, so they hold a ridiculous amount of them (anything for a buck eh? no matter how much it devalues their winners). If you race full scale motorcycles in the USA (dirt or street, it does not matter), you are most likely an AMA member, as nearly all local Joe Blow tracks in the country require an AMA card for even the most basic of events. It seems like ROAR is all about the money these days, funny that they don’t understand the real money is to be had at the local level.

Ok, to finally digress- the most important people in racing are the noobs, the guys that show up with the Stampedes, Red Cats, and T-Maxxs. Yet, while we all know that, nobody caters to them. We see it every single day. We see the future of the racing side of our hobby die a little each time a noob walks out the door never to return.

Enough of this racing talk, I could go on, and on, and on, so……

On to a different subject, we’ll be starting our 4S 8th scale Lipo shootout in mid September, and will hopefully be publishing the results the first week of October. On board so far is Thunder Power, Ace, and Checkpoint. Rumors still abound around the office that MaxAmps is IN.

Speaking of shootouts, our high zoot editor Brian says he has a boner to do a 2.4 Ghz transmitter shootout, lets say Futaba 4PK vs Tactic vs Spektrum DX3R vs one of the affordable alternatives. If you are a manufacture up for the challenge, fire off an email to Brian at BigSquidRC dot com, and if you are a consumer who thinks such a shootout would be cool to see (and what some of the criteria should be) send an email to that same email addy.

Ok, I’ve gone wayyyyyyyyy too long this week. As always, thanks for reading my drivel (sarcastic English butchering rants), and get out from behind that tube (ok LCD screen) and hit up your LHS, local tracks and bash spots!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Need some new LiPos?  HPI has a new line for ya.  The HPI Plazma LiPo line comes in three flavors, an 11.1V 3800 mAh, a 7.4v 4000 mAh with round case, and a 7.4v 5300 mAh.  If you have a HPI vehicle then one of these packs will likely fit in it without problems.  All of the packs have Deans connectors preinstalled from the factory.  They have MSRPs of $79.99 (4000 mAh), $129.99 (5300), and $139.99 (3800), but no word on when they’ll be hit shelves.

Check out the HPI web site for more info.

Note: We did this, so you don’t have to! Seriously, do NOT try this at home! The results are very unpredictable, and you can even hear us scramble a little bit in the video. Something like this can turn into a very dangerous situation. Now that that is out of the way, on to the good stuff!

Each time we’ve done a Lipo shootout, the number one complaint we receive afterwards is “Why didn’t you test the batteries at their claimed C rating?”. Luckily, we aren’t a mag, so you asked for it and we grab our test gear and actually do it!

So what exactly what happens when you put a real 30C load on a battery pack that has 30C stamped across the top of it? Let’s find out.

We did not have optimal video equipment available the day of the test, but the vid captures all the nitty gritty. If you don’t know much about batteries, he’s the skinny- the battery dropped voltage extremely quickly, and it ended up ruined.

For those of you that do know a thing or two about batteries, here’s the details of the test.

The battery pack used was a name brand 3S 5000 mah 30C (150 amps) LiCoO2 Lipo that you can buy in most any good LHS. We aren’t going to list the name here because we didn’t do this test to try and discredit one brand. If anything, our “nameless” pack performed better than a typical sample does at it’s rated C discharge. Also, no company wants to see their label on a pack that is hell bent for destruction, so it was left off and replaced with a BigSquidRC sticker.

A 3S Lipo was chosen because it would result in maximum amp draw from the dischargers we were using. With BigSquidRC being “By Bashers for Bashers” we set up the test like any good basher would, using readily available components.

For discharging duties we searched into the 12v 1:1 automotive world…. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been mentioning for a little bit now that we were going to give the readers what they want. A 30C LiPo discharged at 30C. Seems like that should work right? Well, the write up and video should be available Friday.. but for now.. here’s a quick video still.

‘There is nothing to see here.. move along!’

“Dear Brian,
First let me take the time to say, I really enjoyed the two battery shootouts. They were well written and I think by the second one you really have it nailed down with good testing criteria for each battery and being able to replicate situations so the testing for each is equal. One thing that really kind of bummed me out was that you DIDN’T test the Max Amps batteries. I know you stated in the article why you didn’t, however I just don’t think those were good enough reasons to leave them out of testing. Over time you’ve proved that your tests and product reviews are unbiased. I don’t think any of your readers would accuse you of being biased if they did well. I imagine that you guys didn’t want to include them because if they didn’t perform well that they may pull from being a sponsor. I know that’s a tough choice to make, but in the end, by NOT testing them, you may have done them an even bigger injustice because now people will run out and get the batteries that did well in your tests because they have hard evidence to base their purchase off of.
(continued…)
Ok, now I’m rambling lol but PLEASE include Max Amps in your next shootout and PLEASE do a Premium Battery Shootout so we can see if it really is worth buying one of these high priced, high mAh battery packs as opposed to the lesser 4000mAh and lower type of packs. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my email and take it into consideration. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.

Sincerely,
Scott K”
———————————-
I’ve omitted a large part of the email just to shorten it down a bit for our readers, and while it was addressed to our editor Brian, I think it makes a good “ASK Cubby” email.

First off, thanks for the props Scott, they are few and far between. Now to get to the crux of your email. Having a MaxAmps battery in one of our battery shootouts would be ratings gold. Out of all the emails we get, MaxAmps and Zippy are by far the two most requested brands that people want to see tested. MaxAmps is the biggest name in Lipo, and we’d love to see them in a future shootout. From speaking to the guys at MaxAmps, they put a tremendous amount of time into testing and building their batteries, and their reputation for customer service is a good one, all of which equals a great contender in a shootout. At BigSquid we have a great deal of respect for the crew at MaxAmps and we will not include them in a shootout without their permission. To the people that want to see MaxAmps in a shootout I would recommend giving them a call to let them know. They are good people there and I’m sure they’d like to hear your feedback.

The best thing about shootouts is that there are so many to do, many more than time allows. We’d like to do a 4S shootout for 8th scales, we’d like to do a shootout between sub $50 packs, and I’d especially like to see a shootout between former winners.

We’ve got lots of shootouts coming, with the next one being our charger shootout. It’s well underway and should be hitting the front page in about another week. Not only will we be testing how easy each charger is to use and it’s features, but also how long it takes to charge a pack (some are a LOT faster than others!) and the actual performance of the batteries afterwords. It should be groundbreaking and a good read.

Thanks for reading and submit your questions/comments and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

“What are the max. charge rates for the batteries used for this competition? 1C? 2C? 5C? Recharging time is a consideration for many users and may be the deciding factor between similar-performing brands.

Regards..
Bob”

We shot Bob a personal reply, but his is a good question that perhaps other readers would like the answer to. During the Big Squid RC Lipo Battery Shootout 2, the max charge rates for each brand were…

Hyperion- 5C
Common Sense- 2C
Ace- 2C
CheckPoint- 1C
Venom- 1C
JGB- 1C
Winforce- 1C
Zippy-1C

For those that may not know- assuming a Lipo pack is fully discharged, a 1C rate will take slightly over one hour to fully charge the battery, 2C slightly over 30 minutes and 5C slightly over 12 minutes (depends on your chargers CV rate).

That’s it for this week, shoot your questions to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Got LiPos? Got a LiPo charger? Don’t have a balancer? Check this new Digital Balancer from Team Orion.  It’s a small module that will auto balance your LiPo and LiFe packs from 1-6S (wait… 1S lipos need to be balanced?).  The digital display will tell you the voltage of each cell independently and total pack voltage.  You can use the Digital Balancer to balance your cells after you charge them or while they’re charging.  It’s a simple plug-n-play solution.

No word on availability or price, but “soon” and “not a lot” are probably acceptable, the product number is ORI30136. Keep an eye on Team Orion’s web site for more info.

This week instead of posting questions that readers have submitted, I’ll be doing things a bit differently. The Big Squid RC Second Lipo Battery Shootout has been a ginormous hit, and with it’s success comes questions from those pesky message board pundits. So here’s some of the criticism off the message boards, and the reasons for why we conducted the shootout like we did.

“they (BigSquidRC) did not compare similar C rated packs”

The primary reason why we didn’t compare packs of the same “C” rating is because we tested what the companies sent us. When we approached all the battery companies we told them “look, here are our testing criteria, send us the battery that you think will do the best”. So while the C ratings of the packs are different between companies, it’s what they decided to send us (with 2 exceptions, more on that later). But to really boil it down, it doesn’t matter what the sticker on the outside of the packs says that its C rating is, as anyone can print “20C, 30C, or 80C” on their pack (and you’d be surprised how many battery sellers print whatever C rating they think will sell best on their packs, not what they were designed to do), what really matters is the end performance. It still amazes me how some consumers think the C rating printed on the outside of the pack is more important than the actual pack performance.

“we wanted to see higher discharge rates tested to see if the C ratings were true or not”

Anyone that wants to see a 30C labeled pack discharged at 30C has never done it before. LOL The reason why we didn’t do it is very self explanatory if you’ve ever done it. The packs in the shootout were mostly 2S 5000 mah packs, ranging from 20C to 40C. So lets say we wanted to do a 40C discharge, that’s a 200 amp continuous load. A 200 amp load isn’t hard to accomplish, anybody can go down to the local Pep Boys and buy a bunch of automotive headlights and 0 gauge wire. What inevitably happens is that you burn off a tab on the cell, lose connection, and party over. Packs that don’t burn off tabs skyrocket in temp and head straight for thermal runaway. For those that just “must” see what happens when you throw enormous C discharge rates on a battery pack, that will be an upcoming feature on BigSquid, but it’s really just a waste of a perfectly good battery pack. Look for the video and accompanying article in the next few weeks.

“the Zippy was actually the pack that won the price category because the Winforce pack you tested cost $50 not $7″

We get a lot of email here at BigSquid, and we got a LOT of email asking that Zippy be included in the next shootout. So we approached Zippy to send us a pack, but they did not. So we did what to magazines would be unthinkable, we bought the Zippy pack because we know how much our readers wanted to see it reviewed. After buying the Zippy, we had heard rumors of a pack that was better than Zippy but cost a third less. After a little research, we found the Winforce pack, which we also purchased because we just knew our readers wanted to see how a $7 pack would stack up. So if you think the Winforce pack really costs $50, you are looking at the wrong pack, because we’ve got the receipt for the Winforce to prove otherwise. Now we contemplated listing “in hand” prices instead of the “street” price, but that opens a huge new can of worms that include wildly varying shipping costs, taxes, and possible coupon use. In the end, it’s up to the consumer to get the best “in hand” price that they can.

“Three drivers is not enough to make an accurate driving test”

Ya know, we’d love to have had hundreds of test drivers evaluate the packs, as that would have provided more accurate results. But, let’s take into account time. Just how long would it take 3 test drivers to drive 8 packs? We had 8 ICE Chargers, so to fully charge all 8 packs only took 1 hour. So one hour charge time for 1 driver, 3 hours charge time for all 3 drivers. Now let’s say each driver drove each pack for only one full run. Let’s assume we got roughly 15 minutes of run time on each pack. For one driver that would be 2 hours of on track time, multiply that by 3 drivers, and that’s 6 hours continuous running on track. Let’s say you let the motor cool down to a standardized temp between each run (which we did, the motor started each run at 110 F), and let’s say the cool down period is only 10 minutes. For 3 drivers to run all 8 packs, that’s 24 total runs, 10 minutes between each run equals 240 minutes, right at 4 hours. At this point the test is sitting right at 13 hours, and that doesn’t include the occasional blown spur, busted shock cap, etc. So how long would it take if we’d have used 20 drivers, or 50 drivers? I don’t know, all I know is the entire battery shootout takes long enough the way it is. LOL

“driving the cars outdoors is not a good high speed test, as there are too many variables”

LOL If anyone would like to build BigSquidRC an immaculate 400 foot long indoor facility, please feel free. LOL But to be serious, the vast, Vast majority of people running high speed, or even just a basher blasting up and down the block, are doing it in worse conditions than we had during out shootout. We had a huge, pristine, freshly built, and not even open to the public highway to do our test on. We were very lucky to have such a great area to conduct our high speed runs on. We live in the real world, so we test in the real world just like an end consumer would.

“look at the voltage under load numbers compared to the top speed numbers, there should be a direct correlation there, if not then something is flawed. The voltage under load is the voltage put out when the car is running, which has a direct correlation to motor rpm and the overall vehicle speed.”

Eureka! That’s the real beauty of real world testing. The test bench says one thing, but can it really do it in the real world? Certainly the pack that got the highest top speed, the JGB pack, was putting out the highest voltage while under the load that was being supplied by the truck used in high speed testing. The JGB did not put out the highest voltage under a 30 amp continuous load on the Competition Electronics Turbo 35. We did not use an on board data recorder to find out exactly what load was being seen during the high speed tests, but whatever load it was, the JGB kicked a$$ on. If running up and down your street and kicking your neighbors butt is a priority, then the JGB should be at the top of your buying list. On the same order, the Hyperion did not win the voltage under load test, yet it handily won the on track driving test. On track driving really tests a packs ability to put out good voltage under a nearly infinite variance of loads, something that no discharge manufacture can come close to simulating at this time. Combine that with the human mind, the most powerful “computer/data recorder” known to exist in the universe, and you’ve got an ultimate test combo to simulate real world conditions, the only realm that the vast majority of buyers care about. The entire shootout is really geared towards the vast majority of users that don’t know what voltage under load even means, instead they just want to know what goes fast. There are plenty of hard core CBA heads out there, but this shootout wasn’t geared toward that minority.

“testing a 20c pack against 40c packs is like testing a 6 cylinder 2.0 litre engine against 6 cylinder 5 litre engines- pretty obvious which one is gonna develop more power”

I guess someone forgot to tell the Venom it was only a 20C pack then. Hah! But really, when you test a LOT of cells, you’ll find out that supplier A’s 20C’s might kick supplier B’s 50C packs a$$, and supplier D’s 30C packs are better than suppliers A’s 40C packs. That’s why the testing is a whole lot more important that the C rating on the side. Those that think that a 30C pack is always faster than a 20C pack haven’t tested very many battery packs.

“it didn’t sound like they had more than 10 cycles on each battery pack, would want to see how they preform after a summer of use not a few weeks of regulated testing”

I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps the most elite test of a Lipo battery is how it holds up 100 cycles down the road. But, once again, that darn time thing gets in our way. At a 1C charge rate, and 10C discharge rate, plus some cool down time between cycles, you’d be looking at 150 hours per pack for 100 cycles. We have 8 chargers, so we could do 100 cycles on all 8 in that 150 hours, but we simply don’t have that much time to sit around and monitor the packs. We are BigSquidRC, and we have a lot more testing than just batteries to do. The actual sellers of the packs should be the ones testing out to 100 cycles to ensure they are putting out reliable cells.

That’s it for this edition. Submit your questions and hate mail to cubby at BigSquidRC dot com! We do appreciate your questions, so send’em in!

YOUR Cub Reporter

That’s right folks! It’s finally here! The post you have all been waiting and asking for! The Second Lipo Battery Shootout!
This time around we had a whole new set of competitors. We would like to thank all the companies for their participation in the shootout.
Here they are, and the packs we used:
Team Checkpoint 5000mah 40c
ACE Acepow Electronics 5000mah 40c
Common Sense RC 5000mah 40c
JGB RC 5200mah 35c
Venom Group RC 5000mah 20c
Empire RC – Hyperion 5000mah 30c
Hobbyking – Zippy Pack 5000mah 30c
Winforce RC (Off Ebay) 5000mah 30c

Now head over to the first page of the shootout, since we know you are dying to find out who won!

For those that missed the first one a while back you can read it RIGHT HERE!.

While we are here compiling all of our data for the second Lipo Shootout, I thought I’d post up a quick pick of the packs on one of the testing days. While you wait for the results later this week, why not check out first lipo shootout article!

The second BigSquidRC great Li-po battery shootout is nearly finished. Over the weekend the crack BigSquidRC crew performed a majority of the testing. Now we are wrapping up the photo, graph, and writing duties. Packs were submitted for this shootout by CheckPoint, Hyperion, Ace, Zippy, JGB, Winforce (the 2S 5000 mah $7.99 pack), Common Sense and Venom. Some of the results will SHOCK you, so stay tuned, as we should have full results posted in the next week or so. This is a must read if you are in the market for a new Li-po battery, or if you are just wondering if that mega cheap $7 pack you saw on Ebay comes even close to stacking up to a $100 pack.

ROAR released a PR last week stating- “Too many manufacturers have exercised too must creative license regarding the aforementioned, which compels ROAR to take decisive and immediate action in order to prevent continued and dramatic departure from scale realism in the off-road segment.” Now that is funny stuff right there, funny on many, many levels. The first, and biggest reason it’s funny is that even if you were to put an exact scaled down copy of a Ford truck body on a rc truggy, it’s still gonna look like a Martian machine. Ever notice those huge tires that stick out a mile from the body on a truggy? Ever see anything remotely close to that in the “real” world? I didn’t think so. Another reason I have to laugh is that “non-realistic” bodies in nearly all classes have been legal for years. Please oh please grab any 10th buggy body, or 10th stadium truck body and show me a full scale counter part that looks even close. Also funny is why only now, after the Bulldog/Punisher/Losi 8T 2.0 type bodies have been on the market for over a year, does ROAR decide to take action? Why weren’t there rules and/or specs already in place to prevent a body such as the Losi 8T 2.0 from being legal in the first place?

Scale realism is good for the hobby no doubt, but there is also room and even perhaps a need, for a non-scale “elite” class. In full scale, it would be impossible to find a production car that looks anything like a modern Formula 1 car. Formula 1 is the pinnacle of racing on planet Earth, and to achieve the performance that the cars do, they have to look quite Martian. The same can be said in the rc world, to get our race cars to perform at the most elite level, they end up looking Martian like a modern truggy. Certainly more emphasis needs to be placed on racing short course type trucks that look very scale, but when Drake, Tebo, and Hara are trying to go as fast as possible around a bombed out off road track, we as fans want to see them going as fast as technology allows regardless of look. The biggest problem lies where local events should be littered with short course looking trucks to encourage noobs to get into the hobby, yet every local yocal wants to race the exact same looking truck as Drake. Could you ever convince a local that while an uber but Martian Losi 8T 2.0 is cool, he really should be racing an HPI Blitz to encourage onlookers to give rc a shot? At the end of the day, ROAR has two jobs- first to make rules, and secondly to provide officials at big events. If ROAR is honestly concerned with helping take our hobby to all new “mainstream” heights, rules would need to be implemented to extremely encourage short course classes at the local level, not to waste time on banning bodies that are already sitting on dealer shelves.

That’s it for now folks. As always, support your hobby and visit your LHS, local track and/or bash spot!

YOUR Cub Reporter

Duratrax has a new LiPo for those of you with Traxxas vehicles (or maybe even other vehicles with Traxxas connectors on your ESCs I guess… if you’d do something like that…).  Yes, it comes stock with a Traxxas style battery connector.  It also has a good bit of capacity at 4000 mAh, a discharge of 25c, and all of that at 7.4v.  These should be on your local hobby shop’s shelves now or very soon, so check with them.  Duratrax is listing the MSRP as $99.99. Street price should be a little cheaper.  Go check out the Duratrax site for all the information you could shake a stick at.

First up this week are a couple reminders. Looks like BigSquid’s next Li-po battery shootout starts testing next weekend. Venom vs Checkpoint vs Common Sense vs JBG vs Zippy vs $9 Ebay pack vs Hong Kong mystery pack equals one hell of a battery shootout.

Second reminder is that the annual April fools edition of THE Cub Report is coming up soon, so if you are in the industry, PLEASE consider the date before your lawyers contact us. Thanks!

Need more proof the rc hobby IS headed to the mainstream? Spike Tv has been giving all kinds of loving to the rc industry lately, including a 30 minute segment on the HPI 5B on their Powerblock Horsepower show. When was the last time rc was given 30 full minutes on a “mainstream” cable channel? Awesome to see, and thank you Spike and HPI!

Want even more mainstream rc? Justin Barcia-Barcia-Barcia won the Supercross Lites Class in Toronto Saturday night, his first Supercross win ever. What was on the back of his helmet? A HUGE RC10.com sticker that got some decent tv time! Way to go Justin and Associated!

In last weeks Cub Report, I mentioned that it was only a matter of time before a marshal is seriously hurt or killed by an 8th scale. Well one of our readers sent in some pretty gnarly pictures of what it looks like to get rocked in the face by an 8th scale truggy. Some of you southern racers might know a fella by the name of Trent Dill, he races and does race promotion down in the Alabama/Florida area. Here’s what happened to Trent in his own words….

“So I was helping turn marshal during practice. I had just relieved a kid that was pretty young and I didn’t think it was a good idea that he be out there turn marshalling for the 8th scale nitros as young as he was. So I got out there and got into that zone and things were fine. The race director called the track to go cold. Well of course you have those guys that have to get just one more lap in. Well I bent down to marshal a buggy and on my way up I got clocked in the face. Luckily the safety crew was there, unfortunately I WAS the safety crew. I am honestly glad it was me that got hit instead of that kid and I gotta say thanks to Tommy Whalen and John Greene. Tommy gave me a ride to the local ER while working EMT duties on myself, and John Greene took up donations that were given to our local make a wish foundation. Also don’t let me forget Mike at Caster Racing for doing the same thing. I hope some good came out of it for somebody.”

The first picture of Trent’s face is from 12 hours after being hit, the second one is about 36 hours later, and the last one is about 2 months later.

So why don’t we be proactive here? We can prevent injuries like the ones that Trent suffered. We can step in right now and make sure nobody ever dies while marshaling rc cars. Why should we wait for the first death before we make changes? Why should our hobby wait for the insurance companies and lawyers to FORCE the changes upon us? Too many industry types, sanctioning bodies, and race directors have kept their heads in the sand too long, just hoping the first death doesn’t come at one of their events. It’s time everyone pulls their heads out of the sand.

Till next week, support your local tracks, bash spots and your local hobby shops.

YOUR Cub Reporter

Ask Cub Reporter, A Weekly Advice Column- 01.20.2010
==================

First off a couple quick notes. If you have a question for the “Ask Cub Reporter” column, just shoot’em to cubby at BigSquidRC.com. Secondly, the “Ask Cub Reporter” segment is for all questions, from Formula One, to Supercross, to how to set the mesh on your E-Maxx, so feel free to ask Anything.

==========

Hey there Cubby,

I am in no means new to the hobby. I got my first truck, a Stampede, when I was seven. But I recently put together an Axial SCX-10 kit. Since my first and only electric truck is my stampede. And my newest stick pack is 5 years old, I’m in a way very out of touch in the electric scene(only things I’ve driven in the past few years are a T-Maxx, Savage, And my truggy. I have the an ax-1 ESC on it that I borrowed from a friend (the ESC from the TR version) and I really wanna go LiPo. I just need ya to point me in the right direction for a pack thats not a 5000 mah, 22.4v beast. Just a cheap reliable pack. Thanks a lot bro.
Cenzo Reyes
from Chi-Town

Ya know Cenzo, that Axial truck is one good looking truck, congrats on having one in your stable. So first off some facts for you and the others reading. The SCX-10 is set up to use a normal 6 cell Ni-mh Stick Pack, meaning two sets of 3 Ni-mh cells set side by side. That size of battery tray pretty much holds any standard 6 cell Ni-mh, and all the ROAR legal 2S Li-po’s out there. Next, the speedo that comes stock in the Trail Ready SCX-10, does not have a built in Li-po cut-off. What does a Li-po cut off do? It keeps you from running a Li-po battery down so far that it damages the battery. So to run a Li-po in your truck, you’ll also need one a Li-po cut off or warning device. Lastly, because you haven’t run much electric in recent years, you may not have a charger capable of charging a Lithium battery pack, so you might very well be looking at buying a new charger as well.

So what’s a cheap reliable battery for your Axial? If you want a good pack, todays Ni-mh’s put out good voltage, and have lots of capacity (lot of capacity means lots of run time). A Ni-mh weighs a bit more than a Li-po, so it won’t quite have the yank of a good Lithium pack, but that slight loss of punch might be worth the money you’ll save on a new charger and a Li-po low voltage alarm. So, if you go the Ni-mh route, I’d highly recommend the MaxAmps 5000 mah 6 cell Ni-mh Shotgun pack. It will fit perfect, has lots of power, and won’t break the bank. You can see more info on that pack HERE.

If you want to go the Li-po route to get into todays new technology, I’d recommend the MaxAmps 5250 7.4v Li-po, info HERE., in conjunction with a Li-po low voltage alarm such as this HERE.. The MaxAmps 5250 will give you extremely long run times, as well lots of rip snorting power. The low voltage alarm will warn you when you are about to discharge your battery too far and damage it.

Happy trails Cenzo, and be sure and shoot us some pics of your Axial when you get it good and muddy.

==========
Cubby,

I saw a pro racer throw his radio after his car broke in a big race in Ohio last weekend. Why did he do that?

Tony
Columbus

Well hello Tony from Columbus. So why did that pro racer guy throw his transmitter after his car broke last weekend? Well, I wasn’t at the CRCRCRCRC race last weekend, nor can I read peoples mind, so I am not going to speculate. What I will say is the racer in question is normally one of the cooler heads on the stand, and is normally a class act. If the racer in question (who’s nic name rhymes with fudge) did actually let his emotions get to him, I’d hope he’d openly apologize to the public, as that’s really the stand up thing to do. It would just take him a minute to post something on his Myspace page if he did actually lose his temper. If he didn’t, all the rumor mongers need to be forced to drink a full quart of carrot juice (ever try that stuff? OMG it’s horrible).

People look up to the pro’s, if they see some “big name” guy throwing a transmitter, they think it’s ok for them (or maybe even cool) to do the same. It’s really not that uncommon to see a 4PK flying across the pits, even at a local race, now days. Racers get too wound up, and there really are no repercussions for their poor sportsmanship. Local track directors never dock laps or throw people out at a local level, and at the national level, I’ve yet to see a racer penalized for turning a DX3R into a frisbee. Until the people behind the scoring computers get their sh#t together, we can expect to see more flying transmitters, trucks, fuel bottles, etc. At a regional or national level, if a racer did throw an item out of anger, then his racing privileges were revoked for a year or so, I’d bet we’d see far fewer outbursts like that. Just say’n……

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That’s it for this weeks edition of “Ask Cub Reporter”. Thanks for reading, and see you bright and early Monday morning for another exciting (LOL) edition of “THE Cub Report”.

YOUR Cub Reporter

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