BANKRUPTER

I made a boo boo! I just got this PM on HPISF from the Bryan (winner of that truck)

I didn't run the 18C packs down there. They were 28C 2s packs. I jumped that distance on 4s, imagine how far I could have went on 6s, which are the 18C packs. We do have a new 28C 3s pack out, and I actually gave 2 of them away as I tried to run them and they were WAY TOO POWERFUL!!! I prob. would have flipped the truck over about half way up the ramp..haha

Thanks again.

Bryan @ SMC

So my bad people for the bad info.. But Scott and Bryan do run that 18C's no issue.. That was correct...

Sorry again,
Justin "Bank"

The Truth

Let me get this straight....the guy blows out his tranny from too much power and the thread turns into "your SMC 18C is a potential problem" thread? How did this happen? He had TOOMUCH power. He didn't blow up a battery. He didn't blow up a speedo. I bet that 18C would stomp just about any other brand 25C hands down. Spend time complaining about real issues instead of hypotheticals, please. Unless you have tested the 18C SMC under identical circumstances as other 25C packs, you are ill equipped to pass judgement.

Freezetron

Well, im a complete and utter fail after getting these emails from SMC. Kudos to SMCfor wanting to set the record straight even thoughI was a fault.

Bryce,

We have ran the 3418LD in our trucks with no problems. We each only have about 10-15 runs on the packs and our ESC is in good shape. The system still performs the way it did when it was brand new. We just got back from the No Limit R/C World Finals and my truck was good enough to win the long jump on 2 2S packs, some 63 feet I believe, even after supposedly doing damage after using the lower "C" rated batteries. If I or anyone that is associated with SMC say that our 18C, 24C, or any other "C" rated battery works fine in a particular application, this is our testing. If we haven't fried anything on our trucks why would anyone else. As I explained to you yesterday, each company's "C" rating can and probably is measured differently, so a 18C SMC may be equivalent to another company's 25C. As I also stated yesterday, one of HPI's drivers/employee used that same pack the entire weekend at the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix two months ago and had zero issues while using those packs. And yes, I did talk to a gentleman yesterday and told him that the pack works with the MMM to our knowledge. I told him that I couldn't guarantee him anything as this is based solely on our information and information given to us by those who test our products.

The most important detail in this theory of needing a 25C or 30C battery so stated by CC is...What battery do they recommend? Have they tested a battery that has a TRUE "C" rating? I have only heard of one customer who has an issue with any of SMC's LiPo's in his FLUX. He was using our 2624LD, 2600 mAh 24C LiPo. The owner thought that his charger may have been the issue so we tested the same packs in my personal FLUX Savage. I charged the packs, ran the truck then as soon as the batteries died I brought them right back to the charger and did the process all over again. I ran those packs 4 consecutive times, no breaks, no down time unless you count charging as down time) with zero issues. If there are issues with our products, we should see them as we run our two trucks 4 days a week, 2-3 times each day.

I'll check out the link in your email now. Also, I understand you want to protect your investment as I want to protect mine. The FLUX Savage is by no means a cheap or starter R/C vehicle but the general R/C public need to understand that ALL electronics can have issues! An ESC, motor, battery, servo, receiver...Any thing can have a defect.

Thanks,

Bryan @ SMC

Bryce,

Just looked @ the hpi manual and it says..."We recommend battery packs with a 25C rating or better. Using batteries with a lower C rating may result in damage to your batteries." CC may have more information to there products, but it doesn't say that lower "C" rated batteries will damage the ESC, at least not in the hpi manual. I just looked at your thread in the last email and I didn't see any posts from anyone saying they had fried a MMM ESC form using lower "C" rated batteries. The only thing I saw was a guy being picked apart for using a lower "C" rated battery, ours of course. As I told the gentleman yesterday, we see good results, we do not say we recommend them, nor do we say hpi recommends them. Our testing shows they are capable of usage without harm to any component of the truck. I also told the gentleman that we have a 5500 mAh 28C 11.1v LiPo if the 18C would not work or was not up to his standards.

SMC is not in the business of providing false or misleading information. We do not advertise in any magazine, so our strong backing and long list of customers comes solely from word of mouth and track performance. Hobbyists are sold on our great reputation and our high quality products. I'm sorry if we disagree on the requirements of the CC MMM ESC, but this is just from OUR personal testing. Again, thank you for the kind words about our 6028LD packs. They are a hot item and they work very well in the FLUX Savage as power output and runtime is very impressive. I hope you continue to have great success with our products and continue to be a supporter of SMC's.

Thanks,

Bryan @ SMC

BANKRUPTER

~I LIKE THIS GUY! KUDOS 2 YOU ~

Freezetron

Another email from Bryan at SMC. Whata nice guy

Bryce,

Actually, he pm'd me and told me to look at what he had posted. He is a friend from the hpisavageforum, but I did not send him on there. You haven't inconvenienced SMC or me. You wanted a straight answer and we or I did the best to our abilities to bring this to you. The internet can be a horrible place and it can be a very nice place to hang out and chat and trust me, I know about things getting scrambled in translation. We don't have plans as of now to bring out a hardcase LiPo in 3s configuration as it would greatly reduce the capacity of the pack. If you call up HPI and ask to speak to Michael McAllister is customer service, he will tell you that he was running the softcase 8000mAh 28C and 9000mAh 28C 2s packs throughout the weekend at the World Finals. These softcase packs were also used by myself, our other employee Scott, John Schultz from HPI and just about all of the No Limit R/C staff and groups. There is always the possibility that a pack can become damaged, even in a hardcase andI have seen this happen. If you would like to run the softcase packs, you could cut some .30 or.40 lexan strips to cover up the holes in the battery box, keeping rocks and debris out of the compartment. As for the wires, yes they are a bit short but the battery box needs to be modified for issue free usage. Everyone I know with a Savage Flux, even the HPI guys, remove some material from the top of the box, allowing the wires to come directly out of the top instead of trying to fandangle them through the "way to small" opening on the back of the compartment. I think I have pics somewhere of my personal modification. If you need them, let me know.

Again, no worries or hard feelings about this issue. We are here for our customers and you fall into that category.

Thanks,

Bryan @ SMC

ChaosEngine

Actually, he had too much loctite

SureToCrash

Thanks for this post and the others. Its good to know that they have yet to hear of a burnt out esc form their 18c lipo's. Think I will stay with this brand and order some of their big boys.

spiftacu1ar

I think this has a lot to do, as I said in another thread, with the fact that the flux does not present as much load on the motors as a heli or boat. Although the ratings of the abttery are not up to par with the ESC under its highest operating condition, the batts are good enough for this setup. THe flux is a 13lb Monster truck, which is too light for the power to get down. WHereas a boat or heli will present a lot of load on the motor if you hit the throttle real hard, the flux will just flip over, and present minimal load on the motor. THe mamba mosnter combo has more torque than will ever be needed in a 1/8 MT. The batteries are heavily loaded when there is a high amp draw, and there is only a high amp draw at low rpm when there is a lot of torque. Amp draw on an electric motor is DIRECTLY correlated to the torque it is providing at a given time. I don't think that the motor is ever loaded enough in a 1/8 MT for the motor or ESC to reach its rated amp draw. The ESC is rated at 120amps continouos, but younever see that in practice, you probably won't evensee 50 cont.

Burnt ESC's were porbably caused by NIMH's, or other defects. Maybe something no one has thought of that does not invlove the batts at all.

Just my 2c on how the SMC guy could actually be correct in what he is saying.
I think the warning in the hpi manual is to prevent the use of ebay trash which often does not do what it claims
THe warning in the CC manual is more accurate, as it is not implying the use of the ESC in the flux, butin any vehicle it can be put in,k including heli or boat.

ezl_oo

My Feedback: (1)

Just a break down of the "C" rating from a guy on rc-monster.com for everyone who is scared to run lower than 25C lipos in their flux.  This was actually in response to IceWindius's thread that he started over there.

"Are you sure you understand the concept of "C"? You got the part about 120amps continuous correct, but that has almost nothing to do with "25C". The ONLY 25C battery capable of 120amps continuous exactly is going to be composed of 4800mAh cells.

Now, that 120amps continuous figure is good. In order to reach that goal with an 18C battery, you need a capacity of at least 6700mAh (where that pack is rated 18C).

"C" is SO misunderstood and completely overrated. You can have a 40C 2000mah pack but it's not gonna do any good in a MT, "even though it's 40C". However, that pack could work if there are about 10 cells in series"

BANKRUPTER

Good posts guys. 

Icewind no harm no foul for sure. I just know Bryan and will go to batt (no pun) for him and SMC any day. Not that I was defending them I just saw bad light being shed on SMC and I know their stuff is top notch that goes for bryan too!  I dont know Chris...  

Now back on topic as this is just like buy a mugan here......hows the tranny now suretocrash ?

SureToCrash

I agree no foul, safe is always better than sorry. But Icewind, you sure got my worried there for a while. LOL

I talked with Brian from SMC again today and although he cannot 100% say the 18c will not do anything, all testing so far indicates no problems.
Infact i'm very happy with SMC and will be ordering some 3s 28c from them very soon.

Back to the original topic, it was the slipper after all. It came loose and it appears the factory used alot of loctite, which melted and locked the nut in place so when it checked it it seemed secure and tight. A closer inspection found the burnt beadlock built up behind the nut which restricted any tightening. Cleaned it all up and it good to go.

Did some decent 8" jumps yesterday with a backflip at the end. This truck is simply awsomem!! I can't wait to get to a good jumping area to really let it go.

SureToCrash

PS by the way hello to all HPI forum members, proud to be here (That ChaosEngine guy thinks im a traitor to Traxxas lol)

spiftacu1ar

I think a lto of people understand C, but choose to ignore expalining themselves when speaking with it. In my post I threw around C ratings, thikning in my head about the mah and tha toal amp output, but I simply didn't say it, thinking others would understand. a 1c/2c burst 120000mah batt would be fine too, lol. (although it would be so heavy and big the car wouldn't be able to move anymore, lol).

Anyhow, I agree that C ratings are really annoying, and often cause confusion during conversations. I don't know who came up with the idea, but, IMO, its a stupiud figure by which to measure the current capacity of a pack. It would make it easier for everyone if batts curent cap was wrated via amps, which is what really matters in the end. THe C rating is pure bogus, to make completely differnt packs seem similar to the beginner market and confuse them into buying a more expensive pack.

the end.

Danny/SMC

Since RC cars/trucks have swithed to Lipos it seems that there has been allot of bad info or lack of info about Lipos.  C rate is the way to label a Lipo based on it's continous current capabilities.  There is no official standard to follow when figuring out the C rate.  This means a Lipo rated at 25C may not be any better than a 18 or 20C Lipo depending on the method used to come up with the C rate. 

SMC uses 90% capacity retention to rate our Lipos which is the highest standard.  This means when a cell is discharged at full C rate it must give out 90% of it's rated capacity.  When testing some of our competitors cells we have seen them as low as 75% of there rated capacity at full C rate testing.  Since there is no official standard we can't really say there not truthful or were better but what we can say is that we use 90% which is a very high standard. 

I'm sure Castle Creations and HPI are warning consumers about using 25C or higher as they must have tested some packs that wer rated at 20C but were actually 10 or 12C based on 90% as we have seen this in our testing where some manufacturers are use 70 or 80% to rate the C rate of there packs.

Another thing to take into consideration when buying Lipos is cycle life.   Good cycle life is based on the materials used to build the packs as not every manufacturer use the same materials.  Typically the best materials come from Japan which means they will cost more but the results will be higher cycle life and the cells/packs will be more consistent from batch to batch.  Cycle life is similar to C rate where there is no official standard to test it but once again we use what we feel to be a very high standard.   Our cycle life testing consists of 100 back to back cycles at 50% of the C rate.  Our cells/packs will have 90% of the capacity from the first cycle after 100 cycles.  When testing some of our competitors cells/packs we have seen as low as 50% and very few have made it to 80%.


Hope this will help some better understand Lipos and know that not all Lipos are the same.

thzero

Very informative post. Really too bad you can't give us a good idea of which companies use what % in their testing.

Now, if your ROARapproved Lipos (i.e.4028LD)would actually fit my XXXT better (i.e. have the cords come out of the wire, rather than side) that would help tons.

SureToCrash

Figured I should rename this thread seeing as how it kinda roamed away from its original purpose.

There's alot of relevent info here for BL users on lipo's, so I think its a good idea.

DerekBuono

I have to make a correction to one comment mentioned "we do not advertise in any magazine"

First, I'm not sure what that has to do with anythings.

Second...I seem to see an SMC ad in XRC So that's not true

realistically HPI is just trying to stop people from putting monster power in their truck and diffing out one wheel at 150mph...blowing it up. BL has SERIOUS torque....torque breaks things.

Danny/SMC

thzero: All our new cases have top exit wires that may require a bit of material removed from the battery brace on your XXXT. Our new Sport Max packs have higher capacity than our original pack and also have a lower price.

It's not up to us to give info about our competitors percentage for C rate and cycle life and even if I would post it some would think that were not giving the real info to make our packs look better. It would be nice to have an independent source do these tests but it would be time consuming and pretty expensive.

The Truth

Where? I've never seen an ad in a car magazine for SMC.

BANKRUPTER

your a good sport! If this forum had a rep system id give it for that...

SureToCrash

Thanks, it really has produced some good insight into the #C required to run the Flux or any other truck I imagine. Theres alot of contradictions floating around on this subject and I think this thread ended up addressing them fairly well.

black mamba

This thread isn't about what battery is best here bud. Don't turn it into one. All we were simply stating was HPIand Castle both say you must use a 25C or higher rated battery.

SureToCrash

Just an update.

I have soo far run my 18c packs 7 times without a problem. I mostly just jump my Flux and have yet to feel anything beyond warm on the ESC or batteries. 12-16 foot jumps are effortless and nothing broken soo far!!! The only problem is keeping this beast from flipping over.

New lipo's arrive on friday soi'll really let'er rip when I have some good 30c batteries to run. I will also be using the castle link to adjust itsthrottle curve a bit so I can actually apply the throttle without truck flipping power. If anyone has some suggestions for settings I would appreciate it.

All hail the Savage Flux!!!

The Truth

Well, "bud" it looks like so far so good doesn't it? Mr. Skeptical might have to change his tune.....

SureToCrash

Thought I'd give an update on using SMC Lightning 3s 18c 3400mah lipos in my flux. Last time I posted on the subject was 06/10/09 and its now 08/23/09 and my flux is still running with no problems, in other words no smoking ESC.

My lhs has screwed up a few times with their lipo orders and accidently brought in some nice BRICK sized lipos that will never fit on a savage flux without being towed behind it in a wagon. I also haven't spent as much time as I would like running my flux over the last two months due to some pretty rainy weather so I've stuck with the 18c's longer than I have intended to.

I'm not by any means vouching for using less than 25c batteries in your trucks but simply saying the flux can run using less than 25c. I have yet to experience a hot to the touch ESC or lipo after use.

Imo I think HPI/Castle recommended the 25c rating knowing the lipo manufacturers where not all using the same testing and quality control measures, meaning one brand could significantly be better or worse than the next brand's even at the same C rating.

yamasledhead

Yeah I had quite a few issues at first too on my flux. I now have diffs shimmed tight, not stripping ring/bevel gears anymore. I did smoke the top shaft gears 2 wks ago, put a HD from a X in. If you hang in there it will be a awesome truck, just growing pains.