NitroNuisance

I heard from the car/truck forum that these radio shack cells were actually descent for the $$. http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search
I heard they were actually GP cells or something but the shack near me only has non-transparent black and red 3300 stick packs. My question is are these the same cells or not? If not has anyone tried the black/red ones, are they any good.

DUSTINNEWTON

The Tenergy 4500 high-drain packs with a Dean's connector cost the same. I know that you aren't a fan of them, but I know of a dozen folks that use them and love them. If I were you, I'd give them another chance before I trusted anything from the Shack. RS has never been known to sell anything of quality, and mark rebrands up tremendously. If they sell them for $25, then they buy them for $5. You won't get any quality for that price, so be careful! The black and red packs are junk, definitely stay away from them. I have a friend that bought some for a Villain EX, and they fried in just a few runs. luckily, he got his money back. 6 packs, and 5 of the 6 fried within 2 weeks. That's not good odds!

CadillacDTS2001

buy a pack, split it open and find out

guver

My Feedback: (325)

They are not the gp 3300's that ratshack is selling now. They were, but you could see thru the wrap.

DUSTINNEWTON

They do already have the Tamiya connectors that you promote!!

CadillacDTS2001

you know my signature is sarcastic correct?

SV27dayton

BB said that these are the best for the cash. He tears these down and builds ten cell packs out of them for one of his monos. He claims these are the most durable packs he knows of.

DUSTINNEWTON

Yes, that's why I put the "Sarcastic grin smiley" on my comment. I'm not nearly as dumb as some of the "advanced boaters" on RCU believe that I am. I'm 37 and have two engineering degrees, and am currently a computer network engineer in addition to my real degrees. I'm old enough that there is even a chance that I was there when sarcasm was invented! ;-))

SV27dayton

No. My older brother invented sarcasm in '64.

Quicksilver

I did try buying one of those packs a while ago to see if the shrink was hiding GP labels......nope. Never even really tried them out. They were neon green cells, with some part number on the sides.

BB Modss

STOP!!! 4 weeks ago i bought 10 6cell packs from Ratshack, and CONFIRMED these are still GP3300's, there just in a OEM style wrapper like Dynamite uses, The Cells still have GP model numbers on them, and come in the GP OEM GREEN shrink wrap. The tabs they use on them are not half bad IMHO.

guver

My Feedback: (325)

Are you saying they are the gp green/orange wrapped cells with the outer red wrap?

BB Modss

What im saying is if you go spend $20 on the black 3300mah packs, when you cut them open, there will be 6 fugly puke green cells inside 2 cardboard tubes, under the green there is nothing more then the cell. These are GP cells, no matter what any one says, GP's have a unique raised edge on the ground end of the cell, and a special 4 spot weld on the button, these are unique to GP because of there older jap battery building machines. Toss a cell on a charger/discharger and break out your stopwatch.. They come out neck and neck with the "branded" gp cells, My fe mono pulls on them @ 93amps (this is with 20cells x2 so 6600mah) if these were junk no name cells, i would have nuked them a long time back... If any more doubts surface ill loan a pack out to one of you just so you can see.

BB Modss

Ill add that if your wanting the most from these cells your going to need to get then Zapped, It lowers the IR and gives the cells a fighting chance in life, if your guys want I have pre Zapped cells here (60 virgin spares at this time) ill part with for the same cost i have in them + shipping, or just send me your 6 cell packed new, and ill zap then for ya.

Quicksilver

well that's interesting, why the heck doesnt ratshack advertise them as such? but I answered my own question, they probably dont want the liability that comes with selling a high end name brand product. edit; or even more likely GP doesnt want to be liable, perhaps theyre not quite(and I use the term quite loosely) up to spec. I hate to suspect this, but I thought there were no free rides in life. and $3.33 per cell seems too good to be true. Perhaps it's good enough to be true, better than buying $20 packs you know are crap.

So do you change em to battery bars or keep those tabs? Obviously and Mr. Shaw would agree, the connectors are fine stock. <--notice the freakin wink.

BB Modss

The difference that iv seen is the lack of the color printed shrink wrap, witch does add up, also GP had no issues with radio shack, radio shack had a issue with them, The packs were a branded pack that Radio Shack could not with any amount of ease re-brand, thats what its all about, the OEM packs from GP come in just black shrink, easy to slap there sticker on it, and have nothing to cover up. The price break comes down to quantity, when you buy a virgin cell, a true virgin that has no spot weld or solder your usually getting them from a supplier that has to buy there own stock, radio shack can buy in such a high rate of bulk they are spending between $9~$12 per 6cell pack after its labeled, and put in its recycled blister pack. There is no quality difference, there cant be, GP makes sure each cell is within 2%~3% of there data sheet, this way the avoid to many dead cells, its non conducive of them to even think about selling less then spec cells, because of the high rate of return they would have from cell failure. what i want to see is a OEM GP3700 pack hit the shelf at ratshack, id buy them by the case load!


As stated above, Ill stand by this 100% with out waver, the GP3300 is THE most effective sport cell that can be bought, uber low rate of failure, ability to shoot its load @35amps, and a IR that makes some lower end IB cells blush.


As for the stock tabs, if your running these packs in your rc car,rc plane, or traxxas villain, leave them as they are except i would cut the top portion of the pack open, solder wire directly to the cell ends, and replace the connector with your choice, seeing as how so few people run the tamiya connectors to start with. If your gonna run these in a boat, be kind to the cells and give them battery bars, Deans are fine, I prefer the Intellect branded bars just because there cleaner looking and hold a shine better.

DRAGONFIRE81M

just thought i would throw up so pics since i haveboth types

BB Modss

Also... Tenergy can suck my GP's proverbial wang.... They will not take the abuse GP's can... Thus making them a lesser part... The difference being the GP's can be charged up and sport ran for the entire life (longer then tenergy) or you can set the delta to 10mv per cell and charge @ 5amps for racing. do this to a tenergy cell a few times and watch the capacity go to ****. some GP's get better with age, and rarely fall off if managed properly, The reason i push the gp3300 product so much is the cell's ability to please its owner, When you shop for battery's the only con's to the GP is its low capacity... BUT! some well matched and zaped gp3300's have been known to hold a 4700mah capacity (no im not kidding). ever seen even a intellect hold a 30% higher capacity and live a long youthful life?

BB Modss

Bet you cant tell the difference can you? (run time/discharge)

DRAGONFIRE81M

i use the gp labeled pack in my roto start and i used the two newer black packes in the big blue project they where running in the video on youtube about 12-15 min runtime on 15t 550 motors wide open the whole run . i personly love the packs for t he money . by the way there still abertising the gp cell on the shack web site

guver

My Feedback: (325)

That's good enough for me, I can see the raised neg end on some gp 3700's.

BB Modss

Trust me on this one, I dont give this much effort to things im not 100% on. But i don't have to really, any one with a discharger that can do 30~35 amps and has a stop watch can see there GP's for them self...

BB Modss

Warning... if you build the cells as side by side... when your pulling the cells apart, do NOT just pull on the bottom 2 cells in the pack.. more times then not you tear a hole in 1 of the cells, GP uses a thick strap there..because its a known weak spot on stick packs, you need to cut it off with a rotary tool, then use a sanding drum to remove the rest, its a pin..but remember not to over heat the cell's bottom. also check the voltage of each cell b4 you build the pack, and discharge the cells to .9v per cell.. after that give them a good charge/discharge @ 1amp and 1 amp for 2 cycles, then do with them as you wish, it makes the difference in 1 year packs and 4 year packs.

BB Modss

Dustin, Im a Cisco Network engineer, Ya know what that means on this forum? Nothing... Boating and computer science have little to do with each other. Your age has little to do with anything also, Experience beats out any degree time and time again.

On the packs your buddy burned up, what burned up? did he check the cells after the pack went poof? my bet is the tabs are shot, the cells are fine.

NitroNuisance

Cool, I'll be getting some then. Even though I haven't ran a ni/mh pack since I got my first lipo's. I take that back I use them in my nitro starter. Oh, and in my mini-v and mini-t I use IB1400 since I only have 1 lipo that fits them. And Dustin you must be thinking of someone else because I haven't even used a tenegry but I have heard good things about them in the car/truck forum.