Hi,

I don't know if this question has come up somewhere in this forum, or not, but I think it should. It concerns the Jeti Advance motor controllers distributed by Hobby Lobby & their use with Thunder Power packs. I have both the 8 & 4 amp Jeti versions & according to the specs with each, the units sense the cell count upon power up & then calculate the cut off voltage as a multiple of 2.56 volts per cell. Most of the preceding discussions here & elsewhere , including FMA's instructions, have identified 2.56 V/Cell as a safe cutoff threshold & I have manually programmed that value with Castle Creations controllers in the past. Along come the Thunder Power cells, also sold by Hobby Lobby & others. In the accompanying instructions is found a very emphatic statement that they must never be discharged below 3.0 volts under load. They say that 2.9 is no good, only 3.0 & above or the sky will fall! In response, I have swapped out the Jeti units in favor of the CCs & programmed them for 3.0 volts/cell. (i.e. 6 & 9 volts for the 2 & 3 cell packs I use.) Happily, I have found that the Thunder Power batteries have a low enough voltage sag under high current discharge that even with the higher cutoff threshold I still get a satisfying motor run. The FMA 340s & 700s seem to require the lower cutoff setting to give a decent run but are not supposed to be endangered by it.

I assumed that the chemistries of the different brands of Li Polys are pretty much the same, so why the different cutoff requirements?? Must I only use the Jeti Advances with batteries other than TP or is the TP warning just a legal bluff to ward off potential liability. Also, if the TP position is correct, how can Hobby Lobby, in good conscience, sell combinations of batteries, motors & controllers which clearly violate the TP instructions??

Richard