no but it helps as most of the brushless controllers have built in low voltage technology, you can get a low voltage cutoff to add to any esc, scacy looking non shrink wrapped ones from hong kong for like $9 or $30 for premo airplane units, some brushed escs offer lvc but they usually cost enough that people just go with brushless, a budget brushed setup with lvc will run $90 and a budget brushless setup will run $125

I tried to answer this post yesterday but the forum got reset it seems, I would contact Troy at Bishop power products, he cut me a $42 deal last time I got a couple things from him, for under $400 you could get a good charger, lipo and brushless setup off him. He has some of the best prices on mambas around, he sells very nice hyperion chargers and batteries so you know you are getting qaulity stuff and he will ship it to your door free of charge most of the time

http://www.b-p-p.com/proddetail.php?prod=f_EOS0606i

This is what I will probably end up with next time, I am using a superbrain 977 now and its super slow low charge rates 2.5 amp 2s and 3 amp 3s cause me to do several shorter charge sessions instead of sitting around and waiting and waiting