buying a new mrevo

[stermskyle]

im new to this rc thing..im gonna buy a mrevo as my first any reccommends that i need to buy with it like a fan..what is the run time like and how can i get the most on what batteries

[korn0307]

Get lipos man. They can be had for less than NiMH. Also you wanna look into RPM arms, possibly a new steering servo, and invest in a good charger rite away so you dont wanna kick yourself later when you want a better one!

[GULLY]

first off, don't get a fan unless you just want it to look cooler and have the money

rpm a arms, aluminum axle carriers or rpm plastic, a new servo (******* 390 or hitec 85 mg), steel hollow balls, and you want lipo batteries like the 2500 mah SPC 2s lipos and a lipo balance charger, there's a lot of options there with the chargers..

some other things you'll probably want are rocker bearings, a t bone chassis brace, and a nitrous oxide kit <-- I wish

[stermskyle]

any break down on these lipos i heard they can catch fire easy

[mike-susieq1]

any break down on these lipos i heard they can catch fire easy

if you dont take care of them and if not being balanced everytime you charge them. with proper maintaince they are more than fine, I had the same questions but went in to them and its not as hard as you think.

[mike-susieq1]

i think most important you need driving skills so you dont keep breaking parts its ok to break stock parts because then you get to upgrade but afterwards you dont want to atleast i dont not sure about everyone else. being a good driver is gonna lead you a long way as you wont have a down Merv

[mervmonster]

Gh axle carriers are a must

[korn0307]

Just do a few hours of research on them and you will know what you need to learn about them. I talk to a guy on here through email but i dont know if he wants me to say who because i dont know if he wants too many more people like me blowing up his mailbox lol. But lipos are pretty simple man. Just gotta learn the basics.

[GULLY]

yeah I second what mike just said .. especially with lipos, not only crashing but hammering the throttle at the wrong times can strip various things

[stermskyle]

understood no throttle when landing and i found this

http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-lipo-batteries.html

[SimbaDC650]

dont upgrade til its broke!

[korn0307]

IDK simba... My stock arms, knuckles, push rods, toe links, and output gear/shaft never seen the outside world lol.

[stermskyle]

what would the battery life be on the traxxis 2200 7.4 2 cell

[korn0307]

I have heard of people breaking 30min run times with 2 2S in parallel. Some up to 45min. you can get lipos much cheaper than traxxas lipos BTW. I got 2500 2S SPCs for $19.95 each.

[stermskyle]

what kind of run times do you get on spc
and i see alot of people talk about *****s how do they compare

[tatsuvw]

I am still running all the stock parts, I have yet to break anything, my wife drove it and broke a toe link and the front bumper, but it was her first time ever driving an RC so over all I think it healed up pretty well. I am planning on upgrading as I break stuff to stay on a budget easier

[korn0307]

Yea i kind of broke the bank upgrading soo fast. But i have a lot of spare parts for if i do break anything lol.

[korn0307]

I have not ran my SPCs yet. I will be trying them tomorrow! But a lot of people here have them and love them. Same with the *****s. Only problem with *****s is they dont have TRX connectors so you will have to do some soldiering. But for $9 you cant beat them!! Unless you get a different motor that is because they dont put out enough amps to feed a BB.

[mike-susieq1]

i get about 30mins hitting full throttle alot from stand still but if i dont then i got 45mins 1 2s lipo 2500mah spc. not bad IMO. i have yet to run down both my lipos after the other.

[stermskyle]

now some people say not to run lipos so dead how am i suppose to know when i get to that point

[mike-susieq1]

set your esc to lipo mode, read the manual and its states how to put your esc in lipo mode to prevent that, if you set it right in the lipo mode then it will cut out at 3.4v per cell which is more than fine. to get started turn the esc on with the lipo connected to the esc and then see if the light is red first if it is then you need to set it in lipo mode, hold down the button good until you hear a beep and then let go and the light should be green now, this states your in lipo mode now.

you'll see the car slow dramatically when the LVC low voltage cutoff comes on and thats when you stop running the car.

[stermskyle]

ok no soldiering for me spc are ready to run them any recommened charger im sure this stuff has been asked a 100 times sorry..
im really suprised at how fast the response on this forum is

[mike-susieq1]

thunder ac6 is a good entry level charger at hobbypartz.com w/ a lipo bag can both be bought for under 55 shipped. or a traxxas ez peak plus charger on ebay can be found for 79shipped.

[korn0307]

The stock esc has low voltage detection.

As of charger there are a lot of chargers that have the same internals just a different case that are just sold on different sites. Hobby parts sells the imax B5, hobbypartz sells the AC5, amain sells the ecopower electron 65, and someone sells a ******* one but im not too sure about it. If you wanna spend a little more there is a ecopower electron quad for $99 charges 4 batteries at a time. But it requires a power source.

[stermskyle]

thx what chargers are you running

[mike-susieq1]

i run thunder ac6 for now

[korn0307]

I have the ecopower electron 65. Im loving it soo far. It doesnt come with a TRX connector but you can make your own out of the stock charger or duratrax sells a TRX connector with banna connectors that plug rite into the charger. I used a home made plug for 2 weeks but just got the duratrax adapter for my lipos since it was short and the balance bard on my charger is rite next to the charge port.

[Jimmie Neutron]

All of this talk and no one mentioned shims???
Sheesh!!
lol

Check it:
Setting up your bulkhead
http://traxxas.com/forums/showthread...-your-bulkhead


Here is my power system:
6 2200mah 2S 20C *****'s.
1 Parallel harness with XT60's for the battery side and TRX for the ESC side.
1 XT60 ParaBoard
1 iCharger 206B (20amp charger)
1 Home made 24v 75a power supply

I get around 1 hour run times with a near stock MERV running 23/50 gearing at ~30 mph with very few concerns about heat issues. I can safely charge all of my batteries in about an hour; this means I charge for 1 hour and play for 3... unless I charge while I play, then playtime is endless! I have around $175 total in charging system listed above.

I say this a lot, but it is worth saying again:
Your charge system is the backbone of your hobby... treat it as such!!
Cars will come and go, but you will be using the same charge system for a very long time.

[korn0307]

Ahhh i cant believe we all forgot about shimming our diffs! lol probably because most of us have done it and its just a normal thing for us to do now lol.

Jimmie, Do you think the ecopower quad is worth getting for $100 or do you thinkits worth getting something different once im ready for a new charger?

[GULLY]

lol crap I've been offering a few people upgrade advice from stock and I keep forgetting shims hahah

well I was fine without them and I think the 2 or three people I gave my 2 cents to were only planning on using nimh I hope

[Petertje60]

Luckily Shimmie Neutron never forgets the shims
Always a good call.

[korn0307]

If your in a area with a lot of sand you might want to look into some shock sox too!

shimmie neutron hahahaha that's pretty good!

[Jimmie Neutron]

Shimmie Neutron... lol

If you are ever going to need to charge two different chemistries at the same time,
a quad charger is ideal.
If you are ever going to run dual NiMh,
a quad charger is ideal.
If you are going to run LiPo's...
a quad charger is NOT ideal....
it will actually slow you down.

The only time I would use a quad charger is when I am charging my stock NiMh for the Summit....
once I get my LiPo's in that charger would be sitting in the corner and the NiMh's will be feeding my daughters HotWheels.

As many of you know, I have an iCharger 206B. When I bought it, I thought I would hardly ever use all 20 amps of charging might that this thing is capable of producing. Well... I have lost count of how many times I have had it cranked to 20 amps. I can decide to run the MERV and be out the door in 50 minutes with 6 full batteries. That is including time to get them out of the fridge, hooked up to the ParaBoard, get the PS up and running, and the charger set to charge. When I get my 7600mah LiPo's for the Summit, I will be able to charge them from dead to full in 37 minutes at 1.3C.
In each of these circumstances, any quad charger will fall short.


I should add:
A quad charger is a fine piece of equipment...
it is not a bad idea to use one if you are leery about charging LiPo's in parallel.

[korn0307]

All my batteries have TRX connectors. Is there a paraboard for TRX? or would i have to make some TRX to XT60s for a paraboard?

[Jimmie Neutron]

There is no TRX paraboard.
I was going to make them, but with genuine parts you would be looking at $40+ in parts alone.

A XT60 paraboard and my adapter (shown at the top below) is what I use with my TRX equipped batteries.

[Petertje60]

We have a lot of weird things in the Netherlands, for example Traxxas paraboards.

[korn0307]

Oh man that is pretty neat! But it looks like im going to have to make it work with the XT60 paraboard! lol.

[Jimmie Neutron]

Sweet!
Not bad... I was looking for one and could not find it.
That one seems to charge 3 at a time?

[Petertje60]

Sweet!
Not bad... I was looking for one and could not find it.
That one seems to charge 3 at a time?

Yeah, 1 to 3 at a time. The Dutch text at the bottom are the instructions s you might have noticed. Not going to type all that in English

[GULLY]

shimmie neutron that's a good nickname lol

I need some more details about your big bore shocks !