Review – RcTunerDirect.com NiMh/LiPo battery packs

Aug 162010

I recently needed more battery packs to run my Team Associated SC18 truck. I discovered a new online store to buy affordable LiPo packs. After few emails, the folks at www.RCTunerDirect.com have been kind enough to send my two battery packs for a review. During the last few months, I’ve used two battery packs from www.RCTunerDirect.com. The first one is a 1500mAh NiMh pack and the second is a 1800mAh Lipo pack. They are all for my Team Associated SC18 truck.

Testing:

The LiPo pack arrived to my door almost (80%) fully charged which is the ideal charging level to store LiPo packs. The 1500mAh NiMh pack was also almost fully charged. Both packs arrived with Deans connectors installed. I first started by fully charging the LiPo pack. By connecting the balance connector, my charger has showed that both cells were exactly balanced. I immediately started to charge the pack. Few minutes later, my charger beeped and I was ready to test the LiPo pack. I then started to charge for the NiMh pack. In both cases, the charging process went extremely well. According to RCTunerDirect, LiPo packs are always freshly assembled not more than one month before they are sold. So you are assured that the packs are always freshly built.

Installation into my SC18 was simple and both packs fitted perfectly. I have picked up my SC18 to a parking lot where I can run the truck at full speed. I first began to test the 1500mAh NiMh pack. My first concern about this pack was not really the power delivered but the runtime I will get out of it. We all want to get more runtime out of our battery packs. I was not disappointed, the 1500mAh NiMh pack was good for a average runtime of 20 minutes. This was over my expectations.

The next pack to test was the 1800mAh LiPo pack. For this test I had two expectations. The first one was the runtime. If I can get a little more 20 minutes out of a NiMh pack, how much can I get from a LiPo pack with more capacity? My second concern was the power such a pack can deliver to my SC18 truck. The “more power” feeling was immediately felt as soon as I nailed the throttle. All the four tires of my SC18 have broke traction on the asphalt and the truck quickly accelerated to its new top speed. I say “new” because my truck was few mph faster than with the NiMh pack.

The power delivered by the LiPo pack was amazing, I can really felt the extra ponies. The ESC and motor were a bit hotter than usual but nothing exceptional. I easily got 40 minutes of run time with the LiPo pack. Of course, these numbers can vary depending of your gearing, motor/ESC and utilization but for my stock SC18, that’s a lot of runtime.

Conclusion:

I’ve charged many times the battery packs and they still deliver all their power like when they were new. The LiPo pack never came hot and it was always near perfectly balanced after each run. They are one of the best packs I’ve ran in my SC18. www.RCTunerDirect.com sells NiMh and LiPo battery packs for the most popular brands and models such as Team Associated RC18 , Traxxas Mini E-Revo , Duratrax Vendetta SC TC Rally, Duratrax Cliff Climber, Losi Mini-T, Losi Mini Slider, Traxxas Mini Slash, Tamiya Tamtech buggies and cars, Traxxas Slash Bandit Revo Rustler, Tamiya TT01, Team Associated RC10T, SC10, Hpi Mini, Hpi Sprint, Hpi Blitz, Losi Desert truck, Redcat Racing.

For more information, please visit www.RCTunerDirect.com