A123 Racing Battery Packs

[sdartt]

Has anyone tried these batterys for a sport boat setup??? I like the idea of 15 minute charges and not having to monitor for fires. I will be running two of these in a 29 Titan direct, 9Xl, 120 hydra. Here is the spec. for the battery.
Hypersonic 4600-6.6V
4600 mAh, 6.6V, Lithium Ion, 2S2P
135mmx28mmx53mm
weight 310g
Any comments for sport boating on these or suggestions on another packs.

[scotthend21]

I have been running these for about 9 months. I have only had 1 battery fail due to over discharging. I run these on a 38" CAT. running 2 KB xl 9t motors with hydra 120 ESC's and x450/3 props. I am running 4 6C packs in paralell gives me about 10 min. run time. The biggest issue I had was trying to solder them together since they are aluminium. I now use battery sleeves made by Model Electrics Corp. Had to do some mods to them, since they only come with 14awg wire. I have modified mine using a bus bar and plugging the ESC into the Bus bar.

[sjslhill]

Guys, you can solder A123 cells.....the Positive end has a disk on it that will hold solder if you have a really hot iron. The neg end, no problem at all.

Also, A123 offers the packs already put together.

The 4600 pack above would put out major current......

A123 is what I run in my boats.....CB (2S1P and 1/12 Hydro 4S1P or 4S2P for enduro)

[ghostofpf1]

You can also use aluminum flux to get those ends soldered..

http://www.espritmodel.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3647

Ghost

[G Doggett]

I have been looking at using these for sport set up ( not racing ) because they will last longer than NiMH cells, and are much more user friendly and safer than lipos.
Have you found than because of the lower voltage ( 6.6 compared to 7.2 ) that you need to use a slightly larger prop to get similar performance to NiMH ?
Graham.