Stock Spartan Lipo Suggestions

[GTRhino24]

I'm really enjoying the new Spartan on the stock batteries, but I have a feeling that is going to get old quickly. I'd like to ease into Lipo to learn the ropes with them. The boat has all of the cooling upgrades, but all of the electrics are the CC stock components. Looks like Warlock is running great on 6s Traxxas packs. I'd like to start off 4s before I step it up to 6s to test the limits of the stock components. The guys at my LHS seem a little undereducated on boats so I thought I'd check here. I've got the funds for a couple sets of packs but I don't want to go into this blind.

Any 4s suggestions? Or is this a waste of time and money over 6s?
Any 6s suggestions?

My cooling setup:
IMG_3549.jpg
IMG_3564.jpg

[Warlock]

Yes I have had no issues at all running the Traxxas 11.1 v 5000 mah lipos. In a day or so a set of Traxxas 11.1 v 8.400 mah lipos will be here to test out. I must say though, these lipos are EXPENSIVE! Wow the 8.400 mah's are $250.00 for a pair of them. I could buy two car batteries for that. All I can say is they better at least allow a longer running time. Naturally I by no means run it all out all the time. My boat is as stock as it gets, and except for my twisting a drive cable, no problems out of the Spartan. After a hard run on the lipos, the motor will be a little warm, the esc cold, and the lipos a bit warm. Do your nimh batteries get pretty hot after a run? Mine do.

[GTRhino24]

Yeah, my NiMH (5000mah Onyx 8.4V) got a little hot yesterday and split the heatshrink on the pack. It checked out fine on the charger so it wasn't damaged. I ran WOT for most of the run. Couldn't help myself. With my hopped up cooling system, everything but the batteries was a cool as a cucumber. Your run time with the 5000mah looked pretty good on your videos. For me, I want the NiMH for cruising (and letting other people drive my boat in training mode) and the Lipos for some crowd pleasing. I've just seen some horror stories on here about the Spartan and 6s, but most were prior to the Castle upgrade. I'm not looking to push the envelope in this hobby just yet, and certainly not with the Spartan. That will be for my next boat.

[Warlock]

Well have no fear of the lipos. The only problem I had was too much power snapping the drive cable. But I was drag racing it over and over and whipping up on a lot of gas and nitro boats badly. I just got carried away with the fun. Traxxas is sending me a new cable and stuffing tube for it free of charge. I also have a set on back order at Tower Hobbies for a spare set. One more thing about the breaking cable. Right before that run I used a graphite type grease instead of the marine grease I had been using from Traxxas. I snapped the cable doing so. It was the only thing I ever did differently setting it up to run and maybe this helped it fail.

[GTRhino24]

I ran a set of Duratrax Onyx 5700mah 25C on 4s yesterday. I decided to go a bit conservative on my first time with Lipo. It really woke the boat up. They were actually a little bit cheaper than the NiMH packs I bought last week and give about the same run times. The boat as very stable on the high speed passes so I'm thinking about sticking my GPS in there this week to see how fast it's going.

[Make-a-Wake]

GT, I'd suggest a happy medium and run 5s, at a whopping 1800kv, the motor is really suited best for 5s. You can always go up a tad in pitch for roughly the same speed. You can get two 5s batts and run them in parallel.

These in parallel would give you 240 continuous amp discharge and 6000 mah for good runtime

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html

[GTRhino24]

Wow! I didn't realize they were that cheap. I'm going to order a set and check it out. Better brush up on my soldering. Thanks for the advice man.

One question though. The ESC is wired for series. Is there a rig I can get that won't add too much resistance or do I have commit to run one or the other all the time (S or P)? I mean the cost of just running 5s all the time is pretty low to get all that performance and peace of mind though.

[srislash]

I would make my own connector before the ESC.Just run the two 5s into one then connect to ESC.Just get rid of one of the connectors and the middle wire that goes between them.Make sense?

[lenny]

Hi,
Change your connectors to 5.5 all the way and you should in great shape.
One step up from the turnigy lipos, And more bang for the buck are the gens ace lipos and free shipping.http://www.hobbypartz.com/98p-30c-5300-4s1p.html

[Make-a-Wake]

Hi,
Change your connectors to 5.5 all the way and you should in great shape

5.5's are great all around connectors for medium draw setups. You will need to make parallel adapters.

[GTRhino24]

5.5's are great all around connectors for medium draw setups. You will need to make parallel adapters.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. Here is what I've ordered and plan to do.
- 5s 3000mah Zippy x 2
- Polymax 5.5 gold bullet connectors
- 12awg Turnigy wire

I'm thinking I should run bullet connectors off the ESC.
- Make one parallel adaptor with bullet/bullet connectors
- Make one series adaptor with bullet/traxxas connectors

This way I can run all of my current battery setups (NiMH and 4s Lipo) as well as the 5s setups without retrofitting all of my battery packs. Anyone see any problems with the gauge of wire or connector selections? Also, the ESC currently has 13awg wiring. Should I desolder and use 12awg to match or can I just cut the current wiring and solder new connectors?

[aminoacid]

hmmmm, 5.5 bullets over deans? on this spartan? i hacked up all my lipo's to Deans was that a bad idea?

[GTRhino24]

GT, I'd suggest a happy medium and run 5s, at a whopping 1800kv, the motor is really suited best for 5s. You can always go up a tad in pitch for roughly the same speed. You can get two 5s batts and run them in parallel.

These in parallel would give you 240 continuous amp discharge and 6000 mah for good runtime

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html

Got me a pair. Unfortunately, I have to wait for my connectors and wires to arrive before I get to test them out. Oh well, they look pretty awesome and I can see me and the hobbyking getting along pretty well.

[Brushless55]

Hi,
Change your connectors to 5.5 all the way and you should in great shape.
One step up from the turnigy lipos, And more bang for the buck are the gens ace lipos and free shipping.http://www.hobbypartz.com/98p-30c-5300-4s1p.html

Wow buddy!
5s 10600mah for only about $100

[Make-a-Wake]

hmmmm, 5.5 bullets over deans? on this spartan? i hacked up all my lipo's to Deans was that a bad idea?

5.5 bullets are much better than Deans which are rated to 60 amps.