I don't think a Stinger is really all that necessary, but then I'm not really cuttthroat (not saying that being cutthroat is a bad thing). But I've never ran out of juice with 12AH (running a standard pump, aye). 26 seconds on one motor doesn't pull that much juice.
I have had a set of 8 sla 12ah cells that have been on the battery minder 6v conditioner 24/7 and two have gone bad, another set will not support a high amp pump without dropping the voltage so low that the reciever unbound. I followed all directions for SLA and they didnt perform well at all. At the very least if the LifePO4 cells dont last.. I wont have to worry about a voltage drop for the time being. For me.. voltage drop=retrieve ship from bottom... Chargers are only expensive, in my opinion, if you are comparing them to the cheapest of cheap chargers. As I have been involved in R/C cars in the past I was used to paying over 80 bucks for a good charger. I bought a better unit than I needed to support future charging needs (20amp charge rate) but could have done fine with a less expensive unit. There is a good charger for 65 bucks that supports balancing, i think its the EV 650. I was going to get it but wanted a computer interface. You should balance cells with LifePO4 but many dont. Some of the guys have $30 chargers that work just fine for charging single cells, so getting into LifePO4 is not necessarily more expensive than Sealed Lead Acid. They also hold a charge very well on the bench and I have had them sit for 3 months and only lose 3% of their charge. It seems to me that if you start off in a competitive hobby intending to be non-competitive.. you better LUV sinking... or you wont have fun. Stingers and NIMH/LIFE are becoming the standard....
Stingers are great but I been using the standard 6v johnson from the kit pumps for over a decade and the worked very well in keeping the ship afloat. Nats last year I ran the entire sortie with the pump going full tilt with a full pump stream. The only time it failed was when the switch itself burned out but the motor worked great. A high output motor on a SLA will drop the voltage quickly and the SLAs wont' keep up very well. If your receiveor is running off the Sla while using a high voltage output motor with a high current draw than you will risk having your recievor shut down. As far as chargers go the most I paid is 19.oo and they charge well. Definitly you need to balance the correct charger with the battery type for sure.
I agree with Curt. With a standard swampy 1 unit pump with a plain-old Johnson 550 motor at 6V, I can take 4 times my sink value in damage and still finish my 5. If you need more than that, you're really hurting anyway and your damage points are going to kill your team. As far as the lead-acid batteries go... I will go with the old standard, whether my friends regard them as competitive with newer batteries or not. I spent my entire Navy career caring for lead-acid batteries, and they should without exception, give you at least 5 years of service. I will say that leaving them on a float charge is NOT caring for your batteries. Lead-acid cells like to discharge and charge. So you should charge them, let them discharge for a while, then charge them again. If you are not using a battery designed for a float charge you will build up sulfation on the plate surfaces and that will end the battery's life rather quicker than 5 years. As far as competitiveness goes, I am competitive to a certain degree. I haven't modified my regulators, nor do I have guns that can shoot through fiberglass. As long as I can get on the water and enjoy my time with my friends, then I'm having fun. I'm not a one-on-one match for Jeff Lide, but I think there's room for both of our types of battlers in the hobby
Looks like I have some more thinkin (and flip flopping) to do. The good thing is that if I do go with nimhs or LIFE batteries, I already have a good charger on hand. But if I'm going to be running the standard stuff from Strike Models, do I really need anything more then an SLA? Then again nimhs and LIFEs are more powerful...
The way I see it ..if you can afford the life batteries and chargers than go with that. They do work very well. Maybe you can run your drive systems off the SLA which should be plenty and use the life for the pump and light systems. A good balance of both. If your going to be that tough to sink your going to draw more attention byway of a mass attack and no pump will keep you afloat from that.
I'd like to toss out a point about high capacity pumps ... Yes, a ship with a Titan or Stinger could possibly take much more damage in points that the ship is worth when it sinks. But that isn't the point. The point is that even if the ship has enough damage to sink it with a 540/550 motored pump, a Titan or Stinger pump will let me keep moving with that damage to avoid getting shot at and make it off my five without sinking.
Two things. One, what does "make it off my five" mean, and two, is there some kind of website I can go to, to learn some more on how rc batteries work? I mean I'm lost when I see things like amps, Cs, and amp hours. I wonder if I should just use a bunch of AAs.... *LAUGH*
Joshzilla, once you get rolling it will all become clear. You can post and read lots of messages but it doesnt come close to what you would learn in one weekend of battling. But the quick down and dirty...in Laymans terms ( I am leaving off many details.. this is not wikipedia) C is used to describe the battery current output. 1C = the capacity of the battery. So a 12ah battery 1C=12ah. Simple. SLA batteries, if I am right, have a low output. I was told 1C but I don't think that is true. C is also used to determine the charging current. My battery manufacturer wants the cells charged at 1/3 C so my 20ah cells should charge at a rate of 6.7 amps. They can output up to 3C so 60amps of output. Amps is the measurement of current, aka the load. The 'C' determines the max current flow through the battery, expressed in amps. So if you have use my cells as an example, with 3C output, and my motors draw 12amps and my pump ran at 30amps for 1 hour straight it would take approx: 42amps of the 60amps output capacity (3C) and it would take approx. 1/2 hour to completely drain my 20ah batterys (42amps per hour/ 2 = 21amp hours per half hour). Of course this usage scenario never happens but is listed just as an example.. its easy math. Amp hours is the energy stored in the battery expressed as amps/hours. Basically it means that a 12ah battery can supply 12amps for 1 hours... 12 individual amp hours... So if you are pulling 4 amps.. then you can go for 3 hours (12ah/4amps). So for battery capacity planning.. you can figure your motors and the approximate time you would be using. At the recent Brouhaha I used 9ah of 20ah in my most damaged sortie and I pumped full stream for 10-15 minutes max (standard BC motor at 10.2V... I have no idea what amps it was pulling), with me driving around most of the 20 minutes I am on the water. In my limited experience (3-4 years) I have found that at a competitive event.. the veterans might be on the water to the end but generally most noobs will be on 15-20 minutes max unless the veterans are being nice to you.. which they did for me at my first few events... unless I started something... which I did. And sinking is no big deal really... its part of the game...you have to make it part of the fun also....(unless its a mechanical failure then its a bit frustrating) If I had a slow pump I would be on the water even less time per sortie... I want max time on the water!!!! I run a separate receiver pack so that my guns will always fire in the event of any type of main battery problem (failed cell, broken connector, etc.) I bought some 3ah life cells, F Size I think, and they work great. I charge them with my Hyperion charger (life, lipo, nimh, SLA). You can also buy a pre-built pack from just about anywhere that is a 5 cell 6v pack and just put a deans plug on the end of it. I have used the packs from Tower but they were so expensive I made the Life receiver packs. Hope this helps you out...
