RockSlide RS10 Battery Choices. 7.2v, 7.4v, 8.6v, 9.6v, 11.1v

[somoney]

RockSlide RS10 Power Plant discussions. 7.2v, 7.4v, 8.6v, 9.6v, 11.1v, etc

Hello peeps, Tomorrow I will be receiving my 1st Crawler from RedCat Racing (Got a phone call from UPS this afternoon.), and thought it would be a good idea to stop lurking and start posting!

I ordered The RockSlide RS10 for 150 shipped.. I cant believe how cheap it is for a 4x4 steering crawler. I have some canyons and rock washes that my Slash just cant handle so I'm joining the crawler party today.

My Intention with this rig: (See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfBZZ3p89cE )

Converting it to 2.4Ghz, adding 360degree pan/tilt video transmitting capabilities (800mw 1.2ghz with 8dbi Patch antenna at the base.).... I intend on crawling into some pretty hairy areas that are to dangerous to hike without a buddy. It will be like my own personal Martian rover.

Here is My RedCat Racing Rockslide RS10, decked out with FPV Camera. The entire Video portion is contained in the roof so if I can change shells to NON FPV mode easy.

Rockslide RS10 Dry weight: 1970grams (4lbs 5oz)

Rockslide RS10 Battery and Compartment:
Stock Battery: 1 x SC 1500Mah 7.2v NMH Pack 67L x 45W x 47H mm @232grams
Stock BattBay: 1 x 68L x 70W x 41H mm

 

[KrawlOff-Road.com]

WOW that is a heck of a price! I would go with the largest lipo you could fit! Stick with 2S on the stock ESC.

-Jason

 

[somoney]

Yea the price is a steal for sure. Now that eBay is sponsoring Bing.com im taking full advatage of No Tax, Free Ship, eBay Cashback, & Bing.com CashBack bundles!

RockSlide RS10 Sale Price: $159.99
Open a Microsoft Bing.com account and search for "RC RockCrawler"
Click on eBay LINK!
Search for "RockSlide RS10"
Find Cheapest Buy it Now Deal you can with a small Gold Coin next to it. ( $159.99 at the writing of this post.)
Click BUY IT NOW
Paying with PayPal gives CashBack: -$12.80

TOTAL: $147.19 Free Shipping!

If you get lucky on ebay that is the average bid price...
Back to rockslide battery choices though. A big battery is easy but Im also thinking a LOW CG... Will it mount your standard 5000Mah 7.4v Lipo pack or can I purchase a 3300-5000Mah Saddle pack?

I see many pictures of Rockslides on this forum but very little talk of battery choices and/or placements. I usually see batteries Velcro'd over the front axle. Some of my trips will be going down some steep grades and Im not sure if front is wise there... I cant put it in the rear because I also need to crawl out of what I descended into.

Lowest CG without effecting ground clearance too much...

 

[jsowens]

If you're going lipo...get a 2S 7.4v...the stock ESC won't handle 3S. The biggest thing you should do is figure out which is more important...run time or low CG. It's gonna be tough to mount a huge lipo low enough to give you a low CG. If you lock out the rear steer, there's a good amount of room over the back axle to mount a bigger lipo, but then you'll be sacrificing the rear steer. In stock form, there really aren't many places to mount a battery other than the stock battery location. You could mount it there, lock out rear steer and mount it to the back axle, mount it on the upper links, or mount it on top of the bat wings on either axle. Even really small lipos would barely fit on the front axle on the side opposite of the servo.

If you're super concerned with a low CG, which you seem to be, I would recommend picking up a few smaller lipos (holmes hobbies has nice, small 2S lipos for $19.99). Here's what I would do. Once you get your RS10, figure out where you want to mount the battery, measure that area, search for a lipo that fits those measurements. If you have to go with a smaller lipo...you can find them for relatively cheap and they're affordable enough to carry 2 or 3 with you. Good luck.

 

[bsn]

Get yourself a high mah Nimh battery unless you are really wanting to spend some money. If you end up going with lipo, you will need to buy a cutoff if you use the stock esc. Also, mounting on the bat wing will not really lower you COG but is will help in you wieght distrubution. More weight forward. I run droop and the stock battery pack in the stock location actualy had a lower COG than running a standard 6 cell pack on the front wing. It crawled better with it on the front wing though. If low COG is that critical, go with a new ESC and get a lipo. They are so much small for the same mah so there are a lot more mounting options.

 

[somoney]

Hmm interesting... Here is a question I have yet to see asked then....

What is that largest 7.4v 2S LiPO that will fit in a stock RS10 battery compartment while keeping the Stock Look of the RS10?
(stock look= body still coveres and no way to tell from outward appearance.)

 

[bsn]

You could probably find a couple of 5000mah 2s lipos and run then in parrallel to the a 10000mah battery. May be too long though. I get close to 45 minutes out of my 2100 mah 2s lipo.

 

[somoney]

I have a 2500 2S 7.4v Lipo I can mess with I guess. 45minutes is a good run time. I can probably get away with 2 x 1500Mah 7.4v Lipo Packs wired in parallel then.

I'll be sure to post pictures of my build when finished.

 

[jsowens]

Most lipos have size dimensions listed. They're usually in millimeter sizes. You could measure the stock RS10 chassis battery compartment, then make your battery decision once you know the dimensions.

 

[somoney]

I'll have my RS10 tomorrow (maybee)... I'd like to start shopping for best prices per amp now so If anyone has a stock RS10, can you measure the compartment for us?

 

[armalite_ar50]

I too would like to know the max voltage motors Vs. the batteries with out cooking things. I have a lot of batteries in the 9.6v 800mAh and the charger plug is the same. Using these may help to solve the "weak" charger problem with the factory 7.4v system. I also DON'T want to use the 9.6v chanrgers on the 7.4v system if it will cause problems. but would like to run the 9.6 batteries for more "zip". So far I'm really happy with the stock RS10. I will be doing things with it as I learn and time permits.

Later
Rich

 

[jsowens]

Stock battery dimensions are 2.5'' x 1.75" x almost 1.75''. This is close, but not exact since it's hard to eyeball measure a rounded battery. Something similar in size should fit just fine.

armalite_ar50, to hopefully answer your question...I'm not sure if a motor has a max voltage allowed, but I seriously doubt you'll kill any crawler motors with voltage up to a 3s lipo. It's the ESC you have to worry about. Most decent chargers can charge any size battery...whether it be 7.2v, 8.4, 9.6, etc... so if you already have a nice charger, it should charge the 7.2v stock battery just fine. Using a 9.6v battery is a good idea for more "zip", but with 9.6v being the peak rating of the stock ESC...I'd be extremely careful in doing so...could end up damaging the ESC and you would have to replace it.

 

[somoney]

From reading around at a couple people running 11.1v LiPo on their stock RS10, and the stock RockSlide RS10 Crawler ESC can handle 8.6v packs, I wouldn't be too worried about running a 9.6v for some mild climbing with rests in between.
I ran a slash on 11.1v Lipo for a week solid and even though my ESC got hot it was the brushes on my motor that I ultimately burned out. But then again I've seen youtube footage of my same slash bursting into flames at 11.1v also.... :shock:

I'm just looking for a consistent manageable speed without rolling over on the slightest turn.... For me its not about the higher kvR the extra volts will bring. That Usualy translates to speed unless you also drop some teeth on your pinion gear to go with it...

 

[KrawlOff-Road.com]

With all the lipo talk, not sure if everyone knows or not but today is the last day of our free shipping on our lipos! We also have free shipping on all our chargers as well. If you RS10 guys are needing or wanting to change, now would be a good time... just trying to help where we can...

-Jason

 

[somoney]

The RS10 Arrived directly from Redcat racing this evening.

The Praise:
Props to the QC team over at RedCat! Right out of the box I noticed it was well trimmed and I didnt need to mess with it at all. Aside from very mild cosmetic blemishes around the plastic components The RS10 appears to be well built and I tested it by dropping it 5feet onto its 4wheels.. No bounce, just squish. To dark to go to my local canyons and hit the rocks but I did some mild crawling around my front yard and over my wife's minivan "thumbsup". It appears that the gear ratio is tall enough and/or ESC set up to supply decent breaking. Its very slow stock but that's what should be expected at 7.2v.

The Gripe:
These stock wheels royally lack! Honestly, they belong on a scale 4x4, not a crawler. Right out of the box I noted the wheels would peel out on rough black top instead of grip. :-( ATTENTION: What SIZE ARE THESE TIRES?! 1.9?!, 2.2?!, They need to be replaced immediately (probably with HB White/Red).....

The Prtoject:
Since I will be doing some serious work maximizing the RS10 power plant and continuous run time, the 1st thing I did was take some measurements.

Rockslide RS10 Dry weight: 1970grams (4lbs 5oz)

Rockslide RS10 Battery and Compartment:
Stock Battery: 1 x SC 1500Mah 7.2v NMH Pack 67L x 45W x 47H mm @232grams
Stock BattBay: 1 x 68L x 70W x 41H mm

Now that its measured I can start the search for the biggest Lipo I can fit in the Bay, and/or a saddle pack that can fit the bay and front wheel.

 

[jsowens]

They're 2.2 sized tires.

 

[Mr. Make it Work]

look in the battery compartment you will see a set of retainers that keep the saddle style NiMh pack in place
shave them down for more room. or ditch them. you can get just under 2 3/4" wide in the frame.
aswell, ditch the pain in the a$$ wire tray lock that sets the battery "rearward" 5/8" off center and you have more room to work with...
stack those LiPo's sideways or on top each other.

 

[greaser]

i am running the mystery 900mah 2s 20c lipos they are super light. i run one on the front batwing and carry 2 on me. they charge fast and run for about 20 to 30 min they are also super inexpensive.

 

[somoney]

When in the air Light is Right, but for me on the ground I'm looking for weight and long run times.


It appears there is a Seller making custom high capacity 7.2v SubC Packs FOR the RockSlide RS10! "thumbsup"
ROCKSLIDE RS10 1/10 ROCK CRAWLER 5000Mah SUPER BATTERY!

5000mAH~7.2V~1 HOUR RUN TIME.


There 82 bucks + 9 shipping. I guess 20labor aint bad.

 

[jsowens]

That's an insane price for that battery pack. You can build a 4000 mah battery on cheapbatterypacks.com for $31.50 plus shipping. CBP's 5000 mah cells are out of stock right now but each cell is 50 cents more than the 4000's. When I was running the stock motors, I was getting almost an hour runtime easily on a 3300mah elite pack from CBP and on my cobalt motors I was getting 40-45 mins roughly on the same pack.