LiPo Battery Shootout – The Results

LiPo Shootout – Final Results
Our scoring system works like golf, the lower the final score, the better the finish! Here we are, most of you have probably skipped the meat of the shootout and have come directly to the final results (I’m the exact same way!). We’ve listed all our separate category scores so you can actually determine your own “personal” winner. For example, if you don’t care about price and never run your truck high speed, you can drop those categories and calculate your own best pack for you. If you only run mod, and don’t care about fit, same thing. Maybe you only care about capacity and price, if so, you can use our catagory scores to determine your personal winner. What it boils down to here is that while we are listing an overall winner, the best pack for you might very well be different than our number one pack, depending on your own personal needs. We drove every single pack in the test many, many times. We put them through torture tests, drove them like we stole them, and we didn’t have any problems with any of the packs. All the Traxxas Slash’s took a serious beating. None of the cells tested puffed, overheated, or acted funny in any way. Overall, all the packs we tested were solid performers, and seemed to be of good quality.

Remember- Our Final Scoring System is like golf- the lower the score, the better the finish!

11. SMC 5200 40C– This is SMC’s bad boy race pack. If your thing is racing carpet touring car or the hitting the ROAR nats with your XXX, this is a pack you’d want in your pit box. For our test oriented towards the Slash, the SMC 5200 came in 11th. It’s good areas were a perfect fit, and good voltage under load. It’s low points being price and top speed. This was one of the packs where it’s raw power made the high speed Slash want to wheelie over at speed, costing it mph.

10. Speed Power 4000 25C– All the lower capacity packs in the test had an uphill battle. I’ve driven this pack, and it’s drives outstanding, but compared to some of the other higher capacity packs, it comes up a bit short in our Slash oriented shootout. It’s good points were it’s perfect fit and low weight, while it’s bad points were capacity and mod driving performance compared to the other batteries in our test.

9. Checkpoint 3600– This is another case of a pack finishing low mainly because of it’s low capacity. If this were a Checkpoint 5000 mah pack, I have the feeling it’d been near the top of the charts. We didn’t have a category for looks, but I have to mention this is one trick looking pack. The Checkpoints good areas were weight and fit, while it’s low points were capacity and voltage under load.

8. Thunder Power 8000– The first rule to Li-po is a battery must fit. The TP 8000 was oh-so-close to being a perfect fit, but it was a couple millimeter too tall, causing it to finish last in the fit category. Now, if you are the type of driver who loves long run times, and doesn’t mind dremeling off a couple millimeters on the battery bar, this pack is an outstanding performer that will give you insanely long run times with loads of punch. The TP 8000 tied for king of the hill in voltage under load, and also scored second best in capacity.

7. True RC 6400– True RC was perhaps the smallest company in the shootout, yet, they beat some pretty big names with their packs. Their 6400 did very well in fit, capacity, and price, perhaps the 3 most important categories for most buyers. The 6400 scored low in the high speed test and weight.

6. True RC 5000– This is True RC’s race type pack, and was a great performer. It scored well in price, high speed, fit, and weight. It scored lowest in mod driving and voltage under load. Overall, a good performer, right on the heals of the top contenders.

5. CORE RC 5000– The CORE RC 5000 is their hard core racing pack, has performance written all over it, and was close to winning the overall. The CORE scored well in high speed, mod drive, and fit. It’s few low scores came in voltage under load and price. Solid performer that actually exploded one of the stock Slash tires during the mod driving test.

4. SMC 5000 20C– The top 5 packs in the shootout were extremely close. Although the SMC 5000 20C is their low end pack, it was a great performer. It scored outstanding in fit, and high speed, and won the price category. It scored low in stock driving and capacity. Perhaps one of the most amazing packs in the test, as it’s one of the most affordable, yet puts out the power like a much more expensive pack.

3. SMC 8000 28C– If you are looking for long run times, this is the king of the hill, as it won the capacity test. It also finished well in the fit category, with no modifications needed (albeit the stock foam has to be removed). It’s two lowest categories were weight, where it finished 10th, and mod drive where it finished 6th.

2. Thunder Power 5400 25C– Great looking pack, great performer. The 5400 featured a perfect fit, and won the hotly contested mod drive test. It didn’t score poorly in any category, but it’s low scores came in top speed finishing 8th, and weight, finishing in 6th. Great pack that is super fast and a rock solid performer.

1. Thunder Power 5000 40C– This is a shootout, there can be only ONE winner. The winner of Big Squid RC’s Slash Li-po shootout is the TP 5000 40C. The entire field was filled with great packs, so it took a truly exceptional pack to be the creme of the crop. The TP 5000 outright won the stock drive category, and tied for the win in voltage under load, fit, and top speed. The TP 5000 40C is also one sharp looking pack in it’s faux carbon fiber hardcase. If you are the type of person looking to put only the best battery into your Slash, the ThunderPower 5000 40C is it.

Make sure to check out each page for more details.



O-Overall Points
C-Capacity
S-Speed
V-Voltage Under Load
W-Weight
P-Price
ST-Stock Testing
MT-Mod Testing
F-FitTesting

Wow, What a shootout! Thanks again to all the companies that provided packs for testing, we really appreciate your support!