SMC Racing True Spec DV 4S 9400mAh 75C LiPo Battery Review
Do you know how hard it is to find a large scale LiPo pack at an affordable price? Well, the folks over at SMC Racing sure do, hence their powerful True Spec DV 4S 9400mAh 75C LiPo pack that is priced well under the Hundy dollar mark. We’ve been giving a pair of the SMC 4S 9400s a workout in our Traxxas X-Maxx to see just how fast and durable they are. What did we find out? You know the drill, scroll on down to find out…
From: SMC Racing
Direct Link: True Spec DV 4S 9400mAh 75C LiPo
Review By: Cubby
Pictures By: Tim Mohr
Quick Specs:
Nominal Voltage – 14.8V
Capacity – 9400mAh
C Rating – 75C
Cell Configuration – 4S1P
Charge Rate – 1 to 2C
Connector – TRX style
Length – 6.77″
Width – 2″
Height – 1.61″
Weight – 26.98oz
Fits – X-Maxx & various other trucks
Price- $89
Set-Up Notes: We ran the SMC packs in one of our review Traxxas X-Maxx trucks. This particular X-Maxx had the stock Traxxas 8S power system, but was upgraded with Pro-Line wheels, tires, body, and shock parts. We used a Hitec X1 PRO to handle all the charging duties.
Fit: Ya know, how a battery fits is quite important. If it won’t fit in your truck, it is of no use at all to you. We are happy to say that the SMC batteries fit perfectly in the X-Maxx. They weren’t too big, nor too small, they left just a bit of room for some foam at the end.
Power: Who even cares about the “fit” category anyways, where it’s really at is raw power. The packs that we were using in the X-Maxx were over a year old and had over 50 cycles on them. The old packs felt “fine”, with decent power off the line and good straight line top speed. What we didn’t know was how slow those packs were until we popped in the SMCs. The SMC 4S 9400 packs were significantly faster than the other packs. In fact, it was much more of a difference than we had expected. The SMCs had much more rip right off the line, and really kept on pulling on the top end. While driving our X-Maxx was able to absolutely rocket out of corners and blast off jump faces. We were quite impressed.
Runtime: With ambient temps staying in the mid 90s during our test period, we did not go for a single all out run with our X-Maxx. The X-Maxx is a big rig and we did not want to overheat its motor or ESC. We will say that the SMC packs ran quite cool, thus showing that the power system in our X-Maxx was not really pushing the cells. We did do several runs just over 10 minutes, where the packs had tons of juice left on tap, but the motor was feeling the heat.
Durability: (Update). We were originally under the impression that these were soft packs because of the shrink wrap on it. As it turns out, these are “hard” packs, with 5 of the sides protected with G10/fiberglass. Only the side that the wires are connected to do not have the G10/fiberglass protection. We experienced no issues with them during our test period. The cells ran cool in our test rig, they put out loads of power, and fit well in the battery tray. A good fit in the battery tray will keep the pack from slamming around during big hits and the SMCs walked away from our test period with hardly a scratch.
Final Verdict: We think the SMC 4S 9400s are a great pack for the money. They put out hardcore power and we can highly recommend them to you.
