THE Cub Report, Version 04.19.2010
Are you a fan of street art (graffiti)? Well, I’m not a big fan of graffiti, but I truly enjoy Banksy’s works. This week the new Banksy film “Exit Through The Gift Shop” premiered in New York City and LA, and starts showing in Chi-town on the 30th. Google image search Banksy for some examples of his work, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
What’s the next big trend? Big, high current chargers, that’s what. Did you know that you can charge the new MaxAmps Lithium Iron Phosphate packs at a 15C rate? Hell yes! For example lets take their LiFe 2S 4500 mah- if it’s charged at 15C that would be a 67 amp charge rate. Even MaxAmps regular Lipo packs can be charged at 5C, so if you are running their 6500 mah pack, that’s over a 30 amp charge rate. Higher and higher charge rates are slowly but surely becoming the norm, which if you hate waiting for a pack to charge as much as I do, is GREAT news. But… while battery tech has made leaps and bounds, there aren’t many high current chargers on the market, and none that I’m aware of that can charge beyond 30 amps. Even some of the popular battery message boards like the one over at RC Groups are starting to show a shift from the number of threads devoted to Lipo batteries, to threads on uber new chargers. Oh and for every uber new high current charger, you’ll need a big azz power supply, so I expect to see more big power supplies hitting the market as the demand increases. The big downside to all of this? Price, it’s simply not cheap to produce high output chargers and power supplies, but I’ll dig deep in my pockets for faster charge times.
I love America, the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the home to free speech. 🙂
Earlier this week our editor contacted the guys over at RedRC in an effort to buy advertising from them. If you haven’t heard of RedRC, they are a Euro based rc website that posts all the press releases that come out from across the globe. Personally, I hit a bunch of rc websites every day- NeoBuggy, RC Car Action forums, RC Tech, RC Groups, RC Universe, Traxxas, BeatYourTruck, RC-Monster, and of course RedRC. Now RedRC doesn’t really have a lot of news for American readers, but it’s cool seeing what’s going on across the pond and some of their photos are epic (like the press release photo of some dude that had just been picked up to drive Mugen’s and he was photographed in his moms living room while wearing his socks). Anyways, RedRC refused to sell BigSquidRC advertising, because we are too close of competition. Boy I’m glad to be American, not only because if someone is willing to give me money I WILL take it, but also I know we have a leg up because of our wonderful freedom of speech. I could talk all day long about RedRC, or RC Car Action magazine, good or bad, yet I know they’ll never utter a peep about BigSquid because they are afraid they would be helping the “competition”. That’s great for us because readers want the truth, they want uncensored news/views, not the watered down stuff you get from the other magazine websites.
Remembers- our charger shootout testing finally gets started this weekend, and even though I missed the deadline with my new RC Myth column, it should be done in a couple more days. The first edition is all about what happens when a Lipo battery is forced below 3.0 volts per cell, hopefully it will make for an interesting read. Lastly, yes, yes, YES BigSquid will be videoing a 30C discharge of a Lipo pack for you guys. You all wanted it, so you will see it! 🙂
Till next week, support your local hobby shops, tracks and bash spots!
YOUR Cub Reporter
