Fool Spektrum

[SrC]

There is a small and limited discharge bus, that triggers based on end time of a specific full charge cycle. It has to be slow discharge rates. Faster requires an extremely large resister circuit. Not realistic in a small form factor within the lipo pack. But in reality, it is a failsafe feature that works adequately. Not new technology at all as stated earlier.

 

[FDHog]

You don't need the Spektrum charger. I have one of those and charge it on my Venom.

 

[SwissTrees]

Sorry for bringing this back up and beat it a little more lol....

But for a guy getting back into RC (well cars, I have drones) I think its poses a good product to get into the whole package, I.e. getting the smart charger+battery. I think it would make things easy for a guy/gal getting back into RC and using big 6s Lipos. I like that I can plug and set it and forget it every time I go to charge it again and auto discharges when Im not able to use it. I like that it keeps track of my cycles. Good for making sure I split use evenly between battery's. Also with the new V5 Arrmas coming with Spek smart electronics you get some added data like battery level left when running and some other stats. I guess I'm trying to justify the higher price for the ease of use and care that comes with owning/using Lipos. I have also heard the Spektrum batts are very true to their ratings. mahs, C rating, etc. Not that there arnt other good brands out there but Iv seen some people do test on a couple "cheaper" brands and they have lower #'s than their ratings.

 

[Performance nut]

I personally went this route with my Felony. Seems technology has changed some since I was into RC. Will it be worth it? Maybe. I'm a big data guy. Will it be hobby altering data? Meh seriously doubt it. Will it be useful data? Maybe. I have questions and I'm hoping the data will help answer my questions. Spektrum isn't the only ones that have data but since the Felony came with Spektrum stock, figured I would stick with the brand to see what all I can get from it. Guessing can be expensive but when you have data, it is becomes less guesswork and more homework.

If this doesn't work out, I'm already eyeing Castle.

 

[SrC]

Just bash and forget about lipo data. I don't do RC just to focus much on the little things like lipo specs. And if they are 100% correct, # of cycles....
Lipos are not some mystical magic. Just follow the basic rules and drive already. Smart is a gimmick, that adds a layer of potential failure all at a higher lipo $price$. Flame me if you will... Smart is just a marketing tool for HH. To dominate the Lipo market. ISDT BattGO was a failure. No one jumped aboard. Same Tech. ISDT never offered the BattGo lipos. It failed. ISDT makes great chargers however. Just that the Smart concept didnt catch. That's all. For a reason. Now Spektrum grabbed it. Forcing the concept by using Smart in the their RTR offerings. Creates a captive audience/market. So Newbs jump in with both feet. Being a newb and afraid of lipo's I understand, but smart is not the answer. A false sense of security. You cant be lazy when it comes to understanding lipo care and feeding. Charging and storage etc. Its all just another layer of confusion as seen on this thread. If you are DJI guy to begin with, you may find Smart comforting. There are 2 camps when it comes to Quads. The quad builder who uses standard lipos and the casual DJI flyer(prebuilt quad) guys that rely on Brand specific lipos. Same thing here translates with Spektrum Smart Lipo's and ESC's and these "Smart Arrma rigs" now.
So be it. To each his own.

 

[Performance nut]

Just bash and forget about lipo data. I don't do RC just to focus much on the little things like lipo specs. And if they are 100% correct, # of cycles....
Lipos are not some mystical magic. Just follow the basic rules and drive already. Smart is a gimmick, that adds a layer of potential failure all at a higher lipo $price$. Flame me if you will... Smart is just a marketing tool for HH. To dominate the Lipo market. ISDT BattGO was a failure. No one jumped aboard. Same Tech. ISDT never offered the BattGo lipos. It failed. ISDT makes great chargers however. Just that the Smart concept didnt catch. That's all. For a reason. Now Spektrum grabbed it. Forcing the concept by using Smart in the their RTR offerings. Creates a captive audience/market. So Newbs jump in with both feet. Being a newb and afraid of lipo's I understand, but smart is not the answer. A false sense of security. You cant be lazy when it comes to understanding lipo care and feeding. Charging and storage etc. Its all just another layer of confusion as seen on this thread. If you are DJI guy to begin with, you may find Smart comforting. There are 2 camps when it comes to Quads. The quad builder who uses standard lipos and the casual DJI flyer(prebuilt quad) guys that rely on Brand specific lipos. Same thing here translates with Spektrum Smart Lipo's and ESC's and these "Smart Arrma rigs" now.
So be it. To each his own.

And this makes total sense. Lots of times I have "followed the brand" when starting out in a hobby. Estes, Lionel, Traxxas, FPR... yeah I can say that you speak a ton of truth right there. But I was never happy staying "in the brand". I learned from the engineering that went into the brand and what boundaries to push and which ones not to push. Eventually I was able to push way more than I thought possible. But you have to start somewhere. When you don't know (or don't know what you don't know) and you lack a good mentor, start with a system.

For me, I have a heavy background in electronics, electrical systems, and racing. On paper, this stuff is really basic. In reality, there is always more to it than book smarts. This is a different scale for me which means there are probably new rules. Easy to make expensive mistakes thinking I know more than I do. So, I went with a system to test my actual knowledge and see where it leads me. Eventually I want to build a LImitless that will be my go to RC. Before I go there, I'm going to push this Felony as far as I can. For me, learning is half the fun. The other half is the surprise of actually pulling something off that I never thought possible.

 

[Highrever777]

Had to chime in, 50 year-old plus kind of newb on rccars I guess.. have a few, recently bought a felony and a couple of 100c smart lipos... already have a couple chargers so did not buy spektrum charger but did buy 2 smart batts... wanted to see batt level on controller and have ordered the bluetooth module for controller.... gettting ready to buy back up battery and torn on getting a 6s smart or amazon 6s (half price)

run times are adequate, sure is nice knowing batt levels tho, not sure of it is worth the double cost tho.... looks like this post is year old so it may be crickets here h ha

 

[Funky]

The G2 Spektrum Smart batteries are a point of contention for me, as they do NOT have balance leads and MUST be charged with a Spektrum Smart charger. Additionally there have been reports of the smart chip failing and reporting errors with cell(s) that aren't true, rendering the battery useless despite being healthy, on account of an inaccurate report from the chip.

I prefer my Lipo's to contain balance leads and be compatible with any charger I choose to use.

 

[Highrever777]

Mine have balance leads, used 2 diff chargers with them fine..., maybe a new variant?

 

[Funky]

Yeah, it's the G2 (generation 2) Spektrum Lipos that have omitted the balance leads. Supposedly they improved the smart chip too as the first ones had a tendency to fail or output false reports.

They released the new S2200 charger to coincide with the G2 batteries. If you have the previous S2100 charger you need to perform a firmware update on it to make it compatible with the G2 batteries, on account of the lack of a balance lead.

 

[arrmadillo]

Not a fan of Spektrum lipos or chargers. Their too expensive couldn't care less about smart technology. Traxxas does the same with their ID lipos and noob chargers to plug and play.

 

[Rainger40]

It looks like just a rebrand of the isdt battgo / isdt smart stuff to me. The only thing about the smart battery system that appeals to me is the logging, the customizable charge rate presets, and the ability to dictate how long the battery waits to self discharge. If you can't do that without the smart charger I'd say that those are the premium value features you aren't getting without the charger.

Yes it is a rebrand, ask me how I know. I had a smart pack that needed some surgery so I looked around while I was in there.

 

[SrC]

This is just an observation. It would appear these new Spektrum SMART Lipos are "Fool-Proof". I just ordered one of these expensive batts for a rig I have on the way.
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After mentioning it in a different thread, I was surprised by the negative reaction it immediately received. One Arrma Inmate wrote, "You have to get the charger now". I gazed at my screen for a minute. Did I miss something here? I have to whip out my credit card again?

This is a sad thing to say, but I think better when I sleep. I tend to solve my own issues after a good night's sleep. I woke up this morning and suddenly panicked. "Maybe it doesn't have a balance lead". That's probably why he said I need Spektrum's charger. I immediately searched for a close-up shot of the battery I ordered. It does have a balance lead. Alright, what am I missing here?

Luckily the RCSaylors put out a good video on it. Spektrum ( Horizon ) made absolutely sure we would understand with their video review. Then it dawned on me!

Matt Damon said it best in the movie "Rounders". "If you can't spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker."

View attachment 61933

It's me! I'm the guy that is paranoid when it comes to Lipos. Spektrum SMART batteries were made for the noobies. That's me! TheRCSaylors even said it themselves.

I started with DJI Drones. When I realized I wouldn't be able to fly in the winter, I moved over to Bashing. I'm probably not the only one. This new generation of SMART Lipo batteries represents all that is wrong with the World today. We didn't learn how to solder as kids. We are a society that seeks instant gratification. We want everything now and our attention spans are shorter. This in turn, drives up the price of everything.

In Spektrum's defense, after watching their video's and doing some research, it would appear that they made every effort they could to not offend. Those SMART Lipos can still be charged on any hobby grade charger. They made sure to make it compatible with EC3 and EC5. They don't say that outright in their videos, but it's not too hard to read between the lines.

Perhaps it's a good move for the industry? Or was Thanos right? "SMART Lipos are INEVITABLE"? Curious to hear what you guys think?

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There is a new G2 Spektrum line out. They had to revamp the original. They have a newer charger and lipo series.
I guess the old Smart setup wasn't that Smart. And now they have an excuse for you to buy the even Smarter stuff now.
At some point, you have to ask why lipos and chargers like this need to be this expensive. Isn't the Hobby expensive enough. What's wrong with the 99% of all the other quality Lipos and chargers out there? They are not Smart enough to take our $$$? Like Spektrum does.
I am Smart enough to know how to charge my lipos. Part of the hobby to begin with.
Now all of a sudden, I should Not need to know how to charge my lipos with a Smart G2 Eco charging system? I can become lazy with Lipos now?
Waste of money to me. From a Hobby consumer standpoint. Some brands are just greedy pigs. But there will always be someone out there that thinks they are at the epitome of technology and buy that stuff.

 

[SrC]

Yes it is a rebrand, ask me how I know. I had a smart pack that needed some surgery so I looked around while I was in there.

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BattGo is from ISDT . Spektrum uses them as the OEM. ISDT makes good chargers actually for regular Lipos.
ISDT created the tech and it failed because no Lipo maker would jump aboard. ISDT just makes chargers and the IC's for them. Including the "SMart" chip above. Spektrum jumped on it and ISDT uses the BattGO tech now. Same stuff.

 

[Pedro2099486]

Yes it is a rebrand, ask me how I know. I had a smart pack that needed some surgery so I looked around while I was in there.

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View attachment 130321

I wonder if the battgo stuff will read the spectrum stuff. And if the spek will read the isdt, I've been looking at this stuff for a week and just found a mention of the isdt battgo, feel so dumb, found the isdt battgo linker on bg for like 12$, wonder if these chips could be used on regular batteries to make them work with the telemetry aspect of the spek smart stuff, I have a few lipos I wouldn't mine converting over, would just need to be able to reprogram the chip a bit to change any limits it puts on the system for the battery not the same it's setup for

 

[jkflow]

That will work on any battery but careful with offbrand/brand. They might have ID or similar that will block the communication.
Worth trying out before committing. I'll stick the 'old' stuff for now. Not worth the investment imho.

 

[Funky]

I know that the Spektrum Smart batteries work with the ISDT chargers re auto charging, displaying statistics etc.

 

[Setomidor]

I'm considering jumping in on the G2-line when upgrading from our Mega NiCh specifically because I want my (wife and) kids to be able to handle the LiPos if I'm out of town; both hooking things up correctly to get it working and not having to care about discharging batteries after a session. Do you think this would be a good match for my expectations?

 

[jkflow]

Thats what they are meant to do, take out the guesswork and make life easier. At a price though.

 

[Sargent_Horse]

I'd recommend getting G1 batteries and the G2 charger. The G1 battery allows you to keep the balance lead for backwards compatibility AND take advantage of the smart stuff like easy charging and auto-discharge. I have both G1 and G2 batteries (LHS was out of the G1's in the format I wanted) and it kinda sucks knowing if for some reason I needed to charge my G2's on a different charger I couldn't. The G1 chargers also have pretty crap charge rates, but all the G2 chargers aren't bad.

Get whatever battery and charging system you want or can afford. If you can afford the Smart stuff and you think the fault log, auto discharge, or other features are worth it then get them. The batteries are plenty good quality and specs for bashing. If you don't care about smart stuff or are working on a budget get a different setup. I personally like the Smart features and ease of use. Nothing wrong with that if you got the money to spend.