Senton reasonable run time on Senton 3s BLX?

[jrude]

I recently purchased a Senton BLX 3s for my son (age 9) to replace his previous Dromida SC4.18. We really are not heavily into the RC sport, but he likes RC cars so my wife signed him up for the RC club after school, paid the $60 fee, and immediately thereafter, the Dromida electronics stopped working.

I did a bunch of reading for the replacement and we went with the Senton 3s because its physical durability appears to mesh well with his skill level. Also we could buy one in orange, and that was his primary requirement for an RC car. We also looked at the Traxxas Slash 4x4, but I though the Senton would end up more mechanically durable in the long run.

His Dromida with a 1300mAh NiMH would run for about 15-20 minutes at WOT.

We ran the Senton this morning for the first time, and it seemed to go about 35-40 minutes with a 5200 mAh, LiPo Lecton Pro 2s, including down time for rollovers. This was with the throttle limiter set to 50% for about 50% of the run time, the TL set to 75% for about 20% of the time, and the TL set to 100% for about the last 30% of the time. Once he got used to the much higher speeds of the Senton compared to the Dromida, I was more open with letting him run it at full 2s speed. Even at 50% throttle limiter on a 2s, the Senton is way faster than his old Dromida.

So my question is, does this run time sound ok? When we put the battery back in the charger this afternoon, the cell voltages were reading 3.52V, so I think we got most of the life out of the battery charge. I'm thinking of buying a second battery, specifically the 8000 mAh 2s SMC battery. His RC club is an hour long, and is likely to have maybe 40-45 minutes of actual drive time, but I honestly don't know.

Actually the Senton was so much fun I am thinking of fixing the Dromida so we can run them together, and the 2s Lecton will fit the Dromida, so I'm not really kicking myself for too small a battery purchase.

Thanks

 

[razorrc]

Yup, run time sound perfect for that size battery. At full power, it will only last about 15 min, so at half power that sounds right.

I wouldn’t recommend getting an 8000mah. If your truck breaks it sucks having a fully charged battery that you need to somehow discharge back to storage mode. Also if your battery goes bad you won’t feel bad about such an expensive battery.

5-7000mah is about right and with two batteries you can just have one charging while the other is being used.

Make sure you always balance charge when charging, and put it back to storage charge (3.8v/cell) when not in use.

 

[Outcastblxnut]

Rc class in school. That is awesome. Get some ovanics hard case batteries. You won't be disappointed. Cheap /good. more batteries equals more run time. Good luck and welcome to the arrma asylum ?

 

[jrude]

Thanks for the very quick replies!

The main reason I was thinking of the single large battery is because his 9YO fingers have had a hard time disconnecting and reconnecting the EC5 connectors. I am not worried about him doing it at home where I can help him if he needs it, but I am worried about him swapping batteries half way through RC club while several others in his age range are all telling him to do something I told him not to do, while I'm not there.

If a single large battery will get him through the 1 hour club meet after school, then to me it's probably worth the price if he does not have to pull it apart and then deal with his friends wanting to push buttons or touch hot stuff on the car after the body is off. I don't know how much direct adult supervision there is, and this is a 3rd to 8th grade club. He and his friends are all in 3rd, and who knows what peer pressure comes from 8th grade.

I was also thinking maybe the higher voltage of a larger mAh 3s would get him more run time so long as the TL remained at 50%, but then the problem is, as soon as his friends / peers find out the car will go twice as fast with the flip of a switch, well then there will be pressure to flip that switch...

 

[razorrc]

Stick to 2S. That's already crazy fast for a 9 year old. 1/2 power is good, but 1/2 power for 3S is going to be like 1.5S, so it's going to be 50% faster than what he's doing.

I get the single battery idea, should work fine then with an 8000mah.

 

[jrude]

After my last post we went out with the recharged 5200 mAh 2s battery and ran it a second time, this time 50/50 on the 75% and full speed settings. I timed it with my phone stopwatch and we got 24.5 minutes of total run time including roll over fixes, etc. There was very little down time since his driving improved significantly since this morning. I think with the larger battery he will be ok for the one hour club meeting.

And yes, the 2s with no throttle limit is plenty for a 9 year old, even plenty for me. We had lots of cornering rollovers and concrete to grass transition rollovers. Most of the time it lands on it's wheels though.

Also, afterwards, I'm pretty sure we are going to retrofit a cheap brushless motor and ESC kit along with a new transmitter and receiver into the Dromida. At $90 total it's probably not "cost effective" but he will learn a bunch from it and then we can race the cars.

Thanks

 

[crimsonfancy]

My concerns with high mah packs are temps of the electrics so I buy around 5000mah. On 2s though a higher mah pack should be fine on temps just heavier...which shouldn't make much difference until he starts jumping and crashing under weight. If you choose 8000-9000mah, just double check for fitment in the battery tray.
I'm 48 years old and orange color influences my RC choices too. Lol Arrma tough with an orange option and we can't go wrong. Some here on the forum say blue is the fast color but orange is really fastest. ?