Life Batteries

[Sako]

Are there many people here using Life batteries over the Lipos?

 

reason I’m considering them is that I work away for a few weeks at a time, so for safety sake I’d rather have the less volatile battery in storage around the family, as I’ve read they are pretty harmless.

...And I can imagine they are a better choice than a 9.6 nimh.

 

ive not yet checked to see if any will actually fit or be suitable for the Krytac CRB yet (only mentions nimh or lipo as recommended)

[Sitting Duck]

Don't bother imho

 

At first they seem like the ideal stop gap between 7.4v & 11.1v

BUT from my experience they don't offer any real improvement over a decent 25c or 30c 7.4v lipo

 

They are more expensive, very limited options due to very very limited range

AND they MUST be charged differently to lipo's

Each cell is 3.3v with a max rating of 3.8v I think

If you use lipo settings of 3.7 or max 4.2v you will damage LiFe's

So you need to setup the charge settings in say a B6 charger

Or ensure you have a V3 type charger (balance lead) that has a proper LIFE port

 

Seriously, when I have compared a 9.9v life to a 7.4v 25c I noticed no difference at all

They are bulkier as they are 3x3.3v cells compared to 2 x7.4v

More expensive and just not worth the hassle imho

 

If you got a decent motor say the 30k Krytac motor then 7.4v should be plenty

If you got the 20k then just use 11.1v

 

[Sako]

Thanks for the reply.

i must admit it’s good to hear of some real experience of these like you’ve had as it’s been difficult to source much information online that doesn’t have some form of bias.

my main consideration for them in reality is that they would be safer under charge and more importantly for my situation - storage (i would be unable to do anything in the event of a thermal breakout as I work away from home for 21 days at a time).

so I maybe forced to stick with 9.6 nimh due to safety concerns.

[Davegolf]

I second all that Sitting Duck said.

 

On the safety front I feel that LiPo's have come along way from the horror stories of yesteryear.

 

Im sure that if you looked into the cases of people's exploding LiPo's you'd find that most were caused by poor charging, over loading, wiring issues or general mis care and that if you by high end cells from the likes of Turnigy for example rather than some Chinese 2nds it is extremely unlikely you'd ever experience a failure.

 

Charge them properly, use them properly, pay attention to there general physical condition and store them properly.

 

Sounds like a big deal but it's all basics that should be applied to any battery type wether it be a lead acid car battery or an AA lol.

 

They are high performance, compact batteries that are the benchmark for us airsofters these days.

 

You can always store them in a fire safe container in the garage etc, as long as it's a nice temperature 

[Sako]

Thanks for the reply.

 

it does seem that Lipo is the standard now, I’m guessing in a while they will get the volatility sorted too.

[Hangtight]

They're really not that volatile. You have to do the sort of stupid stuff to them that would get an unpleasant reaction from any battery before they'll actually go up in flame.

[Tiercel]

I've been using lipo for years, never yet exploded them or burned my house down. Most of that was using cheap chinese charger & batteries too, only recently had the money to switch to Turnigy stuff and a B6 charger. Id highly recommend using lipos, its a big difference over NiMH, mainly being that you'll never need to change batteries during a game again!  You may get other slight benefits like a slightly increased RoF/trigger response, but the biggest benefit is battery life/capacity. Back when I first started airsofting with NiMH Id normally have to change batteries around lunch time break and that was a pain if you forgot your spare or didnt charge it fully. 

 

we've been using LiPo batteries in mobile phones for many years now anyway and nobody ever worries about them blowing up and burning your house down (except the Note 7  ) its fine. If youre really still worried, store them in a metal tin like an ammo box or quality street tin (if you can still find a metal one!)