RC Battery Lipo vs Nimh- Introduction, Need and Usage

RC car, whose full name is remote control car, is a kind of remote control car with electric energy as driving energy. How to play RC car well? For its fans, the most important thing is to choose excellent RC batteries. Therefore, this article will introduce different RC batteries to provide some reference materials for people who want to get started with RC car.

Do?Lipo?batteries?make?RC?cars?faster?

First of all, we will introduce the new star of RC battery industry, lithium polymer battery. Lithium technology, as a new type of power technology, has developed rapidly in recent years. It was developed so fast that many old batteries are gradually replaced by lithium batteries. In fact, when lipo battery was applied with RC battery, it brought a qualitative leap for the speed of RC car. Why can LiPo battery improve the speed of RC car compared with other RC batteries? The reasons will be listed in the following article:

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·Compared with other RC batteries, lipo batteries are lighter in weight. The lighter battery means that the weight of power supply reduces the driving burden of RC vehicle, which can effectively improve the flexibility of the vehicle, liberate the speed limit of power weight, and make RC vehicle travel faster and have stronger climbing ability.

·Compared with other RC batteries, lipo batteries have higher operating voltage. The normal operating voltage of a lipo battery is about 3.7V, while that of a nimh battery is only about 1.2V. Although other RC batteries can increase the operating voltage by combining multiple batteries into a battery pack, it will also increase its weight. So using a lipo battery means getting more power with less weight.

·Compared with other RC batteries, lipo batteries have more stable operating voltage. RC car commonly used nimh battery, in the process of use with the continuous decline in the battery voltage will be significantly reduced, which will make your vehicle speed will be more and more slow. While the lipo battery can operate, it will continue to discharge at a stable voltage until the battery is completely discharged.

According to the above materials, the life of RC vehicles was heavy and slow before lipo batteries were applied to RC vehicles. The arrival of lipo battery has really increased the speed of RC car.

What?battery?do?RC?cars?need?

In the following, the article will list three types of batteries mainly used by RC vehicles to analyze the demand of RC vehicles for batteries:

Nickel–Cadmium Battery (NiCad)

NiCad battery can be said to be one of the earliest rechargeable batteries. It can be said that with the existence of this battery, the rechargeable RC car can be realized. So long ago, almost all RC applications depended on NiCad battery. In the view of current technology, NiCad battery has quite a lot of defects. It is large in size, heavy in weight, low in efficiency and not friendly to the environment. In addition, it has high self discharge rate and memory effect, which will lead to loss of power and decrease of capacitance. These defects lead to the NiCad battery is now gradually replaced by more efficient and cleaner energy, now in the market it is rare to see RC car using NiCad battery.

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Nickel Metal Hydride Battery (Nimh)

It can be said that nimh battery is an improved version of NiCad battery. It has higher capacity, higher discharge efficiency and no pollution. More importantly, nimh has low cost and long cycle life, which makes it the main battery used in RC vehicles on the market. However, similar to NiCad battery, it also has a high self discharge rate, and also has a certain memory effect, which will affect the use experience of RC car enthusiasts to a certain extent. Compared with lipo battery, nimh battery has lower charging efficiency and higher demand for charging, which will affect the charging flexibility of nimh battery.

Lithium Polymer (Lipo) Battery

Lipo battery is born with the emergence of lithium battery technology, its development prospects are very good, and in these years, its manufacturing process is constantly improved, and the Lipo battery is constantly updated. Lipo battery not only has the same characteristics as nimh (high capacity, long cycle life, no pollution, etc.), but also has better charge discharge efficiency, lower self discharge rate and lighter weight than nimh battery, and it has no memory effect. Although the cost of producing and purchasing Lipo batteries is much higher than that of nimh batteries, these costs are gradually decreasing with the progress of technology.

By analyzing the above three kinds of batteries for RC vehicles, we can infer that the batteries needed by RC vehicles have the following characteristics: they have high capacitance, they have good discharge performance, and they must be rechargeable batteries.

Can?you?use?lipo?batteries?instead?of?nimh?in?RC?cars?

From the performance of the battery, the article has been compared before, it is not difficult to see that lipo battery can completely replace nimh battery in RC vehicle application. These are reflected in lighter weight and higher capacity density, and RC cars with lipo batteries can run faster and more flexibly. This is also reflected in the faster charging speed of lipo battery, which greatly increases the use frequency of RC cars and improves the user experience of consumers (and the lipo battery can continue to use under the condition of incomplete charging, which is impossible for nimh battery). Some people may argue that lipo batteries are prone to overcharge and lead to battery damage or other safety hazards.

Some people may argue that lipo batteries are prone to overcharge and lead to battery damage or other safety hazards. This may be true for the old era LiPo batteries, but at present, most of the lipo batteries produced by professional manufacturers on the market will be equipped with a protection board (in fact, it is an independent protection circuit), which can effectively prevent overcharge and over discharge. At the same time, these batteries will also be equipped with BMS (Battery Management). It can also monitor the state of the battery to prevent overcharge and over discharge of the battery.

In addition, from the perspective of battery cost, nimh battery still has a greater price advantage compared with nimh battery. However, with the development of lithium battery technology, we will find that the production cost and price of lithium battery have been falling. Maybe one day in the future, a new type of LiPo battery will beat nimh battery in price and completely replace nimh battery in RC vehicle field.