I bet you might not know why I'm saying this but most of us can be glad for ROAR's once a year approval for batteries. Right now on the market we have all of the various labelled GP3300 cells. They are the only ones legal by ROAR rules and are all pretty much the same. Many tracks are sticking to ROAR rules in this case.

But we now have the IB3600, the Sanyo 3600, the GP3700 and the IB3800 available. Just think about trying to stay up with all THAT mess! Dis ROAR all you want, this is one rule that really helps out the racer!

I completely agree!

Too bad none of our local clubs stick to the roar rulz !

yes my congrats to this rule!!!

This is one rule I'm glad they are sticking to their guns on.

This is one of the best things that roar has done for a long time, THANKS ALOT.

I agree!

Now the whole brushless @ the Nat's is another story

What does someone do come this fall when carpet season starts. Most people, myself included, often sell off our packs after the carpet season and start fresh for the following season. I'm in a situation now were the cells I have aren't as good as the latest batch of 3300's. I'd like to get new cells with higher #'s but I won't use them for another 4 months. So I'll wait until the start of the new season. At that point, I'm going to buy new cells that I will only be using until Jan. 1st. Then I'll buy more new cells, be it IB 3600, 38s, or GP 3700. Now I've spent twice as much. I don't think there should be submission deadline or approval date. I like ARCOR's way. As long as a certain # of a product is in circulation then it is approved within 30 days of submission. Products can be submitted at anytime. It would be easy if new products stopped being made but thats all part of the tech game. Now, with a wider choice in batteries, it is becoming confusing to deciede which is best. That one good thing that I see with ROAR. ROAR makes that choice for you. But then after Jan 1st everone will become confused again. Blame it on ROAR or blame it on the battery war. It just goes to show that you can't make everyone happy all at once.

But them look at it from someone that races in the summer. They would have first bought the IB3600 cells that are on the market, now a month later they would have to buy the GP3700 cells and maybe a month later the IB3700 cells.

Knowing that all of these will be legal on Jan 1 you know no one will have an advantage because they can afford to buy a dozen or more new packs. To get you through the rest of the year you can buy 1 or 2 3300 packs and then invest in the new cells at the end of the year as you can afford them.

With the new cells coming out now, by the end of the year everyone should know which of the new cells are best. Let someone else test them. That eliminates the need for you buy a few of each to do the testing.

Hank, I agree with you, ROAR has done a good thing here ........ by the time it comes around for battery approval this fall there may even be more cells available ? ..... At least this way, we should all have a good idea out of the bunch thats out there which ones are cells "ok and which ones might be "iffy" as in durability/ price ratio. This way even if they are all approved most track owners/ series directors can then have the option of allowing the better cells, so people dont waste their $$ on the others. Because we all know that ALOT of tracks base thier rules on ROAR and modify them for their racer base when neccessary, I think this will be one of those times.

It's a good thing I guess, but I'm more in Z-main's boat... Come next winter.... I won't likely be buying any ROAR legal cells in October or November... I'll be buying what ever cell seems to be the best at that time, and well hoping that it does indeed get ROAR aproved for 2006. My local track has more or less told me that they will let the local racers decide what kinds of batteries are allowed at club races. So, I'm confident that we will be running what ever is best next fall regardless of ROAR's battery rules. Now many of us do race ROAR events from time to time, so those that do, will obviously need ROAR legal packs for those events. At some point it's silly to buy this years ROAR legal stuff when you know next year it's going to change.

Dyno. At least you can try and do some planning. Just think of those racers that just bought IB3600 cells a month ago and now IB3800 cells are coming out (or even GP3700 cells). If the IB3800 cells are any good it is possible that the 3600 cells will never be submitted to ROAR for approval... but then we have 6+ months to find out if the 3800 cells are any good.

this is a great rule and i hope by next year it is all figured out.

It pretty much is figured out. New cells need to be submitted sometime in Oct. and they are suppose to be approved before the end of Dec. All we can do is hope that ROAR announces what cells have been submitted before the Oct. deadline.

Thanks ROAR I am very glad you do this.

but then we have 6+ months to find out if the 3800 cells are any good.

They will do what the 3300 did when it came out. My sources have told me they will obsolete all other current cells :thumbsup: .
The 3600 didn't live up to expectations, but the 3800 will.

Later, Bret

Thank you Hank!

Dawn

BTW - the deadline date is September 30th for October approvals, if I remember the rule book correctly. That rule was put in place for the 2003 rule book.

Where in the rule book does it say that just because new cells are approved, that you gotta go out and buy them? If I run a 5 minute heat with 3300's, and have a minute worth of runtime left when I discharge them, why do I need 3600's, 3700's or 3800's? So I can have 1 1/2 or 2 minutes of runtime left when I finish the heat? I never understood the need to buy something just because it's now legal, if it doesn't help me on the track. The last time I bought batteries as soon as they were released was the purple Panasonic 1700's. They became paperweights faster than any piece of R/C equipment I ever owned. Maybe that experience soured me on buying the 'latest and greatest' thing out. I think ROAR has the right idea with once a year approval.

ROAR has the right idea. Knowing that nothing is going to change of the course of the year lets you stay focused. It is alway fun the see what is the latest and greatest but you don't have to worry about racing against it right now.

Good call Roar. One of my favorite rules.

There are still a few problems with the ROAR battery rule but it is definately a step in the right direction.

Here are the two problems with the rule as I see it.

1st, GP has been allowed to totally (and I do mean totally) change the cell construction on the GP3300's several times after being approved. Reducing the cell length to make them legal is a given and I do think that ROAR handled that situation in a good way. The bottom line is that any physical change to the cells needs to go back through an approval process.

2nd, Intellect (and any new cell manufacturer) have been excluded from the industry for about a year before their cells are even going to be legal. This swings a pretty big advantage to GP allowing them to raise the prices yet again.

In the end, excluding Intellect only hurts us the racers. GP is still the cell of choice for stock but Intellect is a cheaper alternative for modified racers. I would say that we should allow the 3600 IB cells this year and then allow the 3800's (3700 GP's) next year. One cell per year unless it's a new manufacturer (reshrinking cells with a new manufacturer name doesn't count).

IB cells are just as good or better than GPs and cheaper and easier to maintain. Rather it is stock or mod. But, not many people would know that because they have to use GP 3300s. It takes non-ROAR tracks to do testing for everyone. SO people like me who can run anything now, we will have an advantage when it comes to cell selection for a ROAR event after Jan 1st. Where is our thanks for doing the testing finding out what new cell is better?

I can tell you from experience that the 3600 IB cells are not as fast in stock 12th compared to GP 3300's. Dirt might be a different story but on carpet, GP's have been faster so far.

From what I have heard the IB's like heat and 12th scale stock and 4-cell stock oval can not generate enough heat to keep the voltage up so they tend to fall flat towards the end of the run. They are suppose to be good in 6-cell off-road and touring car.

...this is a great rule, and should be kept in force...

BUT, there is always that UGLY BUT!~ But if the battery guys who make their money selling batteries QUIT matching and selling 3300's in favor for the NEWER batteries that (NON RACERS WHO DON"T HAVE TO CONFORM TO RULES) seem to buy...it puts us back in the same situation we were with 1400's, 1700's, 2000's etc.

STAY STRONG...fight the URGE, stay with 3300's until a GOOD higher cell is in place, then switch to IT and CAP it for 4 years.

During the 90's Sanyo and Panasonic dominated the industry. If you look at the roar site you can get a bit of a timeline of the history behind the "battery war".

I seem to remember that ROAR either redid the approvals or got caught up in 92 with the approval of the 1400's (I seem to remember that they were out around 1990). After that point you can see a pretty good timeline of what cells came out and when give or take a year.

The 1700 Sanyo's were approved in 93 and were Sanyo's answer to the Panasonics that were released a year or two earlier. Sanyo chose to follow these cells up with the 2000's in 97 (4 years later) and drove Panasonic from the industry.

The 2000 cells were used and continued to be used for years even after Panasonic decided to return to RC with the 3000 NiMh cells in 2000. Panasonic and Toyota would later lose major money paying for patent issues on the NiMh technology.

Sanyo got approval for their own 3000 cells in 2000 but the cost of the patent licence made their cells more expensive and they were never really a factor.

In 2003 we saw the approval of a new (and illegaly sized) GP 3300 cell. Sanyo released a 3300 the same year but couldn't compete (price and performance).

This brings us to today. So what's the point? Well, with all the complaining that we do, a new cell was approved about every 3 years after the Sanyo 2000's. This battery "war" has been several "battles" spaced over 3 year cycles since 1997. Yes, there were updates from Panasonic and Sanyo trying to keep up but GP has released more than 3 versions of the current cell and circumvented the ROAR rules by keeping the shrink the same.

So, what do we have now? We have one compeditive cell (GP3300) approved for racing. GP has recently increased the price of these cells by about $1 a cell making them even more expensive. GP have also released a 3700 mAh cell with performance similar to their current 3300's. So a new company came along over a year ago in China and started selling 3600 mAh cells overseas at a very compeditive price. We get them in the states a year later, and can't get them approved in time for the 05 season allowing GP to continue their monopoly in the market for another year.

Soon the new 3800 IB cells will trickle in and those won't be legal either. Not that that's a big deal for me but it shows that we are willing to completely shut other companies out of the industry for over a year at a time.

I think that ROAR has done a great job in trying to control the perception that there's a new cell every month but the rule also keeps new companies out of the market for too long. There are two things that I would add to the current rule in order to allow new companies to enter the industry. First, I would allow any new manufacturer's cells to be submitted for approval immediately. This would be a one time deal for any manufacturer (allowing IB into the industry). The second addition would be to restrict each manufacturer to one new cell submital per year with the exception of new shrink on the same cell like EPIC seems to like to do.

Now that I'm thinking about it a little, any new manufacturer should be blocked out for any national event that year unless the cells are approved and in circulation for 2 months before the event.

ROAR has a good start with the current rule but it shuts out any new manufacturer for over a year before they can get in.