LiPo Demystified: Choosing Between LiPo & 18650
For a long time, any serious vaper knew exactly what batteries to get: Sony VTC5 or VTC4s were the choices, until shortages, price hikes, & rampant counterfeiting drove a mass exodus to Samsung’s 25Rs, the now-ubiquitous baby-blues packing 2500mAh & 20-amp continuous discharge ratings. They also offer an incredibly-high pulse discharge capacity, over 90 amps for short bursts, making them very safe for any modern high-performance PV with high output demands. The 25R was not just a bargain at nearly half the price of the Sony VTC cells, it was the cell vapers had been waiting for, and it remains arguably the best cell for high-performance PV use on the hotly-contested multi-billion dollar 18650 battery market.
However, this year another major power source contender has crept out of the DIY box building scene and into the mainstream: the LiPo packs, up-and-coming Lithium Polymer batteries often derived from remote-control applications. With their customizable form factor, stratospheric continuous discharge amperage ratings, and potential to pack more power and longer battery life than any 18650, the up-and-coming LiPo pack are starting to challenge the 18650-dominated PV market in earnest. The launch of the DNA200 chip marks a critical turning point in this industry, as it’s the first cutting-edge PV chip designed specifically for the exclusive use of LiPo batteries (not 18650s at all). While Evolv walked that back somewhat with a firmware update allowing dual 18650s in a reduced-power mode (discussed later), the writing is still on the wall: LiPo is a major player in this industry now, and it’s here to stay.
The newness of LiPo packs to the PV scene and the differences between the two main types of vaping power sources has resulted in a number of misconceptions and general confusion, which could lead to disastrous consequences. Due to the distinct risks inherent in LiPo chemistry and pack construction, battery safety is more crucial than ever before, and that requires education on these new battery types. We’ve written this article for anyone considering any DNA200 device, not just a Whiteout, in order to explain what LiPo batteries are, why they’re preferred by the DNA200, and how to compare them with traditional 18650s. Hopefully, this information will help you decide whether you want to use dual-18650’s with the new DNA200 firmware update, or stick with the standard LiPo battery that’s included with nearly all DNA200 devices. Since these standard LiPo batteries are almost all internally-mounted, USB-charged, and inaccessible to the end-user, it’s important you know what you’re buying into when considering a DNA200 device. Currently, the Whiteout DNA is the only exception, as we made sure our custom 1100mAh CMT LiPo pack permitted users to hot-swap spare, externally-charged battery packs. Thanks to the modularity of the Whiteout platform, the device can even be converted to dual-18650 configuration with just a basic plug-and-play dual-18650 build kit that can be installed (or reverted to LiPo) in just 5-10 minutes.
What Exactly Are LiPo Batteries?
LiPo, or lithium polymer, batteries are a type of rechargeable battery that come in a pouch encasement unlike traditional metal tube batteries. LiPo batteries generally consist of one or more cells, arranged in series or parallel (exactly like 18650s can be arranged in a multiple-battery sled). LiPo batteries have a few advantages over traditional batteries in that they are lighter in weight, can be made in almost any shape or size, they generally offer much higher capacities, and they generally have much higher discharge rates. Just like traditional batteries, LiPos have a few common key specifications a user should be aware of:
The C-rating, or capacity rating. The C-rating is the maximum safe continuous discharge rating of a battery pack. To determine the safe discharge rate of a pack, convert the mAh rating to amps (divide by 1000, as 1000mAh equals 1A) then multiply the amps by the C-rating given on the pack
The Voltage of the pack, which is generally given on the battery itself.
The cell count, usually give as 2S, 3S and so on. This specification tells you that a pack has 2 or more cells wired in series.
Unlike many traditional cells, LiPo batteries have a storage voltage. A new LiPo battery will arrive with a partial charge and needs to be charged to 60-70% of its maximum capacity before being stored away for extended periods of time. Before first use, users should check the voltage on their batteries to ensure that they are within a given cells normal limits. It’s important to use a LiPo compatible charger for LiPos. LiPo batteries require special attention, as they charge using a system called CC/CV charging, which stands for Constant Current / Constant Voltage. Generally LiPo batteries come with a connector called a JST-XH connector on the balance tap. This gives access to all the individual cells contained in a LiPo, which allows for the monitoring and manipulation of each cell individually. The JST-XH balance charging connector is the white connector which plugs into the socket on the DNA200 board to allow the board’s 1A USB charger to safely charge all of the LiPo battery’s cells simultaneously, as well as providing much of the real-time data that powers the DNA200’s sophisticated battery performance and safety monitoring capabilities.
Cell Capacity & Overall Battery Life: mAh vs. Watt-Hours
Another crucial consideration for understanding LiPo batteries and relating them to familiar 18650 setups is understanding how to compare the capacity of the two battery types in their myriad configurations. One of the most common misconceptions I’ve seen cropping up everywhere lately is the claim that a 1000mAh 3S LiPo pack, common in first-generation DNA200 mods, literally provides 3000mAh of power capacity, so it’s OK to advertise them as 3000mAh batteries. as well as other LiPo misconceptions that have arisen around the DNA200 rumors. This issue persists partly due to Evolv’s lack of a coordinated official launch campaign or educational initiative alongside the release of this game-changing chip. They finally posted official DNA200 materials & ordering info on their website at last Monday — while the eScribe simulator is nice, that’s not exactly what I mean. How are you supposed to change the game, if you forget to explain to anyone how or why it needs changing? This problem is part of the reason I’ve been working on this DNA200 feature series for the Knowledge Base.
Watt-hour you saying, mAhte?
The best way to compare traditional 18650 battery configurations to LiPo packs is using watt-hours. With this number, we can accurately compare any Lipo cell configuration’s power-capacity ratings to those of any combination of 18650s, assuming all other factors are equal (which they aren’t, in fact they tend to favor the LiPo). There is a reason that many LiPos come with Watt-hours inscribed on the label.
The conversion from mAh to Watt-hours is even simpler and more straightforward than Ohm’s Law:
milliampere-hours of cell × volts / 1000 = watt-hours
Unlike mAh ratings, this equation is agnostic to whether or not the batteries are configured in series or parallel, as either configuration gives the same resulting watt-hours. In order to demonstrate the flexibility and usefulness of Watt-hours over our current mAh ratings, let’s compare the battery life outcomes for the Whiteout DNA in both its standard LiPo configuration as well as with the optional dual-18650 sled build kit:
Whiteout DNA w/ 3S LiPo pack: 1100mAh per cell
Nominal Voltage: 11.1V (three cells in series)
1100mAh / 1000 x 11.1V = 12.2 Watt-hours (Wh)
For comparison purposes, let’s use a typical dual-18650 configuration:
Whiteout DNA+dual-18650 Kit w/ Samsung 25R’s: 2500mAh per cell
Nominal Voltage: 7.4V (two cells in series)
2500mAh / 1000 x 7.4V = 18.5 Watt-hours (Wh)
By comparing the Watt-hour results for the nominal voltage of these two battery configurations, it’s clear that the amount of energy available in the dual-18650 Whiteout configuration (for a DNA200 with the 18650 Build Kit) is higher than the amount of energy available from the standard 1100mAh 3S LiPo, which suggests that all things equal, the 18650s will offer as much as 50% more battery life.
Note: In real life, the LiPo’s higher power efficiency, superior cycling characteristics and charge retention seem to close this gap somewhat. Also, while the Whiteout’s LiPo can be swapped out for external charging, since the DNA200’s microUSB JST-XH balance charger pushes a full 1 amp to three smaller 11000mAh cells, the battery recharges in half the time I’m used to from 18650s. As a result, I can usually keep the device topped off throughout the day without much trouble, whereas I’ve never bothered to do that with passthrough USB-charging 18650 devices because it seemed slow and ineffectual. Also, these LiPo packs can and will be upgraded — for example, just during the process of designing and finalizing our custom LiPo pack for the Whiteout, we were able to squeeze in another 100mAh, bumping it up to 1100mAh instead of 1000mAh. With more LiPo experience in the PV industry, I’m certain we’ll see better, more compact batteries, and given the ingenuity of our community, I expect we’ll see 3rd-party LiPo upgrade kits coming out very soon too!
How Long Will This Battery Last (For Real)?
There is also another compelling reason to use watt-hours to rate battery capacities, since we discuss the output of our devices in watts too! The watt-hours tell us the amount of energy required for a PV to fire at a given power (wattage setting) for a given amount of time. In other words, if you divide the watt-hours for a given battery configuration by your preferred vaping power setting, you’ll get the amount of hours that power supply will last at your chosen wattage setting, assuming 100% efficiency. Keep in mind that this only accounts for how long the device would run with the button pressed, so you’d need to figure out the average duration of your hits to figure out how many pulls you could get out of that much vapetime, but it’s a great starting point for actually comparing this stuff for once!
Just to demonstrate, using the two devices & the numbers from the previous example:
You could vape continuously at 100W with an 1100mAh 3S LiPo for:
12.2 Wh / 100 W x 60 min/h = 7.32 min
whereas, if you get the dual-18650 sled build kit for the Whiteout DNA, in comparison:
You could vape continuously at 100W with dual-18650s (Samsung 25R) for:
18.5 Wh / 100 W x 60 min/h = 11.1 min
I’m not claiming these figures or calculations are 100% accurate, as the real world version of this ‘puff timer’ math is obviously affected by many variables not factored into these equations — coil heat flux, PCB efficiency percentage (average is 93-96%, DNA200 is 97%), power profiles (temp control, pre-heat, firing modes), and much more. However, regardless of these variables, which were disregarded as minor effects for our purpose, I think it’s quite apparent how much more useful rating battery capacity for PVs in terms of Watt-hours is, especially with built-in multi-cell LiPo packs on the rise.
It is worth noting that you can cheat too, just like Hana & other DNA200 device-makers did with their mAh numbers, if you just want to do a quick-and-dirty comparison. You can roughly compare two different battery packs by just summing the mAh of all the cells involved in each, regardless of configuration: For example, the standard CMT 3S LiPo is 1100mAh x 3 cells (in series) = 3300 ‘nah’ (short for ‘not-actual-mAh’). Comparing to 5000 ‘nah’ for 2X Samsung 25R, you can see that this 3S setup has about 2/3 the approximate capacity of the 18650 configuration. If you check that ratio against the one determined by the watt-hours calculations above, you can confirm it’s accurate, but it’s easy to make mistakes taking such shortcuts like that, plus you can’t employ the other advantages of using watt-hours. So, while those kinds of half-assed calculations are improper from a technical perspective, they do appear to work in certain circumstances..
As you likely noticed in the previous calculations, it appears that using the best-quality 18650’s available, you can get superior watt-hour numbers over the stock Whiteout DNA LiPo, by close to 50% in some cases. However, it’s important to remember that the removable standard LiPo that comes installed in the Whiteout DNA is not an absolute top-of-the-line battery like a 25R or VTC5. Of course, it exceeds Evolv’s recommended 23 amp continuous amperage output spec, but I’m certain you could do better with a top-shelf pack unencumbered by our packaging, production, and pricing restrictions. There’s always an upgrade out there if you’re willing to look for it, and you don’t even necessarily need to look far or go custom: for example, this 3S LiPo pack is almost certain to fit in an unmodified Whiteout DNA!
Of course, we do plan to offer a 3S LiPo Upgrade Kit in the future, once we’ve had some time to review initial real-world feedback on the standard pack’s performance — it would be foolish not to learn and adapt quickly when implementing any new tech, after all. If the demand is there, a kit with slightly bulged side panels to cram even more mAh in there could be done as well. It’s also fairly simple for users to upgrade the battery themselves, since it’s swappable and can be externally charged directly via the JST-XH balancing port. This makes the Whiteout DNA unique among current DNA200 devices, as no other unit’s LiPo battery can be swapped, externally charged or upgraded like the Whiteout DNA’s can be!. Furthermore, no other DNA200 devices can exchange their LiPo for dual-18650s in only 5-10 minutes with an inexpensive. plug-and-play build kit.
The basic requirements for a LiPo to work the Whiteout DNA are:
It must fit in the battery bay. The largest approximate rectangular pack that could be made to fit is 75mm x 35mm x 19mm.
It must be a 3S (11.1V nominal) pack with a continuous discharge amperage rating of at least 23 amps, so 25C is the lowest C-rating I’d consider using unless the pack’s mAh rating is >1300.
We’ll be offering our own, custom-wrapped Cloudmaker standard LiPo packs for spares/replacements as well, so you needn’t source a LiPo yourself that you may have to modify (unless you really want to, which we always support too =P). Not only will CMT batteries provide excellent performance with plug-and-play reliability and safety, we’ve also ensured that every Whiteout battery configuration looks gorgeous with the optional clear panel thanks to our custom wrap design (images coming soon). Even better, CMT’s LiPo batteries feature a 1-year warranty too, so you can be sure your power supply meets our exacting standard for quality and safety.
That wraps up this portion of “Cloudmaker Scientifically Investigates the DNA200,” or “CSI: DNA Forensics” for short! See you soon for part 2, the full details on this revolutionary chip itself, what it can do, and how it works! Don’t forget to catch us on MakerTalk for the full demonstration of the Whiteout DNA, and chat with us directly at the afterparty Hangout. See you there!
For a long time, any serious vaper knew exactly what batteries to get: Sony VTC5 or VTC4s were the choices, until shortages, price hikes, & rampant counterfeiting drove a mass exodus to Samsung’s 25Rs, the now-ubiquitous baby-blues packing 2500mAh & 20-amp continuous discharge ratings. They also offer an incredibly-high pulse discharge capacity, over 90 amps for short bursts, making them very safe for any modern high-performance PV with high output demands. The 25R was not just a bargain at nearly half the price of the Sony VTC cells, it was the cell vapers had been waiting for, and it remains arguably the best cell for high-performance PV use on the hotly-contested multi-billion dollar 18650 battery market.
However, this year another major power source contender has crept out of the DIY box building scene and into the mainstream: the LiPo packs, up-and-coming Lithium Polymer batteries often derived from remote-control applications. With their customizable form factor, stratospheric continuous discharge amperage ratings, and potential to pack more power and longer battery life than any 18650, the up-and-coming LiPo pack are starting to challenge the 18650-dominated PV market in earnest. The launch of the DNA200 chip marks a critical turning point in this industry, as it’s the first cutting-edge PV chip designed specifically for the exclusive use of LiPo batteries (not 18650s at all). While Evolv walked that back somewhat with a firmware update allowing dual 18650s in a reduced-power mode (discussed later), the writing is still on the wall: LiPo is a major player in this industry now, and it’s here to stay.
The newness of LiPo packs to the PV scene and the differences between the two main types of vaping power sources has resulted in a number of misconceptions and general confusion, which could lead to disastrous consequences. Due to the distinct risks inherent in LiPo chemistry and pack construction, battery safety is more crucial than ever before, and that requires education on these new battery types. We’ve written this article for anyone considering any DNA200 device, not just a Whiteout, in order to explain what LiPo batteries are, why they’re preferred by the DNA200, and how to compare them with traditional 18650s. Hopefully, this information will help you decide whether you want to use dual-18650’s with the new DNA200 firmware update, or stick with the standard LiPo battery that’s included with nearly all DNA200 devices. Since these standard LiPo batteries are almost all internally-mounted, USB-charged, and inaccessible to the end-user, it’s important you know what you’re buying into when considering a DNA200 device. Currently, the Whiteout DNA is the only exception, as we made sure our custom 1100mAh CMT LiPo pack permitted users to hot-swap spare, externally-charged battery packs. Thanks to the modularity of the Whiteout platform, the device can even be converted to dual-18650 configuration with just a basic plug-and-play dual-18650 build kit that can be installed (or reverted to LiPo) in just 5-10 minutes.
What Exactly Are LiPo Batteries?
LiPo, or lithium polymer, batteries are a type of rechargeable battery that come in a pouch encasement unlike traditional metal tube batteries. LiPo batteries generally consist of one or more cells, arranged in series or parallel (exactly like 18650s can be arranged in a multiple-battery sled). LiPo batteries have a few advantages over traditional batteries in that they are lighter in weight, can be made in almost any shape or size, they generally offer much higher capacities, and they generally have much higher discharge rates. Just like traditional batteries, LiPos have a few common key specifications a user should be aware of:
The C-rating, or capacity rating. The C-rating is the maximum safe continuous discharge rating of a battery pack. To determine the safe discharge rate of a pack, convert the mAh rating to amps (divide by 1000, as 1000mAh equals 1A) then multiply the amps by the C-rating given on the pack
The Voltage of the pack, which is generally given on the battery itself.
The cell count, usually give as 2S, 3S and so on. This specification tells you that a pack has 2 or more cells wired in series.
Unlike many traditional cells, LiPo batteries have a storage voltage. A new LiPo battery will arrive with a partial charge and needs to be charged to 60-70% of its maximum capacity before being stored away for extended periods of time. Before first use, users should check the voltage on their batteries to ensure that they are within a given cells normal limits. It’s important to use a LiPo compatible charger for LiPos. LiPo batteries require special attention, as they charge using a system called CC/CV charging, which stands for Constant Current / Constant Voltage. Generally LiPo batteries come with a connector called a JST-XH connector on the balance tap. This gives access to all the individual cells contained in a LiPo, which allows for the monitoring and manipulation of each cell individually. The JST-XH balance charging connector is the white connector which plugs into the socket on the DNA200 board to allow the board’s 1A USB charger to safely charge all of the LiPo battery’s cells simultaneously, as well as providing much of the real-time data that powers the DNA200’s sophisticated battery performance and safety monitoring capabilities.
Cell Capacity & Overall Battery Life: mAh vs. Watt-Hours
Another crucial consideration for understanding LiPo batteries and relating them to familiar 18650 setups is understanding how to compare the capacity of the two battery types in their myriad configurations. One of the most common misconceptions I’ve seen cropping up everywhere lately is the claim that a 1000mAh 3S LiPo pack, common in first-generation DNA200 mods, literally provides 3000mAh of power capacity, so it’s OK to advertise them as 3000mAh batteries. as well as other LiPo misconceptions that have arisen around the DNA200 rumors. This issue persists partly due to Evolv’s lack of a coordinated official launch campaign or educational initiative alongside the release of this game-changing chip. They finally posted official DNA200 materials & ordering info on their website at last Monday — while the eScribe simulator is nice, that’s not exactly what I mean. How are you supposed to change the game, if you forget to explain to anyone how or why it needs changing? This problem is part of the reason I’ve been working on this DNA200 feature series for the Knowledge Base.
Watt-hour you saying, mAhte?
The best way to compare traditional 18650 battery configurations to LiPo packs is using watt-hours. With this number, we can accurately compare any Lipo cell configuration’s power-capacity ratings to those of any combination of 18650s, assuming all other factors are equal (which they aren’t, in fact they tend to favor the LiPo). There is a reason that many LiPos come with Watt-hours inscribed on the label.
The conversion from mAh to Watt-hours is even simpler and more straightforward than Ohm’s Law:
milliampere-hours of cell × volts / 1000 = watt-hours
Unlike mAh ratings, this equation is agnostic to whether or not the batteries are configured in series or parallel, as either configuration gives the same resulting watt-hours. In order to demonstrate the flexibility and usefulness of Watt-hours over our current mAh ratings, let’s compare the battery life outcomes for the Whiteout DNA in both its standard LiPo configuration as well as with the optional dual-18650 sled build kit:
Whiteout DNA w/ 3S LiPo pack: 1100mAh per cell
Nominal Voltage: 11.1V (three cells in series)
1100mAh / 1000 x 11.1V = 12.2 Watt-hours (Wh)
For comparison purposes, let’s use a typical dual-18650 configuration:
Whiteout DNA+dual-18650 Kit w/ Samsung 25R’s: 2500mAh per cell
Nominal Voltage: 7.4V (two cells in series)
2500mAh / 1000 x 7.4V = 18.5 Watt-hours (Wh)
By comparing the Watt-hour results for the nominal voltage of these two battery configurations, it’s clear that the amount of energy available in the dual-18650 Whiteout configuration (for a DNA200 with the 18650 Build Kit) is higher than the amount of energy available from the standard 1100mAh 3S LiPo, which suggests that all things equal, the 18650s will offer as much as 50% more battery life.
Note: In real life, the LiPo’s higher power efficiency, superior cycling characteristics and charge retention seem to close this gap somewhat. Also, while the Whiteout’s LiPo can be swapped out for external charging, since the DNA200’s microUSB JST-XH balance charger pushes a full 1 amp to three smaller 11000mAh cells, the battery recharges in half the time I’m used to from 18650s. As a result, I can usually keep the device topped off throughout the day without much trouble, whereas I’ve never bothered to do that with passthrough USB-charging 18650 devices because it seemed slow and ineffectual. Also, these LiPo packs can and will be upgraded — for example, just during the process of designing and finalizing our custom LiPo pack for the Whiteout, we were able to squeeze in another 100mAh, bumping it up to 1100mAh instead of 1000mAh. With more LiPo experience in the PV industry, I’m certain we’ll see better, more compact batteries, and given the ingenuity of our community, I expect we’ll see 3rd-party LiPo upgrade kits coming out very soon too!
How Long Will This Battery Last (For Real)?
There is also another compelling reason to use watt-hours to rate battery capacities, since we discuss the output of our devices in watts too! The watt-hours tell us the amount of energy required for a PV to fire at a given power (wattage setting) for a given amount of time. In other words, if you divide the watt-hours for a given battery configuration by your preferred vaping power setting, you’ll get the amount of hours that power supply will last at your chosen wattage setting, assuming 100% efficiency. Keep in mind that this only accounts for how long the device would run with the button pressed, so you’d need to figure out the average duration of your hits to figure out how many pulls you could get out of that much vapetime, but it’s a great starting point for actually comparing this stuff for once!
Just to demonstrate, using the two devices & the numbers from the previous example:
You could vape continuously at 100W with an 1100mAh 3S LiPo for:
12.2 Wh / 100 W x 60 min/h = 7.32 min
whereas, if you get the dual-18650 sled build kit for the Whiteout DNA, in comparison:
You could vape continuously at 100W with dual-18650s (Samsung 25R) for:
18.5 Wh / 100 W x 60 min/h = 11.1 min
I’m not claiming these figures or calculations are 100% accurate, as the real world version of this ‘puff timer’ math is obviously affected by many variables not factored into these equations — coil heat flux, PCB efficiency percentage (average is 93-96%, DNA200 is 97%), power profiles (temp control, pre-heat, firing modes), and much more. However, regardless of these variables, which were disregarded as minor effects for our purpose, I think it’s quite apparent how much more useful rating battery capacity for PVs in terms of Watt-hours is, especially with built-in multi-cell LiPo packs on the rise.
It is worth noting that you can cheat too, just like Hana & other DNA200 device-makers did with their mAh numbers, if you just want to do a quick-and-dirty comparison. You can roughly compare two different battery packs by just summing the mAh of all the cells involved in each, regardless of configuration: For example, the standard CMT 3S LiPo is 1100mAh x 3 cells (in series) = 3300 ‘nah’ (short for ‘not-actual-mAh’). Comparing to 5000 ‘nah’ for 2X Samsung 25R, you can see that this 3S setup has about 2/3 the approximate capacity of the 18650 configuration. If you check that ratio against the one determined by the watt-hours calculations above, you can confirm it’s accurate, but it’s easy to make mistakes taking such shortcuts like that, plus you can’t employ the other advantages of using watt-hours. So, while those kinds of half-assed calculations are improper from a technical perspective, they do appear to work in certain circumstances..
As you likely noticed in the previous calculations, it appears that using the best-quality 18650’s available, you can get superior watt-hour numbers over the stock Whiteout DNA LiPo, by close to 50% in some cases. However, it’s important to remember that the removable standard LiPo that comes installed in the Whiteout DNA is not an absolute top-of-the-line battery like a 25R or VTC5. Of course, it exceeds Evolv’s recommended 23 amp continuous amperage output spec, but I’m certain you could do better with a top-shelf pack unencumbered by our packaging, production, and pricing restrictions. There’s always an upgrade out there if you’re willing to look for it, and you don’t even necessarily need to look far or go custom: for example, this 3S LiPo pack is almost certain to fit in an unmodified Whiteout DNA!
Of course, we do plan to offer a 3S LiPo Upgrade Kit in the future, once we’ve had some time to review initial real-world feedback on the standard pack’s performance — it would be foolish not to learn and adapt quickly when implementing any new tech, after all. If the demand is there, a kit with slightly bulged side panels to cram even more mAh in there could be done as well. It’s also fairly simple for users to upgrade the battery themselves, since it’s swappable and can be externally charged directly via the JST-XH balancing port. This makes the Whiteout DNA unique among current DNA200 devices, as no other unit’s LiPo battery can be swapped, externally charged or upgraded like the Whiteout DNA’s can be!. Furthermore, no other DNA200 devices can exchange their LiPo for dual-18650s in only 5-10 minutes with an inexpensive. plug-and-play build kit.
The basic requirements for a LiPo to work the Whiteout DNA are:
It must fit in the battery bay. The largest approximate rectangular pack that could be made to fit is 75mm x 35mm x 19mm.
It must be a 3S (11.1V nominal) pack with a continuous discharge amperage rating of at least 23 amps, so 25C is the lowest C-rating I’d consider using unless the pack’s mAh rating is >1300.
We’ll be offering our own, custom-wrapped Cloudmaker standard LiPo packs for spares/replacements as well, so you needn’t source a LiPo yourself that you may have to modify (unless you really want to, which we always support too =P). Not only will CMT batteries provide excellent performance with plug-and-play reliability and safety, we’ve also ensured that every Whiteout battery configuration looks gorgeous with the optional clear panel thanks to our custom wrap design (images coming soon). Even better, CMT’s LiPo batteries feature a 1-year warranty too, so you can be sure your power supply meets our exacting standard for quality and safety.
That wraps up this portion of “Cloudmaker Scientifically Investigates the DNA200,” or “CSI: DNA Forensics” for short! See you soon for part 2, the full details on this revolutionary chip itself, what it can do, and how it works! Don’t forget to catch us on MakerTalk for the full demonstration of the Whiteout DNA, and chat with us directly at the afterparty Hangout. See you there!
