Now that it turns out that TLC has officially phased out the Li-Po battery packs for PF, I’m wondering how we as a community are going to power our PF motors from now on. The ‘easiest’ way would obviously be to switch to PUP (not really, because of the exact same lack of LiPo boxes available), but for people like me, who still have a bunch of M and L motors laying around, this isn’t an option. 

So, what are the options in the mean time? Well, after some discusion over at the EB Train Tech forums, we concluded there are several solutions currently out there:

• Batteryboxes with regular recharchable batteries
  Annoying because you have to dissasemble the whole thing all the time. However, the most sustainable solution since you can keep on changing batteries. Even my old 9V boxes still work perfectly fine, so the same will most probably happen with these.
• Buwizz with build-in remote
  Not the ideal step if you for example want light & sound and thus want to include a PFx Brick, or if you are totally hooked on SBrick or the Lego IR receiver
• Modding your existing PUP, PF or even 9V boxes and installing a LiPo pack in them yourself.
  A solution for the few of us with the proper knowledge of electronics. More difficult than you would think, since you would also need to include protection circuitry to keep the LiPO cells from running down too low and overcharging
• FX Track Sytem
  Only being released in 2020 and a whole different ballpark to begin with.
• Our well known clone friends from China
  The ‘clonebrand that shall not be named’ is currently producing Li-Po battery packs that look almost 1-on-1 like the TLC Li-Po packs. However, officially they should be shutting down after the raid, so is this really sustainable? Also, in a matter of ethics: Are we really willing to sponsor them? (in this case I’d say yes, since TLC decided to ditch the Li-Po PF battery pack, so there’s no alternative anymore)  

So, what are your thoughts? Have we forgotten any that deserve some attention, and what are your experiences with the different solutions that are currently out there?