First Time Soldering Motor and Battery Connectors

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Hey guys, I thought I'd share my first time soldering motor and battery connectors... So you can have a laugh :)
Not my first solder job, but never before used connectors.

First with the 3.5 bullets, The two first tries I got solder on the outside of the connector so it would not have fit into the case... Third try went better.

IMG_1294.jpg


Then with the XT-60. First try - FAIL:

IMG_1293.jpg


Second try, better:

IMG_1295.jpg


No, I don't have heatshrink, so I'll cover the bare joints with hotglue or silicon...

I'll do it better next time :)
 

ananas1301

Crazy flyer/crasher :D
In your place I would try to use a little more solder (that iron you melt on; not sure if that is correct english :D )

Because you´ll have vibrations in flight and you don´t want this to get loose I always cover the joints with a little more solder and the put the heat shring around then.

Have you got any heatshrink?

If yes... I bet you forgot to put it on :D:D Happens to me ever so often.
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Have you got any heatshrink?

If yes... I bet you forgot to put it on :D:D Happens to me ever so often.

You missed this:
No, I don't have heatshrink, so I'll cover the bare joints with hotglue or silicon...

In your place I would try to use a little more solder (that iron you melt on; not sure if that is correct english :D )

Because you´ll have vibrations in flight and you don´t want this to get loose I always cover the joints with a little more solder and the put the heat shring around then.

I have solder all the way to the bottom of the connector, I even spilled solder on the first two 3.5mm's because of putting too much... But I think it will be OK.
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
If you can take the metal connecter things out (which you easily can with EC3 connectors (which I use and love, they are the ones that horizon hobby uses, but hobbyking does sell them) and 3.5mm bullet connectors(with some exceptions)....), and have a gas (natural gas/propane) cooking stove (well, if you don't have one, you can just sneak into your neighbor's house and use theirs lol JK) then this way is a lot better, quicker, and easier....I do it all the time--I learned it from rctestflight. First, secure it with a small vise grip or something, then light the fire of the stove and put it right in the flame, then stick the solder in....and when it's filled up about to the top, put your wire in (of course, take it from the fire....but don't hesitate for more than a couple seconds), and wait for it to cool off enough to become solid. then, cool it off and put it back, and hot glue it in or something....since I've started using that technique, I haven't had a soldered connection come loose.
 
Last edited:

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
If you can take the metal connecter things out (which you easily can with EC3 connectors which I use and love, they are the ones that horizon hobby uses, but hobbyking does sell them), and have a gas (natural gas/propane) cooking stove (well, if you don't have one, you can just sneak into your neighbor's house and use theirs lol JK) then this way is a lot better, quicker, and easier....I do it all the time--I learned it from rctestflight. First, secure it with a small vise grip or something, then light the fire of the stove and put it right in the flame, then stick the solder in....and when it's filled up about to the top, put your wire in (of course, take it from the fire....but don't hesitate for more than a couple seconds), and wait for it to cool off enough to become solid. then, cool it off and put it back, and hot glue it in or something....since I've started using that technique, I haven't had a soldered connection come loose.

Good idea, I'll use that for future 3.5 mm soldering.
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
BTW, can the metal connecter things (idk/I forgot what they're called) on the XT60s come out? If not, I recommend switching to EC3 connectors
EDIT: I found the video that I learned that technique from....it's from about 9:52
 
Last edited:

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
BTW, can the metal connecter things (idk/I forgot what they're called) on the XT60s come out?

If you overheat them they will come out. LOL Ask me how I know.

In the picture, the connector to the right has melted out of it's position. Unusable connector :(

IMG_1293.jpg
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
LOL I don't need to ask....You need to switch to EC3...or at least something that you can remove the metal connectors from.
 

Klonas

Senior Member
I really like putting the heatshrink on because it gives more strenght to the joint.

Also
I bet you forgot to put it on Happens to me ever so often.
That always happens to me :eek:
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Colerex-
I can't see your pictures but to avoid problems with soldering the XT-60 plugs ALWAYS connect the male and female plug together before and while soldering.
When I solder the male plug to an ESC I plug into an old female plug that has been cut off of an old battery and still has the wire leads on. The female side has a lot more material in the plug and the wire still attached kind of works like a heat sink. Even if the male plug softens because of the heat of soldering it will keep the bullet in the right place and all will be well when it cools.
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Colerex-
I can't see your pictures but to avoid problems with soldering the XT-60 plugs ALWAYS connect the male and female plug together before and while soldering.
When I solder the male plug to an ESC I plug into an old female plug that has been cut off of an old battery and still has the wire leads on. The female side has a lot more material in the plug and the wire still attached kind of works like a heat sink. Even if the male plug softens because of the heat of soldering it will keep the bullet in the right place and all will be well when it cools.

I would have done that if I had an extra female connector. I could have used my battery, but it may be too risky, easy to short the battery pack with the tip of the soldering gun...
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Jeffrey- On the XT-60 the bullet and barrel connectors are permanently molded into the plastic.
They are not designed to come out. Too much heat (especially with the male connector) and they will move around, more heat and they can melt right out of the plastic.


BTW, can the metal connecter things (idk/I forgot what they're called) on the XT60s come out? If not, I recommend switching to EC3 connectors
EDIT: I found the video that I learned that technique from....it's from about 9:52
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
...easy to short the battery pack with the tip of the soldering gun...
Haha, I've shorted out 3 batteries--first was a Sky Lipo 3S 1300mAh, I was dumb enough to try to cut both wires at the same time with a razor blade--result was an explosion of sparks and two holes about 5mm cut in the blade! And, when I was soldering the connectors on it, it happened again. And--IT SURVIVED! I used it all the time until a crash made it puff up--and I still used it after that--no problems! Second was a Grayson Hobby 1600mAh 2S....which did not survive(BTW I'm not putting Grayson down--It was probably a good battery). The third was a 160mAh 1S that had a connector connected to it and I was holding it and the wires accidentally met....I got minorly burned.
Sorry for writing such a long, and almost off topic post....




Jeffrey- On the XT-60 the bullet and barrel connectors are permanently molded into the plastic.
They are not designed to come out. Too much heat (especially with the male connector) and they will move around, more heat and they can melt right out of the plastic.
Yeah--maybe you should have read the next two posts :D
 
Last edited:

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Correct! Don't plug it into a live battery :)
Next Hobbyking order just order a pack of male an female connectors.
Once you start retiring batteries you'll have some on hand :)
It can be done w/o plugging into a female connector but as you have already found out, the male connector is much more sensitive to excess heat. Care has to be taken to make sure the connector doesn't move around while the plastic is still hot.

I would have done that if I had an extra female connector. I could have used my battery, but it may be too risky, easy to short the battery pack with the tip of the soldering gun...
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Sure- It can be done without it. Just takes more care.
But, if you plan on building more planes and standardizing on XT-60 do yourself a favor and spend an extra $3.19 on your next order to have a few of the female connectors around to save trouble in the future.

BTW if you decide to switch to Deans connector the same tip holds true, you want to plug the connectors together when you solder them :)
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Sure- It can be done without it. Just takes more care.
But, if you plan on building more planes and standardizing on XT-60 do yourself a favor and spend an extra $3.19 on your next order to have a few of the female connectors around to save trouble in the future.

Later :)
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Hey guys, I just noticed that the XT-60 seem to be extremely hard to disconnect, I had to use a screwdriver to separate them, is this normal or is something wrong? Do they need to be plugged in all the way?
 

Jeffrey Saelee

Airplane Dope
Idk....but the deans connector that came with my grayson 1600 2S was pretty hard to disconnect too. I've had no problems like that with my EC3s
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Yes, plug 'em in all the way BUT, what I do on a lot of them is squish the bullets a little bit together with a small pair of needle nose. If you get them too loose, just stick something in there to spread them back out again. They vary quite a bit from connector to connector how tight they are. I've probably had to squish about half of mine together to make them easy enough to pull apart. You can kind of "tune" how tight they are using this method. You don't want them to loose, you want to keep a reliable connection not to mention you wouldn't want it to come apart in flight.