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The impact and damage from heavyweight battles I'm assuming will also prove a challenge in terms of wiring and holding everything together. I was interested to know what wire you guys would recommend and the type of electronic connectors you prefer? ( I tried to post this in general chat, but i didn't have the option to post)
Depending on your current draw, the standard is the Andersons SB50, or EC5 or EC8's. Silicon wiring is nice to use as its more flexible, but if not anything else works, as long as its big enough.
We don't use Andersons anymore.
Too large and heavy compared to the other options, like EC8, EC5 or XT90 connectors.
Electronics, like valve control wires, we use 1.5mm² wire or AWG16. Connectors, EC2.
Realy fine stuff, we repurpose servoleads or balancing wires.
For main powerleads it's 10mm² or 8AWG.
If we use motors/controllers that go over 250A, we double or even tripple up the wiring.
Hi Guys, thanks for the information. I'm in a situation now where I have the Rage Bridge and motor controllers all working which is great, but the EC5's have been the biggest challenge! How do you get them into the housing, I've only managed it by soldering the cable onto the pins and pulling them into the EC5, but I have read that genuine EC5 are pushed in. So i got a few more questions:
1) Where do i buy genuine EC5's?
2) which are easy to use out of EC8, EC5, Andersons or XT90?
3) What is the standard for ESC, Lipos and Motors in terms of if they are Female or Male, should batteries be Female, should my rage bridge have male for + - and female for motors?
Thanks for your time in advance. :)
I can't answer all your questions, but I can tell you then I'm using EC5s on my feather and so far I have got them all from Hobby King. I too had read about the different way around that supposedly genuine/non-genuine ones go together, but to be honest, they seem a bit of a pain to assembly anyway. The best way I have found to do it is as follows:
1) Slide the housing onto the wire.
2)Solder pin on to end of wire - Make sure all the solder is contained in the cup in the end of the pin. If any runs down the outside of the pin it makes getting it into the housing even trickier.
3)While the connector is still warm/hot I push it most of the way into the housing.
4)I then put a spare pin of the opposite gender on to the pin I soldered, turn the housing upside down and press the pin on to my workbench to push the pin into the housing. If you do it right it engages quite snugly with a 'pop' sound.
5)Remove the spare pin I used to put it in with.
No idea if that is the easiest way or if it is applicable to the EC8s, but its what works for me.
1) Where do i buy genuine EC5's?
The golden question. Generally large retail stores online that stock for the RC helicopter boys have genuine ones. You can find them on ebay but you need to know what to look for as there are a lot of copies. The main difference being the tolerances involved. Non genuine ones don't stick together as well. Genuine ones go in the back of the plug. Genuine EC8s go in the front though (no idea why but that's the way it is).
2) which are easy to use out of EC8, EC5, Andersons or XT90?
Andersons are easy quite simply because they are so large and don't have tight tolerances on much. EC8s are obviously bigger than EC5s but they are both the same. Haven't used the XT90s so can't comment.
3) What is the standard for ESC, Lipos and Motors in terms of if they are Female or Male, should batteries be Female, should my rage bridge have male for + - and female for motors?
I like to keep my power source side female and load male much in the same way your wall plugs are. So batteries are female. Battery connection on speedo is male. Motor connection on speedos female, motor wiring male. This way you can't accidentally plug a load onto the motor leads of your speedo.
For our Heavyweight I'm using 2mm copper bus bars, 8AWG on power busses (batteries to link, link to fuse, fuse to ESC and ESC to return) and 10AWG on esc to motor (we use brushless so each wire is seeing ~2/3rds duty of the 160A). I decided to standardise on EC5s for batteries and ESCs, and managed to find trinity EC5s for the ESC/motor connection. I bough these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331267837473 (note: you will need heatshrink for these) and these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/331244976106.
For our link we were going to use an EC8 but found them to be too bulky. The Castle Creations 6.5mm connector is rather pricy but can handle the same current but is smaller. We used an XT30 for the pre-charge link to avoid corroding the CC 6.5mm connector.
Hmm, I'm not sure if that says more about where Hobby King is getting it's EC5's from or my crappy technique for assembling them!Quote:
Originally Posted by typhoon_driver
The "old" EC5's "push ins" were good. The new "pull ins" not so.
Even if they fit snuggly the first time, the construction of the male will lose the spring-tension very fast.
Team RCC will convert to XT90 or custom* links in the future.
*with a 3D printer in the team, that becomes a lot simpler.