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Old 08-15-2018, 07:52 PM
  #56  
RC_BobM
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 551
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Marcocaster -
You will want the biggest gage size wire from the batteries to the buss-bar, main switch, and power into the ESC. The wire for the motors can be smaller. What is the amp rating of your motors? Do they have a part number on them? Did the original/builder have any fuses on motor wires? What size are the fuses? It looks like the main track motors are 24V, but what amperage raring (MAX or Stall)?

I would start with main track motor amps needed and work back from there. Larger wire is better for carrying power - but at some point the huge wire gets unmanageable because of stiffness, size of terminals etc..

It looks like from the images of the original wiring that the main power wires were 12 gage soldered to the Vantec- so you could stick with that size, or go a little bigger (ie 10 AWG). Larger wire will run cooler (not get hot) and be able to supply more amps easily, as long as it fits into the terminals on the Vantec it should be fine. The motor wires do not need to be as heavy gage of wire (14ga) because their current is regulated by the Vantec speed controller.

You can use smaller wire on larger screw type terminals. I always tin the stripped stranded wires together -you can get higher clamping force on them (from screw type terminals) than smushing small stranded bare wires.

I also think the 150A may be too high a rated breaker for this model. That's a lot of amps going into the Speed controller if something goes wrong - you want to protect the electronics, not have high current ruin them potentially. Those are cheap - I wouldn't think you'd need more than 30-50amp version (or possibly less). The Vantec may have a current limiting shut off. I like the position of the main switch breaker - under the hatch for easy access.

All other secondary motors and servos (gun elevation, recoil, smoker fans etc) should draw much fewer amps than the main motors.
Bob

Last edited by RC_BobM; 08-15-2018 at 08:44 PM.