Psychron

I don't know about you guys, but I'm sick of multiple battery connectors for these damn airplanes. I mean, I get it. It's par for the course but we don't have to be happy with or settle for it.

I personally settled on the XT60 connectors only because that's what FliteTest was offering at the beginning and at first, with the mini's they were using the xt30's but I could only find a multi port balance board for the xt60 so I cut all my xt30 connectors off and resoldered on the xt60's which I've used ever since. If I can get at the connector on the aircraft as well and convert it to XT60 permanently I will, but more often than not I use the Venom Power Uni Plug adapters they're giving away with their XT60 battery packs so I can keep using my personal stash (read 36 batteries) of xt60 configured batteries to fly my stuff.

Typically I only find the EC3 connector or the Deans T type connector on the speed controllers for the E-Flite and whoever made the Tidewater foamies I buy. All the planes I build from scratch use XT60. Anyway, when you buy a BNF or a RTF, it'll come with a battery with the connector to match the speed controller, so with a uni plug I bought from amazon for 2 bucks installed on the speed controller connector and a little soldering know how I typically just replace the end on the battery to make it an XT60

If you're interested in learning about this, here's a youtube video showing how to do it:


Again, if I could get my helping hands into the cockpit of the aircraft (maybe I can, I'll have to look into it.) I'd convert the speed controller permanently.

After that video I bought a weller 51 watt soldering station and "retired" my 30 watt cheapos. It is so much better. I can melt solder at the tip now, which I couldn't do before. And the chisel tip was suggested as well. I'll be putting that on within the next day or so. I might have gotten away with replacing the pointy pencil tip on the 30 watts with a chisel tip. but at this point I think I have the last iron I'll ever need.




It's meant to be humorous, so hope you enjoy the unboxing.

I also solder with it here, and after lots of pressure from a bunch of people I tried to satisfy them with this video, but I must confess I really hate the alligator clip helping hands. I actually tinned the wires, which is hotly debated there. I think all the retired EE's in the world end up there and just ruin things for everyone else. Anyway this one is kind of comical also. I forget the shrink tubing, and struggle to keep the end in the cup. It's almost like a horror movie. But, the iron did it's job perfectly. I just wish I could say the same for me.


Anyway, I think my reason for these videos was to give the uninitiated the confidence to give it a try themselves regardless of their chosen connector and try to get past whatever is holding them up or scaring them away from doing it. Especially if an oaf like me can pull it off.

RustyUs

First off, I'm glad to see tinning was added to your soldering rituals . I let it at that, as you took on a lot in the other forum .

Second, I am also a XT60 user now. I used pretty much every medium amperage connector out there. I kinda stumbled upon the XT60 connector as I recently was converting a server power supply for charging needs. My chargers had XT60 connectors built into them for DC input. Making the leads from power supply to my chargers was a complete joy while soldering up the XT60s. The perfect connector for my fingers and so easy to reuse. I wish I stumbled upon them years ago.

Psychron

Hey Rusty,

Yeah it was rough over there, and I have to admit, while I still don't necessarily think every single soldering case calls for tinning, I do see the value and benefit to it now. It only takes a couple seconds, so there's really no harm in doing it every time.

Coming from one of the helpful individuals "over there", one case to skip tinning might be if you had a really thick wire coming from a battery that will fit in the cup before, but not after tinning. In that case I can see tinning the cup a bit so the bottom gets purchase while you pour hot rosin core all over the top and let it flow how it will, in which case a little acid free flux would probably help make that the best possible joint. (my assumption). He posted a video using a Weller 100 with his wood block and clothespin "hands" that I plan on building myself very soon, or zip tie my hands to a 10 lb barbell plate, and his wires were real thick and with no tinning of anything he managed to show just the soldering part which took about 15 seconds and his joint looked perfect.

And yeah I think my Venom 4x100 tower chargers have xt60's for dc input as well. I'm glad you like those connectors. I really am in love myself, and for the same reasons. It really seems to fit most situations very well unless you're going to be drawing more than 60 amps through them. That's a lot of power and most foamies I fly don't need more than a 3s and aren't running larger than a 40 amp ESC. Flitetest's largest motor draws 29 amps and provides 1200+ grams of thrust with a 10" slow fly. if 2.75 lbs isn't enough I'm not sure what is lol.

Anyway, to your desire to have found them years ago, I'm not sure how long they've been around. I discovered them via the flitetest guys and at that point they said they were new connectors becoming the new standard for everything. I'd never heard of them before that either.

So I'm in IT. I'm guessing you used the 4 wire peripheral cables to solder the connectors to, I know the yellow wire on the power supply is 5v, the black wire is Ground, and there's a red wire too.. that's 12 volts I think. I'm sure you have a good reason for it, but what's the purpose of using a power supply like that if the chargers (making an assumption) have AC inputs as well? Or were they DC only? Secret project!? I have a couple spare ATX supplies laying around doing nothing as I am a terrible packrat, and I'd love to have a use for one of them that doesn't involve building another PC.

RustyUs

My purchase of a power supply, to convert to RC charging use, was just a small project to see what a $16 750w 62.5A unit could do. I have an itch to get back into racing off-road RCs again, and spec class is all about getting every little once of performance out of your gear. Charging LiPo packs at very high rates was the number one reason for PS. The power supply is a HP DPS-750RB. I had to be sure project worked before I invest in a 20~30 amp charger.

Psychron

To the theme of top gun, "Gonna charge it riiiiiight iiiiintooooo the danger zooone!"

That sounds like a trip. Somthing a bit outside my experience level. I know how to make them work in a pc, but really don't understand why using a power supply like that makes the charger run any harder.

Then again, maybe I have the wrong charger.

ChopDrifter

nice

RustyUs

Having the ability to put gobs of energy into a battery fast, in hopes to lower internal resistance, is pretty commonplace in RC stock/spec class racing. It always has been, and always will be... pushing limits to have an edge in competition. It's good in a way, but also gets outta control at times. Some tracks have rules in place to prevent dangerous charging practices.

Back on track with thread...

Pre-tinning 38+ connectors made connections quicker for me during my day and a half connector swap earlier this month.

Psychron

Oh, I can imagine it did. Sometimes you just have to, and like I showed in the video, it doesn't take more than a few seconds to do each lead, plus makes that final connection that much easier and quicker.

Psychron

Here's the latest soldering video. This one is about how to solder bullet connectors.