RE: Connectors and connecting
Hi Jim,
Well I always connect the female sockets to the plus (red) cable and the male plugs to the minus (black) cable on the ESC and vise-versa on the battery (normal practice when running the 4mm gold connectors). That makes sure you will never fry the ESC anyway. You can however still short circuit the battery itself.............
On the TP 5300mAh packs I'm running I have taped the two 5S4P packs together and made the plus cable short on one and the minus cable short on the other. The two short cables will connect to each other and the two full length cables will connect to the ESC.