Ok, so now it's time for me to connect my battery, speed controller, receiver, and motor together. I have a Hacker Brushless A-20-20L motor, Hacker brushless X-20 speed controller, Thunder Power Li-Polymer 1320 mAh 3 cell, and a "Dean's Plug" (ultra plug). The way I see it is, plug the speed controller directly into the motor and into the receiver. Now, the part I don't understand is getting the battery to plug into the receiver. I was told that I needed this plug and to solder the battery to it. However, how do I connect the plug into the receiver? Do I need another cord that goes from this plug to the receiver to solder? And also, I have a friend who is able to take his battery off and recharge it while flying on another battery. How can you do this with everything soldered together? I can't easily get a hold of him right now, so I decided to post my questions on here.

Here's a couple pics.

What you do is this.

The Deans plus is intended to go between the battery and the ESC. The ESC should have something called BEC (Battery Elimination Circuity) which allows your flight battery to power your receiver through the ESC. If it has the BEC, then the ESC connects to the receiver and that is it. If the ESC doesn't have BEC, then you will need a separate receiver pack.

Your main flight battery (In 90% of cases) will not plug straight into your receiver.


When you have the Dean plug soldered to the battery, you can easily swap it out for another battery with a deans plug. Deans plugs are very popular because they can take a lot of current and are designed so you cannot plug the battery in backwards. Just make sure your ESC has the MALE end of a deans connector and your flight batteries have the FEMALE end.

In the end no part of your setup should be directly soldered to another. The motor should plug into the ESC, the ESC should plug into the battery, and the ESC should plug into the receiver. This makes it easy to change out parts if something fails.

If you want some info on proper soldering techniques, check out these links. The second link is a video which is very good.

http://www.protopage.com/aubiesat#Extras/How_to_solder

http://blip.tv/file/126631


good luck. any more questions just ask.

Thank you for the quick reply. I will got on that once I'm done cleaning up my place!

Your very welcome. Any more questions just yell.

Ok, another question. I found that my speed controller does have the red and black wires to connect to the Dean's plug. So, if I understand you correctly... I just plug those in, while with the battery I solder? And where do I plug the ESC into the receiver, channel one or B/CH6?

The 2 or 3 THIN wire comming out of the ESC is for the throttle. It will have a connector on the end of it identical to a servo. If that wire has 3 wires going into the plug/connector, you have a BEC (Battery Elimination Circuit ). If it only has 2 wires going into the connector you do not have a BEC and will need a separate battery for the receiver.

The wire from the ESC gets plugged into the throttle channel on the receiver. For Futaba, HiTec and other negative shift receivers, this is USUALLY #3. If there is any doubt check the manual for your transmitter/receiver.

If your wire has 3 leads to the plug you are all set. If it only has 2 leads you will need to plug your separate receiver battery into an unused slot (or "Y" it if all the slots are filled)

Photo 1) The 3 plugs from the motor plug into the ESC.
Photo 2) The red and black wires from the ESC gets soldered onto the Male Ultra Deans plug.
Photo 3) The Female Ultra Deans plug gets soldered onto the red and black wires of the battery. This in turn plugs into the male plug of the ESC.
Photo 4) The thin single wire of the ESC gets plugged into the receiver.
Photo 5) The whole motor connected.

Thats all there is to it.

well said campy.

Thank you everyone. Those pictures really helped me better understand this whole process! Now, another question.... if I don't want to solder the ESC to the plug so I can easily put another battery on while charging the first... how do I connect it? Do I just... plug it in?

And I decided to post a pic of my ESC... just to get rid of some of my confusion!!

Unfortunately the only Deans plugs I know have to be soldered onto the wire. Which means the only way to charge a battery while using another is to have two separate batteries.

When I showed the pics of how to install it all I was assuming your equipment looks like mine. Is that true?
ESC has three banana jacks on one end to plug the motor plugs into.
ESC has one black and one red bare wire on the opposite end. Same end as bare wires has a thin wire for the receiver.
Battery pack has one black and one red bare wire.

Just as I thought, like mine except mine doesn't have the banana jacks on black wires - they are directly on the ESC.

See attached pic.

Awesome, thank you so much! Seems like I have everything I need.

I am not sure you are aware of this but the battery charger has to be changed to Male ultra plug as well so that it can plug into the female ultra plug of the battery. See pic.

And when you do the solder make sure the red wire (pos.) is soldered to the vertical plug of the Deans and the black wire (neg.) is soldered to the horizontal plug of the Deans.

Then before you solder the wires to the female Deans plug the female into the Deans male so you can match up the wires correctly. Then when you are sure where the wires go pull the two apart before doing the soldering on the female plug.

Ok, charging the battery is going to be difficult to learn.. I can already tell. I have a charger and a balancer. My friend recommended me to get a balancer because when he went through his first battery pretty quickly without one. I took a couple pictures to show everyone what I have. I'm assuming I connect the clips to the wires coming out of the charger and clip those to my car battery. Then I take the alligator clips and connect those to the Output ports. From there, I have no idea. Am I going to need to buy something else to connect to my Plug? And how do I use the balancer?

Edit.. having a hard time with pics right now.. i'll get them on soon.

Here you go...

I believe you will need a set of these Great Planes Charge Lead Banana Plugs http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXNCU4&P=ML
And that they plug into the output ports of your charger while the banana plugs/alligator clips coming out of the charger itself must go to the battery that powers the charger (usually a 12v battery). Then the male deans plug goes into the female deans plug on the battery.

I hate to pull you away from the forum, but do you have Hobby shop near you? If you do, considering going by there and asking for help setting everything up. Usually, they are more then happy to help. This can all be a bit confusing, especially the electrical stuff, and if you accidentally short something (like a lipo) it can lead to a very bad day.


so far it looks like you are on the right track. I am not sure what kind of wires you need for that balancer. Should be a 3-4 wire wire that would run to the battery. I think the side with 2 jacks is to allow you to balance 2 cell or 3 cell packs. The other side might be for connecting to a charger to balance while you charge.

If this your first plane? Or are you just new to electrics?

MadDriver, how experienced are you at soldering?
It is not my specialty so if I can not do it I take it to my Local Hobby Shop and for a few dollars apiece he is always more-than-happy to do it for me. And I know it will work.
If you are in the same boat (so-to-speak) that could be your best choice if you have a Local Shop. They will be very happy to solder the ESC, battery and if necessary the charger. And he can explain exactly how to hook up the charger to the battery.

I will take a guess here but you would be better off going to your local shop.

Those loose alligator clips on the right of your charger, I can see in the pic you posted they have a connection at the ends that insert into the banana plugs coming out of your charger. Plug those together so that you have alligator clips coming out of your charger. I do not know anything about balancers so I can not help you there (don't even know what they are), but you can (as I would do) just get yourself a 12volt battery to place in your fieldbox and connect the alligator clips directly to the battery. Then you will need the Great Planes Charge Lead Banana Plugs mentioned above http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXNCU4&P=ML and insert them into your output ports on the front of your charger and plug the male end into your female end on the battery to charge it.

That is the route I would personally go and omit the balancer as (like I said) I know nothing about them. And I don't see the point in attaching the charger to a car battery when all you need is a 12volt in your box.

If this is all getting too confusing for you it would be worth the few dollars apiece to go to local hobby shop and have them set it all up for you.

And you WILL need a separate battery pack if you wanna fly and charge at same time. Which kinda sucks for me as I have at this moment 3 electric models (electric cub, Gentle Lady glider, and Lanier ST-40 [which that battery pack itself is around $140]).

Keep us posted please.

This is just my first electric. I have PT-40, Cub, Lanier mariner, and a Sig LT-40 that is getting here today that I'm going to build for my father's birthday.

As for the soldering, charging, and the balancer... I'm just going to see if I can get a hold of my friend. It's hard to get talk to him during the weekdays, so maybe tomorrow or Saturday I'll give him a call and maybe meet up with him. I actually went flying him the other weekend and he let me fly his plane around... I liked it a lot and decided to buy my own. I'm almost positive we have the same set up since we bought the exact same kit (same price and everything) and he was able to get his set up and ready to go without buying anything else.

Thanks for all your input!