zephyrplanes

I noticed while watching a few videos on youtube that when guys running over 3s lipos with high mah capacity, They are getting a loud arc when connectingthe battery to the esc. Thisis caused by the inrush current charging up the capacitor. I was wondering if you guys using high cell count packs are having problems with thearcing causing pitting onthe contacts in your connectors? An old trick frommocking upand working onhvdc circuits is to precharge the cap. I would say use a 2s or 3s pack to precharge the esc and then disconnect it and connect your big pack. Should cut down on pitting and the resulting high and low spots on the contact that can reduce the amp rating of the connector! I am still new to electric flight and have yet to graduate to anything over 3s and 20c. So don't know if it is a common thing you guys are dealing with, just thought Iwould throw it out there.

whitecrest

Yes, this has been an issue. I believe one remedy has been to fashion the power connector so that initial contact is first made through a low-value resistor that allows the filter capacitor to charge up before making the final connection with the high-current contacts.

While this will very often solve the problem, it will apparently upset some ESCs which must see the full battery voltage immediately in order to function properly. As you have seen in the videos, lots of fliers don't worry about the arcing. Evidently, the pitting is confined to the tip of the contact leaving the rest of the contact area unaffected.

I don't run very high voltage either, so it's never been an issue for me.