Hi all,

Recently dusted off an old rc car I found lying around and it seems fine apart from one broken wire. There appears to be a connector missing that should connect wire and ESC (?). Does anyone know what type of connector this is? And if I do manage to get hold of that connector, how should I attach the wires to it? Also mystery: How did the two wires become soldered together?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Not sure which connector you're referring to but the main battery connector to the ESC is a molex (Tamiya) style connector... when I zoom into the pic, I see an exposed solder joint between a red + black wire... does that feed directly into the ESC? If so, then I suspect that may be a hard wired switch that may have been removed and spliced together so that the ESC always turns "ON" immediately when the battery is connected. This is fairly common as a workaround to get a car running as opposed to replacing a broken switch.

Forgot to mention: When you plug in a battery, the servos work (the wheels turn), but the motor is still. Could this be a clue to what's the problem?

Do you have a voltmeter? If so, then take a reading off the wires going to the motor when the throttle is pulled... if no voltage then probably the ESC is gone or poor connection to the motor... if voltage reads then the motor is probably gone.

If no voltmeter then swap out motor with a known good motor to rule out the old motor or ESC.

Looking more closely, the lower black block seems to be the receiver and the upper black block the ESC

Although it could be that some part is broken, I think that's quite unlikely as the car has basically never been driven. I really do suspect it has something to do with that loose wire (the black/red one with the end soldered together) as I don't remember seeing that around. I reckon the connector broke off?

That port is for the battery input on the Rx... normally it's left blank and power comes from the ESC into the Ch2 port via the BEC.

Update: "Fixed it". Turns out there was nothing broken at all........ you just have to wait a few seconds until transmitter binds with receiver...........

Normally it's the ESC that needs to recalibrate every time it's turned on... if you move the throttle too soon (before the ESC is calibrated) then that can make it miss the calibration sequence. Most ESC's will beep the number of cells detected and then you know it's finished being calibrated... if you don't hear any beeps/tones then you want to leave the throttle alone until you hear an indicator. It's also important to make sure that the throttle is centered... if you adjust any trim on the throttle then that can make it fail with calibration too.