Solder and heatshrink or banana plugs ?

[Slayer23]

Interested to see what side of the fence most lie on this subject

I see loads of motors that are advertised for sale have been directly soldered to the esc and yet the esc nearly all come supplied with banana plugs

so solder or plugs ????

[Mark_Felton]

Depends on how I am feeling at the time...do prefer direct soldering, but do see advantage of plugs for quick parts swaps.

[kilby]

I prefer plugs (ooh err missus) but space constraints usually say it';s not going to happen.

Remember if you use connectors to put some heat shrink over them to ensure they don';t come apart at an inappropriate time.

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[guest325]

Plugs are much easier when you';re learning (crashing) it';s so much easier to change broken bits and pieces, also it helps make sods law (the one that says all of your motors will spin the wrong way) more bearable. If you want to solder them I would recommend choc block for connecting the motors to the esc';s until you know the right connections to get them spinning the right way - NOTE DON';T USE MUCH THROTTLE  - Choc block doesn';t take many amps without getting hot!!!

[LuMan]

I would say plugs - either banana or bullet (if there is actually any difference  ).

Darrell';s right about taking the available space into consideration, but I think I';d rather still keep all the bits swappable, as I';m terribly disorganised and will need to move stuff, add stuff, remove stuff, swear, re-solder, lay-de-dah.... 

One of the main drivers for doing the ';New 550s Builds'; thread with apollo7 was to see how different our approaches would be. It';s interesting to see how we all arrive at our finished projects by taking different routes 

[nate80]

Heatshrink tube encased banana plugs.  I';ve never had one come apart on me and they';re easier to change out when necessary.  Only apply the heat gun to the heat shrink once you';ve tested the orientation of the motors though.

[Jazzz]

direct solder every time it';s a pain soldering them plugs
And it costs more

[Cheredanine]

1. Motor direction can be controlled by passthrough from blheli suite if you use blheli_s or blheli, or via kiss FC. Don';t mess around connecting, testing and reconnecting.

2. Bullets allow for easy swap, if you damage something you can sap without soldering

3. Bullets are a point of weakness, in a crash they can disconnect, over time they wear out.

4. Bullets way a couple of grams each, considering you use three per motor, from memory I thing it is close to 30g you are adding to the quad by using bullets


If you want a park flier, or if you are new, use bullets, I have them on a couple of quads largely so I can use different motors with the same quad, but none of my serious racers or acro quads have them

[shawdreamer]

generally I prefer direct soldered joints as it severely limits signal fall out on loose connectors but I use 3mm connectors on my 3d printed Pod Racer design as it makes motor swap out easier.

on the Pod Racer if a motor dies I can just replace the whole self contained arm by just undoing 2 easy access screws, pull out the arm, slot new one in (with the new motor already inplace), with the motor on 3mm plugs its a also a simple job of unplugging one set of leads and plugging in the new set.

[Two-Six]

I would say solder/heatshrink, its miles easier than soldering on 12 of those bullets.  Soldering iron...dink,done..Soldering iron... dink, undone. Simple pimple. 

Don';t heat shrink them up until you are sure the motors go the right way AND KEEP THE BARE WIRES APART, I am not sure if things will melt or go all sparky if they touch but you never know :-)

Another thing, don';t cut your ESC wires too short until you are pretty confidant that you have the placement or the ESC';s pretty much finalised and the routing of the wires sorted out. 

You might have to do this quite a few times to get it all wired up neatly and efficiently.   You really don';t want to cut away too much wire so you have to lengthen it again.

More importantly a good soldered joint is way more durable than bullets with 12 less points of failure and the weight thing is important too.  It all adds up.

[LuMan]

I wonder if Slayer knew the can of worms he was opening when he started this thread!! 

But it is interesting.. 

It seems that the end result plays an important part in what the decision would be. If you';re looking for a small, quick, responsive quad, then you';ll be shedding weight left, right and centre, as well as reducing any chance of disconnection and shorts. Pretty important when your quad is ripping by at over 50mph!!!

However, if you';re building a more sedate, AP platform, then weight may not be too important. Well, not <100g for connectors when your hex/octo will haul nearly 5kg off the deck.

Personally, I haven';t had any connector fail on me through all my years of RC tomfoolery... Except for that ';twist-it'; solution I used on a Wild Willy w-a-y back in the mid-80s.... 

Of course, I have heard of may occasions where connectors have failed..

But, if you do your pre- and post-checks properly, then you have done all you can do to ensure safe flying. Any connection can fail. At any time.

I';ll probably still use bullets (or other connectors) as it means I can re-use some of my kit easier.

[Reman]

A bit of both here.
I build most things with the intention of soldering the motor wires to the ESC';s, But if they';ve both got plugs on them already it';s hard not to go through the "I';ll just connect them up with the plugs for testing and come back to directly solder them once I know it all works" thought process during the build....... Then you don';t want to partially dismantle a working quad "Just to fix something that isn';t really a problem".

I';ve got 5 airworthy (Are they ever truly "Finished? :) ) quads at the minute, And 2 that I really should make time to get to a point where I can fly them. Of the working 5, 3 of them have plugs and the other 2 are directly soldered.

[Slayer23]

Ok solder and heatshrink it is mainly because i cant be bothered to wait for banana plugs to be delivered lol

On the servo wire am i correct that i only need the signal connected ?

I ask as the FC i have been creating a wiring loom for (friends love to keep you occupied dont they ) only has one wire to each motor.

[kilby]

It';s usually better to connect the gnd

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