melting connectors

[ninjanerek]

hey guys looking for some advice.

i have a aquacraft lucas oil that i have modified. mods are as follows:

spartan motor i think its 1800 kv
swordfish 220a esc
upgraded ose shaft
48mm 1.4 pitch prop.
dual water cooling

i run 4s in this setup. i use all trx connectors (keeps everything simple). prior to this year, i ran this setup on two 4s lipo (parallel)2600mah 35c discharge batteries. i was puffing the lipos a bit but nothing serious. i recently have switched to 2 2s 50c discharge 5200 mah batteries in series. ever since i have switched to the 2s batteries, i have melted the solder on the traxxas series connectors. i have a 16ga connector, and also a 10ga connector. i melted solder on both of those today at the pond. i am guessing too much prop or poor choice of connectors. any ideas?

[tlandauer]

48mm prop on that boat is a bit much, IMO regardless of the condition of your connectors. How is the temp on your ESC and motor? Any handling issue?
Connector is not up to the task, you higher discharge C batteries allows more amp flow and is kicking A** on the TRX plugs. I use bullet connectors on ALL my set ups, not familiar with more current designs on the market, some use those new green colored ones and seem to like them, you have to do a search or they will chime in.
Also, 16ga connector---not clear what you mean by that. Are those the wires from the batteries? 16ga is very thin (small), 12 ga is normal for batteries, and the wires on your ESC should be no less than 10ga. if I am correct.

[ninjanerek]

hey, thanks for the reply. what i meant by 16ga, its the wire between the plugs for the series connectors. the motor temp and esc temp are fine, but the plugs get hot to the touch. boat handles pretty awesome with that prop on it lol. i have a 42mm 1.4 pitch prop i just put on, and will try again with the trx connectors. might have to go for the bullets tho.

[ninjanerek]

also to note, no binding in driveline, i grease the shaft after every outing, and i keep the drive dog usually 3-4 mm out from stinger.

[tlandauer]

hey, thanks for the reply. what i meant by 16ga, its the wire between the plugs for the series connectors. the motor temp and esc temp are fine, but the plugs get hot to the touch. boat handles pretty awesome with that prop on it lol. i have a 42mm 1.4 pitch prop i just put on, and will try again with the trx connectors. might have to go for the bullets tho.

Better stay with the same guage if possible. The "Y" bridge wire adapter for these kinds of set up is an unnecessary* bottle neck, and will make it worse if the gauge is smaller.
You may not have such hot plugs with smaller prop, but it is not uncommon even for bullet connectors to heat up, therefore many people use 6mm plus bullets.
* I mean there is no need for that if one uses bullet connectors.

[kfxguy]

I'm surprised this hasn't caught on fire. Trx connectors are fine in cars but not boats (there's a lot more to it than that, but for arguments sake let's just say they aren't up to the task on THIS boat for sure).

That thin crossover wire...no. All power wires should be kept as sort as possible, no less than 12ga in size.
I like the castle green connectors a lot. They are on every boat I own. They don't get hot.

48mm prop...on a Lucas oil...why? Lol that's too much prop

If you don't get things under control soon, you going to have wires unsolder and touch...if this happens to the lipos, your next thread will be what a good boat to get because you will destroy this one.

To sum up my advice would be:
Prop. X442 or x642, maybe an m445
Wires. 12ga or bigger, shorter is better.
Connectors. I hate the traxxas connectors. They are not up to the task. At all. Get the castle greens or some red ose connectors from the ose store. I think he sells 6mn or 6.5mm. The castles are 6.5mm. If you have puny motor connectors it's time to upgrade those too.

[Doby]

16 gauge wire,,,crappy solder joints on crappy connectors = heat. Switch to 5.5mm bullet connectors.
Prop is not an issue as long as the strut is set at a proper height to let the motor unwind...I run a much more aggressive prop on my Motley Crew with no heat issues using the stock 1800kv motor.

How hot do the ESC and motor get?

[kfxguy]

Prop is not an issue as long as the strut is set at a proper height to let the motor unwind...I run a much more aggressive prop on my Motley Crew with no heat issues using the stock 1800kv motor.

Some people are clueless. I'm trying to give the guy some sound advice and now your going to say the prop he's running is not an issue. Yes it is. It's part of HIS issue. This thread isn't about the fact that you can run a more aggressive prop on YOUR boat. This is about his boat. Evidently he's new to this so he needs to start small. Learn the boat. Learn how to set it up correctly. Then move up. Let's be helpful here and not confuse him. By making the post you did, he's likely going to continue using too big of a prop and still have issues, get discouraged and throw the towel in. Is that what we want? I didn't think so.

[ninjanerek]

I'm surprised this hasn't caught on fire. Trx connectors are fine in cars but not boats (there's a lot more to it than that, but for arguments sake let's just say they aren't up to the task on THIS boat for sure).

That thin crossover wire...no. All power wires should be kept as sort as possible, no less than 12ga in size.
I like the castle green connectors a lot. They are on every boat I own. They don't get hot.

48mm prop...on a Lucas oil...why? Lol that's too much prop

If you don't get things under control soon, you going to have wires unsolder and touch...if this happens to the lipos, your next thread will be what a good boat to get because you will destroy this one.

To sum up my advice would be:
Prop. X442 or x642, maybe an m445
Wires. 12ga or bigger, shorter is better.
Connectors. I hate the traxxas connectors. They are not up to the task. At all. Get the castle greens or some red ose connectors from the ose store. I think he sells 6mn or 6.5mm. The castles are 6.5mm. If you have puny motor connectors it's time to upgrade those too.

thanks for being blunt.

i will have to go with some new connectors. i can run the small gauge series connector in my spartan (go ahead and laugh) and the connection has never un-soldered itself. i run a 180a v2 seaking (soon to be v3, boat went bouy up and fried the old one), 1600 kv leopard, same prop on 6s (2 3s 6400mah 35c). im assuming its because of the higher kv rating/higher discharge.

[oscarel]

Gotta get rid of the 16ga wire. Also, make sure timing is set right for the motor you're running.

[kfxguy]

thanks for being blunt.

i will have to go with some new connectors. i can run the small gauge series connector in my spartan (go ahead and laugh) and the connection has never un-soldered itself. i run a 180a v2 seaking (soon to be v3, boat went bouy up and fried the old one), 1600 kv leopard, same prop on 6s (2 3s 6400mah 35c). im assuming its because of the higher kv rating/higher discharge.

Please don't use small gauge wire. I'm not telling you this just because it's the Internet and I feel like giving you some conjured up solution, I'm speaking from experience. If you listen to the advice given you (except for the 48mm prop being ok) then you will be on the right track. Just because it hasn't u soldered itself doesn't mean that it won't and it's not a bottle neck. Boats pull way more amps than rc cars and airplanes do, 16ga wire has no place in this boat. Trust me.

[tlandauer]

Not to stir any further, but the "Y" bridge as compared to direct series hook up bullet connector is an unnecessary bottle neck, or have I been thinking wrong all these years?

[ninjanerek]

just ordered 10 pair of the 6.0 mm red connectors from ose. that should have all my current(no pun intended) setups covered. man i just ordered an esc 3 days ago from them. they gotta be making a decent living off of me being forgetful just for the shipping and handling haha. ill convert my 10ga trx series connector into a beastly 6.0 mm series connector. bam.

[ninjanerek]

Not to stir any further, but the "Y" bridge as compared to direct series hook up bullet connector is an unnecessary bottle neck, or have I been thinking wrong all these years?

......good call. i always soldered a male connector onto my escs just for convenience(running parallel or series) i should probably solder it series style right off of the esc.

[kevinpratt823]

......good call. i always soldered a male connector onto my escs just for convenience(running parallel or series) i should probably solder it series style right off of the esc.

With bullets on the esc and batts, there is no adapter. You plug a pos on one pack directly into a neg on the other pack, then just plug the other 2 into the esc.