I picked up on it awhile ago, when I was on the TRX forums (When I first started RC), they don't bend, they snap, which is why some guys used it, because it would snap instead of bending inside the bulkheads and AArms, and instead of pitchin for a new set of AARms and bulkheads, it'd be easy to remove since it snapped into a couple pieces...
I'll try and see if I can't find a link when I get home.

I received my Polymax 5.5 mm bullet connectors from Hobby City this morning. They are big and nice and without wires on them, you need pliers to pull them apart. I am just wondering about that cut out where you solder the wires. I would have preferred a hole instead of a big cut out like that. To get these connectors undone, it would be necessary to pull on the wires so they have to be soldered correctly with a strong bond. I'm afraid these big cut outs limits the surface area where the wires are soldered onto, making that bond between wire and connector weaker. This is just speculation on my part as I haven't installed them. I looked at all my lipos I just redid with Deans and I don't feel like starting over again :lol:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...connectors.jpg

I was going to pick those 5.5mm as well, let us (Mostly me!:lol:) how they work out, I was going to pick them up and transfer all my bullets from brushed stuff over, and then use them on my harnesses, but I'll need 4mm for my charger and lipos...

Let us know how they work!
And if you recommend them...

Yeah, I don't like the idea of having to pull on the wires either. But really, there seems to be enuff area to solder to, and if you use good solder, even the smallest amount is SUPER strong. Many of the "pro type applications" with solder use very little. Solder isn't a good conductor of current, so less is better. I was told by an electrician that solders on a factory assembly line, that less is more, and it only takes a small amount to get a good strong bond. But then again, the stuff he's soldering isn't designed to be pulled on all the time either. So I don't know.

I'm thinking about getting some of those Hyperion Bullets. They look pretty nice. It seems that every has an opinion about what connectors are the best. I currently have CC 6.5's, and I guess they are fine. I don't like Deans simply because some of the ones I've used, which could have been knockoffs, are TOO tight. I have to pull on the wire to get them apart. A nice tight fit is great, but that's too tight I think. Is that caused by the casing getting too hot and melting a bit? Or is that the nature of "cheap" knock Deans... or the nature of "real" Deans? As I've said before somewhere... I really like the Traxxas connectors and Power Poles/Sermos. But the Sermos can't handle a ton of current. I beleive the Traxxas high current connectors can. I'd be using these on my ERBE too, but I don't know what to get. I need to get some connectors FAST because my ESC is now on it's way to me from Castle! And I need to get ready!

I known what you mean jpop, my knockoffs get real hot as well on my BRUSHED KD970s, and that is pulling quite a bit of amps though...

I got me some PowerPoles, just waiting for them to arrive, I've been saying that for a good month or so :lol:, but they're coming!

So looking at those Polymax bullets, I was thinking of putting the females on the batteries and males for the ESC and parallel harness. I put some heavy duty heat shrink that is 1 mm thick and has hot glue in it. I shrinked a female and male connector and I think it looks good. The heat shrink also comes in red so the connectors would color coded. The beauty of this heat shrink is that it has a high grip rubber feel to it so I can disconnect the bullets with my fingers even without wires on it which solves the problem of disconnecting by yanking on the wires. I'm just tinkering with them because I still don't feel like redoing all my connections :mdr:

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...onnectors2.jpg http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...onnectors1.jpg

I'm guessing the heatshrink you have isn't included? Is it from HobbyCity?

Get to soldering already! :D

The heat shrink didn't come from HC, I always get it from that little electronics supply store near my home. I will get a company name and SKU number and try to find other distributors. Maybe HC has shrink similar to this. I am also thinking about something to keep the two battery wires separate. I gotta go to work, tomorrow is the big preparation for next week since we're off to an Hawaiian cruise. Be back on the 10th of August and will probably get to work on these.

Aloha! :yipi:

:no:

How dare you go to Hawaii without giving us a hour written review! :rofl:

Have fun man over there in Hawaii.... I heard the weinerdog advertising car is banned from there :rofl::rofl:

Pretty funny, let us know about those 5.5mm bullets, I could use some!

And no worries about the heat shrink, I've got some, was just a bit interested since you said that had a rubbery grip, but, I could just double shrink mine, and then put electrical tape, which mine is a bit grippy.... :neutral:

Canadian Tire has heat shrink with adhesive in it, but I don't know if the wall is as thick as whay Mistercrash described.

When it comes to making any solder connection, the proper method is to ensure a reliable physical connection, then solder the connection to seal it against corrosion, etc. Solder is VERY soft.. it used to be 63% lead and 37% tin - both soft metals.

rawfuls - one of the reasons the heatshrink he is using works so well is because of the adhesive - it is likely sticking to the metal suface. Regular heat shrink will likely slip if indeed these suckers hold as toghtly as they can.

With respect to the connectors that are heating up - that's a HUGE sign of a poor connection.. I am working on a spreadsheet right now that will convert between Watts and temperature.. Anyways, if they are hot, it's bad...

So should we hotglue the heatshrink to the connection? Isn't hotglue a very bad conductor, if it even is 1% of a conductor?

Good quality hot glue would work great. Give the connectors a light scuff with 320 grit before you assemble, just so the glue has something to stick to. Make sure the connectors are free of grease and dirt.. Maybe a wipe with alcohol or similar residue free product.

I stress our a lot about high-current electrical connections... ;-)

Figured so.......

But, HotGlue would end up being too hot for the heatshrink, wouldn't it?

So here's one way of making some sort of connector for the battery with the two poles separated. A piece of a larger heat shrink with glue inside that I pinched in the middle before I heated it with the heat gun. Once it cooled down, the middle is glued together and keeps the two sides separated. To answer how well this heat shrink with glue in it sticks to stuff, well it sticks really well. It is very hard to take off and you actually have to rip it off bit by bit by completely destroying it.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w...onnectors3.jpg

I've always thought about that as well, but making it male then female next to each other would be better wouldn't it?

I wouldn't worry about the hot glue damaging the heat shrink, it can take some serious heat... Provided it's of reasonable quality.

The idea of the battery connector having both female sockets is to help reduce the chance of the terminals ever shorting out. I would do it the same way.. But, your logic about using the pins in alternating gender does ensure you would never connect them
backwards...

And have a nice flaming ball in your hand, that's always neat..

Yeah.. given the current capabilities of most Lipo's... that would be neat to see!

Did I mention I have 'issues' as well as obsessions?

So, the bottom line for me is... I need some connectors. I had CC 6.5 Bullets that were fine. But I need to choose a "standard" for myself, and go with it. Since my last MMM caught fire, they are sending me a new one, which should arrive any day now. I need to make up some new leads, etc... and need to decide on a connector. Deans will work I gather. I'm running 6s, so it's high current. I also gather that Traxxas High Current connectors will work too, which I like. Castle bullets are fine, as well as the EC3, or is it EC5? I saw at aMainHobbies, that ProTek makes Traxxas and Deans knock off's, but can they handle that kind of current? I run only Lipo and Brushless. I just can't decide! And I don't want to spend hours hotgluing, etc making up good connectors.

On my ERBE, the male and female are reversed, so there is never a question of hooking them up wrong. But occasionally after big jump, the wire will yank itself from the other, coming unhooked. So... what to do? I need to decide FAST.

j

I wish you had a couple months to wait so I could do an actual connector comparison.. I have a good feeling about the big bullets that mistercrash chose. O think my second choice (purely based on surface area) would be the EC5 - which are basically the same ( I think?).

Things to consider when choosing any electrical connector... Contact surface area, connection pressure and safety (reverse polarity protection).

I'd go with PowerPoles, Linc loves em, Brian (Kulang) loves them, and me, I tried em out with a couple plastics themselves, without any wires connected, and I love them.

If you're worried about them coming apart, you can pick a couple powerpole retainers, which will keep them from parting.

PowerPoles 45A are possibly the ones you want, if you're worried about the amperage, Kulang uses em on his high amp stuff, as well as Linc, and they both say that they never get above ambient temp.

You don't spend hours if you have heat shrink that has the glue already inside it, when you shrink it, the glue melts.

well after yesterday's race meet...
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22646
yeah well...
after that my mate raced that summit and looking at my shagged buggy...it really puts my revo suspension to shame, it was so bindy.
so i overhauled the entire rear end and put some softer springs on so it isnt so bouncy.
it has trx sway bars on the rear and i think they are the main cause of the binding. even though they make no contact with anything that they shouldent touch.
any tips of making my suspension silky smooth like a brand new revo? (apart from obvious methods like shock rebuilds and hinge pin polish)
shaun

Shaun.. it may sound stupid, but I would simply dissect the suspension piece by piece and see where the hang-ups are.. Start with the shocks.. remove them and move them through their range of motion.. make sure they are smooth and linear. Then move to the rocker arms. remove the suspension push rod and move the rockers through their range of motion.. Aagin, feel for anything binding or hanging up and address. Next, move each wheel through it's range of motion.. You are now only really looking for a bent pin or something similar.. Again, address as required... Finally, turn the front steering knuckles, and check as well.

If it were mine, I'd strip it naked and clean the daylights out of everything.. never hurts as good maintenance...

If it's binding, then 'something' isn't working right.. could be almost anything...

There was an interesting story in one of the RC car mags this month.. it had to do with ensuring full range of steering and lack of binding through the entire range of motion of the suspension, not just ride height.. So turn everything your can at all the extreme's of suspension travel...

no it's not stupid :wink:
but i did all that...it just dosent seem to be as smooth as a brand new one...
although it is a ton better now that ive done all of that...i put 80wt in the rear shocks and put in some softer springs (did have some pretty heavy ones in there, now have grey band)

also serviced the wheel BB's cause they were full of crap:lol:

So... do we know yet what LENGTH the rod needs to be in order to fit from the shock mount to the wing? I have a ton of these, and they are either too long or too short. A proper measurement would help, cuz I would like to get some to try!

However, if you do take a hard landing on the wing, doesn't that then just cause more stress and pressure on the shock mount, possibly causing it to rip itself from the chassis? Or bust a bulkhead?? I'd rather lose a wingmount then to destroy either of those!

look at the revo design....you are not going to rip out the shock mount!!
even with that brace in place the weak link might still be the brace or the wing mount but i highly doubt it's gonna take out the shock mount.
he said it's a P2 rocker pushrod if that's any help.

shaun

You sound mad for some reason. :oh: The LENGTH of the rod will change depending on how you fabricate the part that goes on top of the shock tower to secure the rod to. I didn't measure anything when I made this thing. I made the CF part that goes on the shock tower and used that same shock tower as a template to make the holes. Once it was installed, it was just a matter of filling the gap between that part I made and the body mount. I used an old style P2 pushrod that was all aluminum and put a few more threads at each end and cut the excess to make it fit.


The rod ads strength and rigidity to the body mount but the rod is still the weak point. Either the rod will bend (or crack in the case of the CF one) or the ball ends will be pulled out. I have seen aluminum chassis' that were bent upwards and those bulkheads ruined because the M4 screws were pulled out of them when the chassis bent. That rod is a mod that was brought to fix that problem, it has proven to work very well ever since rear wings were introduced to the Revo.

:lol: been there done that, did your threaded insert mod and i'll never go back:yipi:
one of the best mods for revo ever those threaded inserts!!

I sounded mad? :surprised: Sorry about that! I wasn't mad at all. Just goes to show how sometimes text can be totally misinterpreted! I'm never "mad" really!

No, I had remembered once when removing my shocks from my ERBE, that one of the long screws that screw down thru the top of the mount, never seemed to "bite" and come to a noticable stop. I had forgotten that I simply changed to a longer screw! So, when I posted that, I had forgotten that I did that, wondered if the pivot of a rear end lid slap might pull the mount from the chassis, but yer right, that's not going to happen.

Good call on the pivot ball popping out or the shaft snapping.

My frustration in finding the right length shaft was true though. I could have swore that i had some P2 Pushrods, but these aren't I guess. I thought I had them with me today, but they must be at home or else I'd look to see what mm is printed on them. That's why I was asking for the length, so I didn't have to go to Traxxas to look up what length the P2 rods are. But I will do that, so no need to worry about it.

Thanks!

I dabbled in bracing and haven't broken a rear upper assembly since, but did learn how to drive more gooder, and this is what I was doin':

http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/p...icky/014-1.jpg

I did have quite a few crashes with this setup, and the worst thing that happend was it popped out of the hole I drilled in the vent, and have had to drill another hole and lost a few screws, but better than replacing the whole mount!!! I used the stock push rods...


.......I love your build threads mistercrash....my revo wouldn't be what it is without your insight!

Here is another brace idea I ran across. I may try this way on mine. This with the combination of the single brace on the front side I believe would be indestructible. Maybe even a little overkill. lol

http://www.neweramodels.com/item.cgi...&part_id=10137

Not entirely sure how or where it fits though, but it looks nice :neutral:

It looks really nice but like you said, where does it go? It looks really super duper uber heavy duty.

Remember what I did to my Racers Edge servo horn in post #20, well my ACE 1015 servo couldn't take it for very long. The Racers Edge horn is 3/4'' long and the mod I did made it 1'' long. The extra throw was nice and made the steering very fast as the servo didn't have to move as much to lock the wheels left to right but the extra leverage this long horn put on the gears was too much for my ACE. The same thing happened on my nitro Revo that had the same set up. So after replacing the gears in both servos, I went back to the stock length of 3/4'' that the Racers Edge horns had originally and this should fix the problem. The steering is a little slower but fast enough to satisfy me. More high end servos may have stronger gears that can withstand the extra leverage that a 1'' horn puts on the gears so I think it is still a good mod but you gotta have the servo to go with it.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

HAHAHAAHAHAH

You would do that! :lol:

I received the rest of my 5.5 bullets today. I should find the courage to start soldering very soon. :mdr: I put an OFNA rear wing on the ERBE because the Traxxas wing on my nitro Revo was broken so I needed another wing. The LHS had both the OFNA and TRAXXAS wings in stock so I went with the OFNA one because it just seems stronger. I put it on the ERBE and put the ERBE's TRAXXAS wing on the nitro Revo. I had a puffed Zippy in my battery box, it just puffed sitting there with the other lipos. I don't know what happened to it but both cells were badly puffed. So I unsoldered the connectors which I will keep and put the cells in the middle of the driveway and punctured both of them very hard with the tip of a long crowbar :lol:
There was some fizz with tiny sparks in the hole and a little smoke for 1 minute or two, then came the big puff of smoke, and I mean a lot of smoke and a lot of fizzing for about 20 seconds. But no flames at all. Then down to a little smoke and soft fizzing for 5 minutes and then nothing. I let it sit there for another hour to cool down and tossed the cells in the trash once I inspected the cells to make sure that they were all consumed. I should've made a vid. It was a cool experiment.

Yep... Lipo pops always make for good video.. shoulda hollered!

i cant make lipo's go bang!!! :neutral:
lets see....never had a genuine failure yet, both failures caused my ME and the rest were on purpose.
the maxamps cell i tryed to blow up...well....
dead short.....nothing
gave a single cell 12V and pumped it with 100 amps from a car batt...nothing
nailed it...nothing
hosed it..nothing
douced in some nitro and set it on fire....nothing!!!!:neutral:

the ones that did fail were caused by gravel rash under heavy load, that one caught fire so i ripped off the top cell (while on fire) and tossed it away, saved the pack and now it's a 4s.

the other one was left plugged into the MMM so when the MMM died it took out the lipo too....no fire luckily cause it was in my car:gasp:

Shaun.. You can't force current from a car battery.. It's a constant voltage source..

If you want to 'help' a LiPo pop, find a bug battery charger and set a 10A charge rate and hook that up to the battery... that should be more entertaining.. My guess, without trying, is that it should see 20+ volts...

You could also plug it into the wall...