Soldering on the Mamba Max ESC
 

I have just recieved a Mamba Max ESC and my plan is to desolder the the pos and neg leads that came with the MM and to solder on the power leads that came from the VXL. I was just concerned that I could possibly damage the ESC, I have a 40 watt soldering iron

A good soldering iron is required, I have done it (added larger wires). There is always the chance of damaging something, just don't overheat the circuit board.

Why? Do you want a traxxas plug on the mm?

yes, presently I have a max amps 8000mah 3 cell with the traxxas plug, and I actually like them better than the Deans ultra

Why not buy a traxxas male plug and solder it on the mm leads?

I aready have the lead connected to the male traxxas it would faster to just solder on the power leads to the MM ESC, but if I would fry the ESC while soldering that would be a pricey lesson

Soldering on the circuit board is a bit trickier than soldering on a plug. If you have no soldering skills, you may want to go another route.

i would take the male connector off the traxxas wires and resolder on the mm wires,the other way is to chancey,good luck

Yeah, just change the plug; I tried to desolder the the batt wires from the MM to change them once, and it was a nightmare. I think Castle use some kind of special solder, as it just refused to melt...it kind of "caked" up. I also nearly wrecked the PCB because of this, so unless you have a very good iron, try to avoid touching the PCB.

The mamba's thick pcb soaks up a lot of heat, making it diff to solder. You would be way better off changing the plug, 40watt won't be enough.

I had to change all my motor leads - I'm getting better at soldering but it was a real pain. To change a plug i wouldn't take this approach...

Don't solder on the circuit board
 

Please do not solder on the circuit board as it voids the warranty. Before you all post things like "I am a pro solderer" and "I have soldered on circuit boards all my life and really, really, really know what I am doing" consider this. We use high temperature, lead free solder with special flux to enable us to sell our products into the European Union. This solder and flux is not readily available. The circuit boards are heavy copper and conduct heat very well. The problems these create are that standard lead based solder does not mix well with our solder and will create a cold joint. The amount of heat it takes to flow our solder is conducted though the circuit board to the point where parts will loosen or fall off the other side. It takes special training and equipment to reliable solder onto a Castle Creations circuit board without creating problems. Because of these issues, we do not make exceptions to the rule that if you solder on the circuit board the warranty is void.

If you really feel you need to solder directly onto a Castle Creations circuit board and later have problems the saving grace is it only costs about one third to one half the cost of a new ESC to have it replaced. Check the out of warranty replacement costs on the ‘Support’ tab on our website, www.castlecreations.com.

Bernie

welcome to the wonderful world of ROHS..

thanx for the feed back, I havnt done this yet, I tried removing the Traxxas male conector from the stock wires and I wasnt able to salvage them, I have 2 sets on order they were $2 each .....a lot cheaper than a new ESC..it will just take longer to get back on the road

@ Bernie i must say that you should include this warning in the documentation as most people will assume the reason you have solder tabs is so that they can replace wires etc.

I soldered some new 12awg wires to one of my mamba max's before i found out that it would invalitdate the warranty.

i must admit it was a mission to solder even with my crazy 100w iron that seems to have no temperature control as if i leave it the iron tip glows red.