new wires for the Mamba Max
 

I have had my MM for little over a year now. I feel the wires are limiting the MMs performance. Ive hardwired 2 motors to the esc before, using the same wire for both motors, i thinks its time for fresh wire. after a run, i would feel the temp of the wire & the esc, both getting fairly hot, & i run in temps of 30*C+. I will be using a fan for the esc to help lower temps. but for the wire, Im planning to use the new Silverworm wire from acer racing with lead free solder.

Now, i was looking on the forums & found a few threads regarding soldering wires to the MM PCB. I use an 80W iron & the wires came out of the solder tabs with ease. to fit the 12awg into the solder tabs, i plan to use a reamer to ream the holes out a bit so the 12awg can fit through properly. should i use flux?

Now, is there anything else i should consider besides watching how much heat is applied to the esc's board? of course i know doing this will void my warranty, my warranty had expired at the start of this year. Is there any real advantages of running 12awg wire besides it being thicker & that they can flow more current? My MM is paired with an orion vortex 7.5 (no cogging) & i use 4700 & 4800 2S lipos, its used in an on-road drift chassis so its not powering a heavier offroader...

I added larger wires to one of my MM's. The holes are big enough for 12awg if you clean all the solder out. It does take a good iron, as the board is a good heatsink.

it also voids your warrenty. thats how i screwed mine (it already had issues...) and could have gotten it replaced under warrenty but im an idiot!!

mine was already out of warranty

yeah mine is also out of warranty

Another q. could i ream the holes out to fit CC 5.5mm bullets through the solder tab holes? would the bullets fit next to each other? there's alot of room between each of the motor tabs. i could solder the bullets on top but i would rather solder them through...

Probably not. There's a solder ring around those holes. If you ream it out too far, you will have nothing for the solder to grab onto. You could always try it, but I would not go reaming out the holes at all, other than cleaning off the old solder.

J.

Yeah I killed my MM swapping the wires too. The board i such a good heatsink, to melt the solder on the wires (which was much harder to melt than regular solder I use btw) I managed to heat up the whole esc too hot to touch (even at the heatsink) without realising it till it was too late. Didn't work after that - it was in warranty too. so I had to pay $50 to get the old wires back on it :(

what iron were you using? i removed wires from mine twice with an 80w & had no problems whatsoever, i might give the bullets a miss & just hardwire the motor again. i will also be using lead-free solder & as 83gt said, using a body reamer to ream the old solder out of the holes, instead of desoldering it.

If i did ream the holes to fit the bullets, could i use flux to help the solder adhere to an unsoldered area?

I use a heat controlled soldering station that I've got from Mike to replace the wires of the MM with ease. Make sure that your soldering iron has a chesil tip to transfer the heat to the specific spot in a short time ( avoiding heating up the whole controller).

Yeah I used an 80W... I always thought myself a pretty good solderer too.. maybe I was just unlucky? still, the 14's on my max are holding out alright its only in a crt.5

Why would you ream the solder out? its really not hard to desolder it, I found that the easiest part, once the wires out, stick a solder suck opposite where you holding the iron, and as soon as the solder melts hit the sucker and it leaves it nice and clean.

Second, in my experience flux helps to solder cleanly without oxidation in your welds, it wont help it stick anywhere it wont normally stick.

thanks guys, i thought a solder suck would cost a bit which is why i steered away from it. found a reasonable priced one as well as some lead-free silver solder. Now i have that sorted out, im chasing a fan now. Been looking everywhere for those Sunon 25mm 3.5CFM fans, but most companies that sell them require more than 1 quantity. Is there anywhere i could get just one sunon fan at a good price??

sammus - what solder were you using to swap the wires over before you had to return it to castle? does lead-free solder take longer to melt the 60/40? Both times i hardwired my motor, i used 60/40. Now i seen another thread in regards to soldering the MM, one fella said mixing rosin core & lead-free together can cause a cold joint. I will be removing as much old solder from the board as possible. Do you recommend me using rosin core or lead-free for the new wires?

The first time i took the motor wires off the MM, factory soldered w/lead-free solder, they pretty much came off without any dramas, but after hearing some of your horror 'swapping wires' stories, im now a little worried something might go wrong. If worsts comes to worst, i can always either grab a new MM or send the current one to castle...

Try http://www.megamotorusa.com/

The fans I received were 3.5cfm Sunon and you can buy however many you want. I'll leave it to you to decide if there're reasonable.

Does anyone have any shots of there MM fitted with 12 gauge wire? Did you find fitting the wires into the holes difficult?

When I did mine i just sucked the solder out of the holes on the pcb, and twisted the bare strands tightly and they just fit through. I stripped about 5mm and just tinned it on the other side then filled the area with solder. I couldnt fit them through if I tinned them first.