Wiring question - Castle XL2 - EBaja
 

Just finished wiring up my ESC for the E-Baja, after frying a BEC not plugging it in right, I figure best to get you guys to have a quick look before I throw any volts at it.

Have the XL2 with the Castle Cap pack on the battery leads (what a pain to solder up that thing was!), a small wire going from the + side through a 10 W 1 Ohm resistor and 2mm plug as my no spark connector, and 6.5mm bullets on the wires. Motor - ESC is the stock 8mm bullets the 2028 motor has (still got to get some big heatshrink for that) and will zip tie the resistor to the outside of the heatshrinked cap pack to keep it neat.

At present as I am only testing on 6s (2 + Protek 6800mah 50C 11.1V Hard Cased Lipos which came with 12AWG wire and Deans fitted), I have a series lead done up with the 6.5mm bullets out, and the 2mm no spark on the + side. Also have a Jst plug from the + and - (so full 6s) to power my CC Bec Pro should I decide to use it (in which case I have a servo extension for the esc with the red wire removed)

...so, hows it look? I am in two minds as to whether or not to keep the cap pack, it's unsightly and I'm not happy with how it sits, but if it's beneficial, I'll keep it there, or should I just can the cap pack and even can the no spark resistor (and get over the jumping from the esc spark)

It's always a little scary powering up a new circuit after a recent failure.

Your work looks good to me. Even though you offset them I still would of used one male and one female. Looks like the negative sides are double long and the positive sides are short. That would make me want to plug them in wrong in a rush.

I have 3 jst plugs and one servo lead ran off of one of my cap packs. It's a easy place to tap some power.

Now do it all over again with color braiding wrap on the wires.:whip:

Just let them snap, get use to it.

You could use a smaller resistor for anti-spark. Look here at posts 4, 5, 6 and 8: http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31078

DUDE~.. put some shoe goo or something in between the caps and the two solder joints. A little bit of rubbing and wear through the caps will have a nice short circuit. It's happened to me before...

+1
I use a female bullet on my battery positive, and male bullet on battery negative. I make the positive battery lead an inch or two longer than the negative lead so there's almost no chance of the two connectors shorting out (unless you bent the positive lead 180 degrees). I can then attach batteries in series without a harness.

Ok well the castle esc has 880uf on the cap pack and 2 * 680uf caps I can see on the main unit

so roughly 2200uf

running 6-8s Lipo

so a smaller resistor like a 10 ohm 2 watt? All the info on no spark resistors is very non specific, I remember Patrick saying 1 ohm 5 watt minimum in one post a while ago, so I went slightly bigger (next size up) with the 1 ohm 10watt and yeah it's pretty friggin huge, much bigger than the other no spark resistors. There doesn't seem to be a clear answer, just a lot of theorizing and links to complex pages etc, for the simpeltons among us it's tough to find a set answer, ie, which one do I get?

I have both sides as male plugs so I can run both plugs on the battery as females, why? Well a 2 yr old sees a battery, a male and a female plug and to him they go together, do that to a lipo and things short.
aqwut thanks for the suggestion on shoe goo, I''l smear some silicone over the solder posts and joints between the caps and posts and put some heavier heat shrink on.

Im using an female bullet on the positive and a male bullet on the negative, as this will prevent mixing them, also i would ditch the deans serial thing and use bullet on the batteries to.

But it is just personal preferences.

Yeah I intend on converting the packs to bullets, just waiting on my gear to get here so this is just to make sure it all works. HPI has deans on a single plug for the Baja XL Brushless so they can't be that bad!

Welp, here comes Harold's 2 cents. Grab a beer and a box of tissues.:whistle:

I use deans on my e-baja with no problem. They never get warm.

I don't run a cap pack. They have been proven to lower ripple current, but I have never concerned myself with ripple current.

You can definitely run a smaller anti-spark resistor. I don't run one, I just ignore the spark. That being said, I know I have to occasionally replace my connectors because of the pitting the spark causes.

If you are concerned enough to change from deans to bullets, then you should change your setup to a female bullet on the positive side of the battery and a male on the negative. Then as mentioned, you can just plug the negative from the first battery into the positive of the second battery, and plug the remaining two wires directly to the esc, bypassing your series connector.

It's all about resistance. Every extra inch of wire, and every connector add to resistance. Why address any of it, if you aren't going to address all of it?

But that is the purist answer.

I am a down and dirty basher. I run no cap pack, no spark arrestor, and I use deans connectors with a series connector.

I also gear sensibly, monitor temps and make sure my rides are mechanically sound. I am still running a v1 esc on my e-baja, and on my 8s e-maxx:intello:

Ok thanks for the input, I also keep a close eye on temp / gearing etc and make sure there is zero binding.

I bought some smaller resistors, will either of these be ok?

22 Ohm 1 Watt
27 Ohm 1 Watt


Certainly a lot easier to hook up than these 5 and 10 watt monsters.


As for the cap pack, well I have it now, may as well use it. The Spark arrestor is just a preference thing, the spark from plugging in my ESC in a 4s set up freaks my boy out, so a 6s or 8s will scare him s#itless. But if my ripple current isn't an issue (and as I am using good packs it shouldn't be) should I just ditch the Cap pack or is it a case of no harm having it there. (If I keep it will have to squirt some silicone in between the solder posts and cap just in case)

Absolutely use the cap pack, it can only help, not harm.

Either of those resistors should work fine.

+1

Is a high powered toy car or a long distance solar car?