What power connectors do people prefer, and why?

[Hugh Hemington]

With parts trickling in, I now have a Turnigy battery with a red two-barrel shielded "pin and ring" connector, a Zippy battery with what looks like red and black uncircumcised dicks (with shrink tubing foreskins), and a power distribution board with a yellow "arrow" shroud with two pins inside.
I gather there is also something called a "Deans connector" (also called a Tee connector?) that I managed to avoid buying, mainly because I didn't buy FOUR items with power connectors.

First, if there is any way I could have more thoroughly screwed the "power pooch", be sure and rub that in.

Then, let's just say, for the sake of argument I wanted to avoid hopeless madness and decided to standardize all this stuff. What is THE preferred connector to use for ALL batteries and the distribution board? And if there is a technical reason why, WHY?

If there is no known technical advantage to any of them, what are YOU using and are you happy with it? And ease of soldering isn't a factor. I friggin' LOVE soldering.

 

[Mike]

I always go with bullet connectors (banana plugs) and I just cut off any connectors that aren't those and solder those on to the wires. I find them to be the easiest to solder to wires and they make great connections. Plus you can either use them with protectors or heat shrink. The only problem with the protectors is that you have to put them on the wire before soldering on the connectors - and I constantly forget to do that. Also, the protectors are somewhat of a pain in the ass to fully snap on to the connectors... and you have to make sure the wires are going through the right slots since one is typically female and one is male on the two wire protectors. The three wire ones are usually all male or all female.

Other than that, I think it comes down to the rating of the connector. Typically, with 4mm (rated at 100a continuous) bullet connectors for your battery facing connection and then 3.5mm (rated for around 80a continuous) toward your escs, you're going to be alright. The ratings change somewhat, but those are typical. If you have xt-60/deans or whatever on some of your components and don't want to solder, Hobbyking sells adapters for a couple of bucks.

In the end, I think it's really personal preference if you obey the continuous current ratings.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

Shipment came in today from RCTimer. I got my controller power module and it has two XT-60 connectors on it. Since I have a power distribution board, I'll cut the shrink off the power module, remove the battery whips and tack the power module to the distro board with short pieces of smaller gauge wire, freeing up male and female XT-60 whips. I'm not committed to the XT-60 -- it'll just get me further in the build until I order any remaining parts from HobbyKing.
It seems XT-60 connectors are fairly easy to solder if you couple them before soldering, since that keeps the pins in position. More on my build in another thread!

 

[Mike]

Sounds like a plan. The good thing with building yourself is that you realize there are a million different ways to hook up your power system!

 

[Hugh Hemington]

The rest of my stuff arrived today from HobbyKing, and the 45amp ESCs have banana plugs and sockets (when the motors have mini-banana plugs). I'm going to solder the ends to the power distribution board, extend the motor wires and put on the bananas I took off the other end of the ESCs. I have enough other banana plugs to complete the motor/ESC connections. Before I'm done, I will have pulled everything off the power distribution board, since I want a longer battery whip, and to have it come out the bottom instead of the top.
I got several more XT-60 connectors locally because it turns out my Turnigy battery charger has an XT-60 plug for the battery (even though the Turnigy battery has something else). Rather than change that, I'll just go with XT-60 on all my batteries.
I figured out how to use parts cut from a paper clip to un-reverse the polarization of my antennas. It took a 7mm length to supply the needed center pin. With those FPV antennas good, I think I can get this thing in the air before placing another order from HobbyKing. The local HobbyPeople has quite a few items for multis and of course RC in case I need anything small.

 

[Mike]

Which charger did you buy? Most chargers just charge from the balance plug on the battery (the small one with the white connector). I know there are some higher rated chargers that can charge with more amps through the main plug on the battery and then use the balance plug to ensure balance - but you have to pay special attention to ensure they won't try to push too many amps on the charge. Typically, the rule is 1C for charging, which is 1 x the capacity of the battery. So if you have a 4000mAh battery, you can charge it at up to 4 amps.... some newer, better quality, higher capacity batteries can be charged faster, but I always stick with 1C to be safe. I don't want to burn down my house!

With that said, if you're going to change the plus out to charge, I'd change them on the charger side. Then you only have to change out one connector and you're working on wire that's not live. I wouldn't want to risk cutting the connector and accidentally shorting a lipo battery because the wires brush up against each other or something! Haha... it wouldn't be pretty.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

I got the Turnigy Accucel 6. I'm trying to figure out the optimum current for the power supply. I see people using computer power supplies, and the tiny "balanced" wires are too small to carry much current, so I can probably use most anything I have that's 12v DC.
And yes, when I cut the insulation off the "bananas" on the Zippy I found out why you want to keep those rascals separated! Looks like one of my old screwdrivers from my electrician days. They weren't really "broken in" until they had a bite taken out of them.