Extending ESC to motor leads?

[cobia23]

I'm in the process of laying out the electronics and motor in my scratch built cat. I'm running into the issue of having to extend either the esc to motor or the battery leads. I've read pros and cons on both but for my boat it would make most sense to extend the three motor leads. If this is my only option how to you suggest I lengthen them? I'm thinking of making a 6" jumper with 6mm bullets on either end, which is what the motor and esc have now. Or would soldering a 6" length of wire be better?

[1coopgt]

Personally I would solder the 6" wire to the motor lead.

[Doby]

Post some pics of the layout...might be able to help if we see something...never a good idea to extend leads unless there are no other options.

[Panchothedog]

I have had the same problem you are experiencing. I have put a 5.5 mm conecter on each end of a 7" piece of 8 or 10 Gage wire (2 of them)and ran them between the esc and the battery with no big loss in power. I do not race, only sport running but just like the next guy I want to go as fast as I can. I had no choice there was no other way to make it work. My boat runs fine.No regrets.

[NativePaul]

Unlike extending the battery leads, there is no noticable side effect to extending the motor leads. There will be a small increase in effective motor resistance that reduces the electrical efficiency a fraction, but adding a few inches of thick wire will be an insignificant increase compared to the motor which if it is of a high turn count may have meters of thin wire inside it to function.

I have extended motor leads by about 2' with no noticeable ill effects on an EDF plane that needed the battery in the nose for balance and the jet near the tail.

If you have a good soldering iron and the skills/balls, the best way to do it is to remove the motor wires from the ESC, and replace them with longer ones. If not, you can remove the connectors from either the motor side or ESC side wires, solder on the extensions you need, heat shrink the joints, and add the connectors you removed back on to the new ends.

[cobia23]

Thanks for the info, I'll get a few pictures of the different layouts I can see working. The esc I'm using is epoxy potted where the wires are soldered. I'd like to avoid messing with that as it looks fairly waterproof as it is now.