Differences between high end ESC's and cheap ones for Lehner motors?

[RaceMechaniX]

Depending on what the ESC will be used for and how tight the packaging is I will use something between 3500-6000uF. I replace all the four stock capacitors with 25V, 35V or 50V Rubycon ZL, ZLH or ZLK caps. If space allows I will add two more for a total of 6 caps.

I prefer to use wire from GS Racing, Deans or the German supplier who's name I am forgetting.

Progressive RC also has some good silicone wire.

[srislash]

German supplier: Gundert?

[dmitry100]

nah it was something else. they're exclusively like some industrial Wire shop out of germany with a site that looks older than gundert

ZL rubycon caps are like trying to find a unicorn... so I went with similar rated united chemicon caps. hopefully they'll last

[dmitry100]

The store's name is Nessel

Their new store... which I could imagine is better than before:

http://nessel-elektronik.net/

Old store:

http://www.nessel-elektronik.de/Silikonlitze/silikonlitze.htm

But i think they only ship in bulk, or charge high shipping... as usual. Tried ordering some time ago.

[RaceMechaniX]

Nessel was the company I was missing the name. I have asked friends in Germany in the past to buy the wire for me and I pick it up when I am in Europe.

The Rubycon caps are available from the major electronics supply houses like Allied and Mouser. OSE has some of them in stock.

[dmitry100]

Doubt anything from Nessel is anything like this stuff tho:

https://tqwire.com/product-category/rc-products/11-gauge/

TQ11 is constructed from 2,303 strands of bare copper in a super thin silicone jacket. The wire is only 4.2mm OD – providing a larger conductor in a compact space. Thinner than your “average” 12 gauge wire, it has more copper, allowing for increased current flow and lower voltage loss.
New TQ 10 Gauge wire (version 2) is constructed from 1,050 strands of tinned copper to be very flexible, easy to solder and only 4.8mm in diameter. Available in Black, Red, Blue, Yellow & Orange and in several convenient wiring kits.

[dmitry100]

I now get a little nervous whenever I go on newark.com and at checkout they say this: "Exact shipping fees are unknown until the order has been processed."

Because last time I ordered caps from them - they charged me $30+ bucks for shipping even though their estimate tools show $5-10 bucks max

Great way to fleece customers. Unless they only caiter to businesses and it's expected?

Digikey on other hand was super cheap for a much bigger order

[NativePaul]

I don't get it, what is the advantage to tin plated wires? Tin has near 7 times the resistance of copper, so surely it must increase the wire's resistance over normal copper wire.

[CraigP]

Tinning keeps the wire from oxidizing. Oxidized copper is worse than tin. The best wire is silver plated copper, but not cheap!

[NativePaul]

Thanks Craig, that explains why the wire exists. I still wonder if it is of any advantage to me though, my boats spend at most an hour a month on the water and even then are unlikely to get wet, the only times I have seen green wires are when boats have been stuck in the bottom for extended periods of time, and then generally what the wire is attached to is only fit for the bin anyway.

[dmitry100]

I guess its a good idea to put enough foam so that it doesn't end up stuck on the bottom of the lake :)

[CraigP]

Paul, you can seal the wires with PVC heatshring tubing and silicone. It’s not just the water environment that can cause the copper to corrode. As the wire heats, then cools, air is drawn in and out. The air carries water and over time, copper will corrode. This is the problem with car wiring. It’s normally just copper wire, no plating. After some years, lights aren’t bright and electrical systems don’t act right. Now that takes years, but we are running 100-200A thru the wire, so the process is accelerated. I seal all my wiring as mentioned above. An extra step to make sure the amps flow freely!

[dmitry100]

Have any of you ever replaced the stock conductor wires on the Castle ice before ?

Thinking to make double conductor wires but the wires are so close to the fets I feel like any extra heat might damage them

[NativePaul]

I think most people run flotation, but if you hit the lake bottom sometime the lake monster will grab you, and if it doesn't want to let go no amount of flotation will help, sometimes it will pop up a week, month or year later, sometimes it is gone for good.

Maybe it is a cultural thing, most of us in the UK pull about 45A average and the only times I have felt warm wires is when I have used a LiPo to jump-start my, or a neighbour's car.

I have soldered the wires on an Ice 200, I took off the stock 8g wires to replace them with 10g which was more suited to my purposes for that ESC.

The battery wires were just about doable, but the motor wires are the only thing my trusty Weller80 has failed to solder (within reasonable time, it could probably have done it eventually, but would have had to put an unacceptable amount of heat into the board, risking damage), the combination of the 8g wire and thick copper tracks in the PCB surrounding the wires wickd the heat out of the tip really fast, I had to cut the wires down to stubs to desolder them in what I considered to be a safe time.

If you want to add another 8g wire you will need either an old style iron with a huge thermal mass, or a whole ship ton of power.

[RaceMechaniX]

I have replaced the wires on mine and have to use the 200W cheisel tip iron. You have to be careful to not leave the iron on for too long or it will hurt the other SMD components. If you use a low watt iron it will suck the heat to the other end of the board and by the time you heat the joint up enough to remove you have probably reflowed the closest FETs.