Blogs

Dean burn #2

Posted by Jack Crossfire on April 2, 2011 at 12:30am

For the 2nd time, we plugged the genderless micro Dean connectors in the wrong way & got an explosion followed by fire.

Without any gender, many a modeler has plugged 2 batteries into each other with these connectors, but why would anyone except a complete idiot say anything bad about a connector they spent $5 on? Well, let us be the 1st complete idiot & regale the world with this new revelation.

This time, we got a pretty nasty burn. The micro Dean connectors are the best connector for the job, but the lack of gender makes them Satan. Marcy 1 has a new objective: finding a better micro connector.

E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Stephen Carlson April 5, 2011 at 5:13pm

Try this out:

1. Push a section of heat-shrink over the battery lead with pre-existing soldered micro Deans.

2. Mate the micro Deans to another micro Deans, perhaps the one on an ESC.

3. Position the heat-shrink over the mated pair, such that the battery-side connector is covered and the ESC-side plug is about half-covered.

4. Shrink the material.

5. When the material is cool, remove the ESC-side plug without distorting or moving the battery-side heatshrink.

6. Apply cyanoacrylate to the battery plug heat-shrink, securing the new jacket.

7. Use the connectors as normal; do note that the connector is slightly more difficult to grasp but if done properly, this works perfect.

Problem solved.

-Steve
Jack Crossfire April 2, 2011 at 1:46pm

The winner was the 3 ohm resistor, very thin wire, & color coding. If the test battery ever connects to the flight battery, it'll hopefully just get hot instead of explode.
Moderator

Brian April 2, 2011 at 9:04am

@ I.S.

I would agree that they are for low power ops, but he has a picture of the standard micro dean connector above, so if he needs the small connector... these ones work well. I use them to make s plugged cable for video transmitter to cam
Neil Baker April 2, 2011 at 8:52am

I own at least 25 batteries with those and never had a problem. The connector is already red. Take a sharpie and color the negative side black. If your trying to plug two batteries together they wont line up. If I started a blog post every time I fried something I would be on the front page daily.
Moderator

Brian April 2, 2011 at 8:11am

Here's a link to the micro 4 pin connector. Not sure why, but I'm not loading the toolbar to allow me to add links or pictures. The four pin has one pin off-set so to allow connection only one direction. Nobody says you need to use all four.

http://www.discounttrainsonline.com/graphics/WSD/L1241.jpg
Developer

Mark Colwell April 2, 2011 at 3:55am

XT-60 are good, but can be hard to disconnect.

A 10 amp fuse would save your wires and finger, But that would be no fun!

I fried the ground wire in a new 1.3ghz FPV setup last month. It looked similar to yours, burned off black insulation, I was lucky no other damage just replaced wire, and added a 2 amp fuse...
hamish April 2, 2011 at 3:48am

I like the EC3 connectors, literally just bullet holders, + the bullets can be used outside the housing.

And they have gender. So they're kind of like the XT 60 i guess!
Jonathan Simmons April 2, 2011 at 3:09am

Its aright- You can now put your magic blue smoke back into your ic with sparkfun's latest product- The magic blue smoke refilling kit http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10622
Moderator

Gary Mortimer April 2, 2011 at 2:00am

Well they are not micro but I am migrating to these XT 60s
Moderator

Brian April 2, 2011 at 1:08am

You can get a four pin micro dean connector that does orientation of the plug to avoid, accidents.

This reply was deleted.

#xg { position:relative;top:120px; } #xn_bar { top:120px; }

Hello, you need to enable JavaScript to use diydrones.

Please check your browser settings or contact your system administrator.