The below pictures are in answer to Scott's post below. See the links to the top-right, and don't forget to click the envelope icon to subscribe by email. Also, don't forget to browse my blog and see what other articles I've written that may be interesting to you. The above two tutorials, when used together, are an absolutely fantastic reference and guide, and I very highly recommend you check them out. Adafruit Guide To Excellent Soldering - this is another fabulous soldering tutorial, with lots of great pictures, tips, & tricks!.Sparkfun's "How to Solder - Through-hole Soldering" Article - the two videos here are definitely worth watching too! Very good information!.If you would like a true soldering tutorial, I recommend the following: My article above is not a true soldering tutorial in any way, rather, it is simply a proof-of-concept demonstration that you can in fact hook up some very heavy gauge wire to a HobbyKing XT60 connector. You can see the gauge printed on the wire. Since I didn't have any 10AWG wire (my largest wire I have is 12AWG), I first cut a piece of 12AWG high-strand count, very high-quality silver-coated, silicone-cased audio cable. I timed it, from the time I cut the first wire to the time I finished heat shrinking the last piece of heat shrink covering. This entire experiment, including taking the photos, took me 20 minutes, and 30 seconds. I did not try to solder wires any larger, as this was large enough for the purposes of my experiment. Results: I successfully soldered the equivalent of 7AWG wires onto an XT60 connector. Rather, cut off and solder one wire at a time to a new connector). (Note: if you ever replace battery connectors, be very careful not to short out the battery leads by cutting off both wires on the battery connector at once. My goal was to see if large gauge wire (10AWG or larger) could be soldered to the XT60 connector, in order to use this connector to replace other large, bulky, or cumbersome connectors on very large battery packs where you need less than 60A continuous current draw. My Soldering Experiment on the XT60 Connector: XT90 Series Cable (comes with 10AWG wire).XT90 Parallel Cable (comes with 10AWG wire).XT60 Series Cable (comes with 14AWG wire).XT60 Parallel Cable (comes with 16AWG wire).Also, as a side note, 10 AWG wire is designed to easily handle a high voltage 90A continuous current over short distances (you can verify using this online calculator here, with values of 1% loss, 22.2V DC, 90A, and 0.3m cable length), but again, if your system pulls <60A continuous, feel free to use XT60's, even for wire such as 10 AWG or as large as 7AWG. For 150A continuous (250A peak), use XT150's. For 90A continuous, or ~140A peak, use XT90's. Anyway, for 60A or less continuous, or ~100A peak (<=30 sec), XT60's are the way to go. The 60 means "60 Amps," so as long as your *continuous* current is 60A or less, use these connectors, with any wire up to about 7 Gauge or so (though 14AWG wire is large enough to do the trick). XT60-style connectors are my favorite, hands down, for my personal use. Various Large-Current, Large-Diameter-Wire Connector Descriptions, & Links: However, as 10AWG wire is capable of carrying currents much greater than 60A, you may be interested in using the larger XT90 connector, on which 10 AWG wire comes standard on a HobbyKing XT90 parallel harness or serial harness. A smaller diameter wire, such as a 10 AWG, can easily be soldered to an XT60 connector with this iron linked above (as this is the exact iron I used). In my experiment, I twisted two 12AWG wires together, to make a 7~8 AWG-equivalent wire, which I then soldered to an XT60 connector with no problem. Ultimately, I determined that a careful hand and hot iron ( 60W recommended, as my "Beginner RC Airplane Setup" document explains here) can easily handle wires at least up to 7 AWG, which is a very large diameter wire. So, tonight I decided to do an experiment to see how large of wire could be used with my favorite connector, the genuine XT60, from HobbyKing.
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