Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Turn your soldering iron on to warm it up. Put on your safety goggles.
Prepare a female EC3 connector for your BEC by removing both of the tube connectors from the plastic (usually blue) EC3 housings.
Cut any existing connectors off of the ends of the leads of your BEC. Strip about 0.2 inches -- 5 mm -- of insulation from the end of one of your component or battery leads.
Tin the exposed part of the wire by using your soldering iron to melt solder around the wire. Make sure the exposed part of the wire is completely covered with solder.
Place the prong or tube terminal inside your pliers to hold it as you tin its interior by dripping a light coat of melted solder through it.
Tin your soldering iron by covering its tip with melted solder. Make sure your soldering iron is clean.
Place the tinned wire into the tinned connector terminal while keeping your soldering iron tip against the joint where the top of the exposed wire meets the top of the terminal. Keep excess solder from flowing around the exterior of the terminal, and remove any excess with a utility knife or a grinding tool, if necessary.
Insert the soldered wire and terminal assembly into the slot in the connector housing that corresponds to its polarity; match the polarity markings on the housing to those on the component or battery; usually, black is negative and red is positive. Press it down with your small screwdriver until you feel a "pop."
Check if the terminal is properly installed by rotating the wire and confirming that the terminal can rotate along with the wire.
Repeat the process for the second lead of your BEC.
Repeat the process, one lead at a time, for any components that you will use with your BEC, motor and your motor battery pack -- flight battery pack -- if they do not already have EC3 connectors. Use male EC3 connectors with prong terminals for components and female EC3 connectors with hollow tube terminals for battery packs.
Connect the male connectors of your components to the female connectors of your batteries and BEC before installing them in your aircraft.
Assemble or position your components as necessary; install them in your airplane or helicopter and use your model aviation equipment as you normally would. When you are finished, disconnect the EC3 connectors by pulling gently on each male component connector while holding the female battery connector housing.