I think sweems is correct. For confirmation:



The black (or at the very least the darkest wire), negative or ground, goes to the - on the outside of the case.
The red, positive power, goes to the + in the middle.
The white/orange, odd colored one, is the signal wire. The blocky symbol is a portion of the square wave to represent the PWM encoded pulses the control signals are based on.
Might be some color variations.

Many RC plugs do not have polarity protection, they can be stuck in backwards. As I understand it this design is based on the Futaba J plug I think it is, which has a tab to prevent this. But apparently its patented or something similar that prevents others including it? I try to remember which side of the connector has the exposed parts and use that as my guide.

Could be worse, we used to have completely different plugs and wiring orders to deal with from different brands.

Sweems and Dave,

I am delighted to say this was user error on my part after all. By golly we got it! It turns out I did have the ESC plugged in backwards.

I am an audio person by trade, and red and white are always +/- and black would be a ground. This is so ingrained in my head I couldn't second guess that part before. I didn't even think to check the documentation to confirm the wiring.

Also, because I could plug in my Traxxas system the same way (backwards) and it worked fine, I think that was a red herring of sorts. I thought that confirmed I did have it plugged in right. It was still backwards but Traxxas is more forgiving and dummy proof I guess.

I was able to bind 3 of my 4 SR3100's including the new one. The very first one I had a problem with does seem to be fried though.

Anyways - CASE CLOSED. Thank you guys so much for all of your suggestions and patience with me. I'm so glad I didn't break anything more than just 1 receiver (The oldest and most used one).

I'm going to go put all my RC cars back together and have a track day this weekend.

Sincerely,

Audio? I usually see red and white used for RCA connected left and right line level signals?

Regardless good you got them going.