The capacitors are there to absorb and dissipate heat from the ESC itself. In essence, it pulls in heat before it even enters the circuitry. What dictates if it is necessary is the type of vehicle you run and the relative temperatures after long runs. If the Temps are not very high you should be ok to run without the capacitor(s).

The 1.1's Super Capacitor is really great so if you can order that one, do so. There are 4 of them in series and the ESC doesn't build up much temp at all. Just be sure to remove the leads on your current setup so as to prevent an accidental short.

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Appreciate the information. I run 17.5 blinky in my SC10.2 so my temps don't get too high. I might run without one tonight and purchase the 1.1 capacitor online because I doubt my hobby store has one.

Thanks incubus and Nexus! I'm worried about the amount of heat while soldering and damaging the ESC...? Is that possible?? I was so nervous about damaging the ESC that I guess didn't try my best...
How do you guys say I must do to make the cable tinner? Is the only way to fit them right?

Now we're getting to the nitty gritty. It seems you're a relative novice to soldering so I'll go through the trouble of explaining what to and how to do things correctly and explain why.

First of all the #1 rule with soldering these high end electronics is that you must pre-tin your leads. I cannot stress it enough how important this step is.

How do you tin properly?

First of all you need either a Soldering station or you need to come up with a clever means by which to hold things steady. I prefer the freedom of using an insulated alligator clip to hold my wire and with my dextrous hand feed the solder when everything is in position and I'm ready.

I leave my soldering iron on the table with the tip elevated on the stand and then place my already stripped lead which you want to keep as minimal as possible. you don't need a .25" portion of lead to solder anything for RC. (just another point where people get it wrong) How much insulation needs to be remove is dependent on the component(s) and how much far the wire needs to go to facilitate ample area to make a proper contact. This is something you can pick up relatively quickly.

Now that you've considered this, it's time to move onto tinning. The way to do it properly is to make sure the tip of the iron is properly hot and shiny so if it isn't, stop and prep your tip to do away with the frustrations of a contaminated tip. With your tip now clean, you want to clamp your alligator clip onto the wire, close to the exposed strands and touch it to the upper side of the iron and then feed solder onto the top of the wire. When it is hot enough it will begin to soak up the solder rapidly so be conscious and place JUST ENOUGH to coat the exposed portion SPARINGLY. Once you've done this, turn the wire over (reposition the alligator clip accordingly) and you will notice the underside is still not fully tinned. And while you may have been able to get it fully tinned by simply feeding more solder until it soaked through, THAT IS INCORRECT!!! While you will get it fully tinned, most of the solder you fed to do so has now seeped up into the insulation and a large portion of the wire has solidified, thus taking away it's ever precious flexibility. ;)

So, you tin one side, flip it over and repeat until the exposed portion is fully covered and nothing more. If you find your iron is not heating up enough to do this quickly, by all means USE FLUX!!! How much flux is also a huge mistake people make. Again, there is no need for excess. You want to be minimalistic with everything in this process. What I do as a general rule, of course depending on the application, is to dip my solder into the flux so when I pull it out it has a thin coating of it that will aide in transferring heat much more quickly and with greater efficiency than by using the iron and plain solder alone.

NOTE: You DO NOT feed solder onto your iron's tip. While it may work, it is not ideal.

Once you have all your leads tinned, you can now move onto assessing what goes where and what can and/or should require pre-tinning. For motors I generally dip my solder into the flux and tin the contact points SPARINGLY. When I'm ready to solder my already pre-tinned leads, I simply dip the very tip of them and then move them into position holding them with my alligator clips and then apply heat with my CLEAN tip until it all melts, and allow to cool. The result should be a perfectly bright and shiny solder joint. Step and repeat as needed.


As for soldering up an ESC with the holes like the Reventon R, you will Pre-Tin and then crimp/smash using whatever tool (I prefer wire crimpers) so that they slide into the holes freely and then secure everything so you are sure nothing will move out of position, and then place a touch of flux paste ONTO THE WIRE and then apply heat and introduce a bit of solder ONTO THE WIRE. Remove the iron and allow to cool. Again, the result should be a perfectly bright and shiny solder joint.


That's it!


But remember, practice makes perfect. I know, I need to make a video already. LOL

Thanks incubus I really appreciate your explanation. The part I'm missing is how to pre tin the hole in the ESC?! I saw a video and the ESC had like a connector and it was easy to solder it. I could solder the bullet connectors of the motor to the cable with no problem and the result is quite good, however, when I moved into the ESC I couldn't get anything else good :P

I'm going to try again...

Just one more question, will the heat damage the ESC?

Edit: I was confusing tinned with thinner of making something slim... Sorry but my English is pretty bad...

No need to pre tin the ESC! You want those holes BARE.

Just the wires themselves and slide them in. Once you apply heat it will all melt and solder to the ESC but you have to apply the heat from the underside of the ESC.

Great! Thanks again.

So i can be sure that this heat wont be damaging the ESC?

"The function of capacitors is to control, or smooth out, spikes or ripples in the current coming from the batteries to protect the ESC." (from traxxas forum)

Google "Explanation of the Brushless Motor / ESC System and Capacitor Function" and you find an article from traxxas.com explaining how they work (I'm not yet allowed to post direct links)

I just bought a revention r and am having a issue. I ran an entire race day with no problems, flawless. Then yesterday ran two heats perfect and on A main race I had a bad throttle hesitation for just a second or two that the throttle would not respond. This morning put it on the bench and checked and saw that all my connections were solid. Plugged a battery and turn esc on and getting the standard Stock 0 solid orange and blinking red led. Give it a few pulls of throttle and notice that every so often i would get a bad hesitation and then the leds with go to a off, orange, off, orange and red, off pattern. This would stay until I turn of esc and would go back to standard blinky led until it would hesitate again after a number of throttle pulls. Any suggestions as to why i would be getting this hesitation. Its like its throwing some kind of error or resetting? Thanks for any help.

Ok just rewired the esc, I almost had a heart attack, I installed the ESC and connected the battery and turn it on and nothing, no fan no light no nothing... I said, "well, I maybe just buy another ESC.." But it turn out to be the a b c cables that I had forgotten to plug in... Phew... It started again no problem after plug the motor...

I had to do it with the 14awg cables, I couldn't remove the tin in the ESC holes... So ia had to use the included cables... Anyway, I think they are better now, I guess they won't be falling apart again...

Having an issue with my new v3 17.5 motor. Bought the revention super stock combo and installed it on my 22t. First time running this after a 5 min qualifier it temped at 215!!! Spur gear all the way tight, geared at 70/29. Second qualifier I changed to 76/30 and temped the same. Main I moved timing from preset to zero and still temping at 215. Any suggestions.

Any chance of every coming out with a software you can run Stock (blinky) and still have reverse? I'd like to stay with SP but I need reverse.

Why would you want reverse? You can't use reverse in a race. Basically it is useless, unless you use your R/C at home just driving around.

#1: make sure the spur/pinion mesh isn't too tight, Use the paper trick to set mesh. Take a small piece of notebook paper and set it between the spur and pinion and slide the gears together tight, tighten down the motor screws. rotate the gears to remove the paper. Mesh should be correct. Drivetrain bind is a sure way to generate excessive heat.

#2: there is a paper that comes with the motor that suggests a FD range for each motor. 17.5 is somewhere around 4.5-6:1 iirc. Find your transmission ratio and tooth count of the spur you are using. divide the spur teeth number by the pinion tooth number and multiply that by the transmission ratio. that is your FD ratio. example: my TRF 201 has a 2.60 trans ratio, I run 69t spur and 32t pinion. 69/32=2.156 2.60x 2.156 = 5.60 . So a final drive of 5.60 and that is within the recommended specs of the motor. My temps hover around 100F with a 60F ambient. Sp Stock Club Race esc and 17.5 V3 motor. If you are running timing or boost, you will have to change your gearing based on temps.

Change the sensor wire.?