Oh boy!

YES solder running between posts is most definitely a HUGE No-No and can and will burn your gear out. Quite frankly, if that's the case I'm perplexed as to why it didn't just go up in smoke the second you powered it up!

Wire covered in solder = Tinning Wire.

Properly tinned wire leads should not have bare uncoated wire anywhere BUT, one must always keep in mind you want the minimal amount of solder on the leads. To achieve this you NEVER want to melt solder on the tip of your iron and then attempt to get it to feed into the wire. That is the first and most common mistake I see people committing with regularity.

The proper way to tin is to have the wire held steady (soldering rigs/jigs will allow you to do this easily) and then place your iron underneath the lead and dip your solder in flux to give a bit of a coating and then slide that on top of the wire until it melts. This will happen quickly so be extra keen not to over do it and once you see the wire coated, STOP and turn it over and you will most likely see the underside is not tinned all the way, if at all. Now, repeat the same steps so you tin this side and again, just enough so the wires are coated. Anything more is overkill and completely kills the flexibility of the wire.

NOTE: Try not to place the iron on the end of the wire as this can fray the strands, resulting in having some of them reside away from the rest of the lead. If this happens you can apply heat and press it down, but you want to slide the iron in the direction of the lead and not up/off/away from it.

Once your leads are tinned, you want to do the same to the contact points of whatever you are soldering them to… ESC or Motor contacts. Again, you want to place your iron on the contact and then apply solder to the surface area of the contact point rather than your iron. Once you see a slight bubble of molten solder, STOP, you're done. It doesn't take a lot.

To join the tinned leads to your contact points, it's good practice to dip the leads into flux so there is a tiny bit of it on the very end. Flux is your friend but you must use it sparingly as too much is unnecessary and counter productive, so use just a tiny bit to aide in transferring heat through the components being soldered.

Likely the most important element to all this is to always ensure your soldering tip is CLEAN because a dirty tip hinders heat transfer and makes it much more difficult to solder things up and it leaves a dirty residue. A good steel wool pad and/or CLEAN wet sponge will leave your tip clean and you always want to wipe it clean just before touching any contact points or leads.


Hope this helps.