Good question Gustavo. With EC5, you will need to adopt a new idea: the gender of the plastic outer housing is the opposite from the connecting pins it contains. It is confusing: The Female plastic housing have male connecting pins. So the packet on the right has female plastic housings, but the pins are male -- the pins have small slots cut into them so that they are springy and fit against the inner part of the female . For the packet on the left -- there are two female plastic housings with male pins on the left of the bag. On the right of the bag are male plastic housings with female pins. I don't know who thought this idea up, but.... Hope this helps. Andy.
The main is the central pin connector, if is male the center I don´t know because they have to put that is female. Here is my confusion and mistake to buy these connectors, and for bad luck incomplete Gustavo.
I think the incomplete pack is something that you should complain about. Progressive has always provided very good service and I'm sure they will do the right thing. I use these connectors from Progressive and they have worked well for me -- although I do wish that you could remove the pins from the housing and re-insert them -- the act of removing them removes some of the plastic. Hope this helps. Andy.
Gustavo it is really confusing. Basic rule is that the 'female' side supplies power. Easier to understand if you look at a deans connector. The femaie side has no exposed contacts while the male side that plugs into the female connector on the battery has the contacts exposed. On the EC series this gets a bit tricky. If you were to look at just the contacts without the jackets it is the same setup. In your photo on the left the pointer is pointing at a 'female' socket. On the right you point to male pins. But where it gets confused it the housings. They are reversed. Using the housings only the battery side is a male that slides into the connector on the side to be powered. So.... the female brass connector goes into a male housing on the battery side while the male brass connector goes into a femaie housing on the side to be powered. Another way that helps me to remember is that the female brass connector goes inside the housing that has the two prongs split appart. And lastly check twice, mount once. As Andy pointed out once they are inserted in a plastic housing you will usually destroy the housing getting them out. In the first photo you see the female connector/male housing (battery side) on the left. In this second photo you see the female connector/male housing (battery side) on the left being inserted in the male connector/femaie housing on the right.
Be sure not to get solder on the outside of the pin! It basically renders it useless. There was a good video somewhere that showed how to solder these with a torch, which works much better than an iron. Anybody know where that one is? Also, after breaking a few while trying to push the pins in, I learned to push them in using the other gender plug. This assures they go in straight and not too far.
Mrs. Google knows where they are: Jeff Scholl has a good video on how to use a soldering iron. Pushing the pins in while they're still "toasty" (to use his word) makes it easier to insert them. Andy.
I am going to place the "females" they sent me in the batteries and to change the connector of the charger cable also, for now I have no other choice. Gustavo.
This is not the way to do it. You should use your iron and not a torch. Too much heat and the connector becomes brittle. I did that on mine and when I picked up the connector while it was hot with the pliers it shuttered. Cheers
Good feedback, Zorba. Thanks. Torches always a little too uncontrollable in terms of where the heat goes -- but that could be my technique. In this case, the torch is making the connector so hot it's removing the metal's temper, I suspect. Andy.
So I had asked the folks at ProgressiveRC about the naming convention and they shot me the following reply. Good link to take a look at. We always identify connectors by their housing, rather than any bullets that would be inside. The male EC5 (battery side) would be the smaller plastic housing that goes inside the larger female connector (charger/ESC side). We actually recently posted a blog entry about this very issue! With a nifty graphic: http://www.progressiverc.com/blog/connectortype/ Hope that helps, let me know if there's anything else we can do! Robin Wilkes General Manager ProgressiveRC
Well, I think if you do it quick enough, the heat will be about the same from a torch or an iron. The solder has to melt. Haven't had success with the iron myself, but overheating is a good thing to watch out for.
I don't know about that. With the torch you can't control the flame unless you are using a laser for accurancy. Besides you have to heat up the connector to the max, cause once you put the tinned wire into it it cools down quickly, with the iron you can control the heating process. Cheers
I follow Jeff Scholl's example and use a wooden holder for the connector -- it also acts as a insulator to keep the connector hot. Andy.
I've used a block of wood with holes in it to hold the connector and have had good luck with this method. I personally use the PRC6 connectors sold by Progressive RC and they work well. They're build for high amps. We've used them from the beginning and never had an issue with them.