Battery / cabling woes - any ideas?

[RostokMcSpoons]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

Well I suppose it isn't unusual to find people have everything go wrong the day before their first game in 4 weeks, but this feels particularly galling.

 

I've got my new Double Eagle M906C.  I've been testing it out in the back garden and it's been running like a champ, I've put several hundred BBs through it now.

I've got my Classic Army M16 and TM AK47 which, realistically, are going to be backup guns from now on.
And I've got my new Titan 7.4V Li-Ion 3000 mAH battery that I received last week and which I used straight out of the packet - it had charge, and Li-Ions are supposed to hold charge for years, and can be run down to zilch without problem.  Just plug it in and charge it up when it runs out.   So I didn't charge it up any more, just plugged it - no problem.

 

So I decided to re-wire my two old guns to Deans so I could slap in the Titan (which should have juice to easily run all day, as much of the combat is semi-auto).  Particularly useful on the AK as getting all the cabling tucked away for the Li-Po was a pain.

 

Now I'm not great at soldering, not had much practice and I've just got a basic soldering iron... but I watched the YT videos and understood exactly what I was trying to achieve.  I got the fancy AMASS adapters with the plastic shroud rather than the cheap ones.  Cut off the Tamiyas, tinned the wires, tinned the connectors, and joined 'em up - made sure the solder was kept reasonably small and tidy to avoid any short circuits... job done.   Definitely got the +ve and -ve leads the right way around!

And then I plugged in the Titan into the AK.  Nada.  Zilch.  Nowt.
Oh sod it, how did I mess that up?
Connected the Titan to the M906.  Still zilch.  Ah, must be out of charge.  Perhaps because I left it in the gun for the first time overnight.

Charger won't charge it.    (ASG Smart Charger, Life/Lipo (and therefore Li-Ion compatible), sold to me by Patrolbase)   Keeps flashing the green light, won't go to steady red.

 

Shizzle.   Plug in one of those little LED displays I got from Amazon.  At first I thought it showed nothing.  But it actually was showing a very faint 'A'.

 

Eventually after praying / plugging battery into charger in a cycle for a few times, the charger decided to show signs of life: Alternate flashing the primary power charger indicator, and flashing the 3S indicator.

After an hour or so, I checked the Amazon monitor again.   Ahah!  Warning beeps and actual voltages shown.    Plugged back into charger ... repeat.

 

But after a long while I thought I'd try the Titan in a gun again.  Still nothing.   On the monitor I got *2* cells, one at 1.90v and the other at 2.04.

The charger still shows 3S.

 

So I seem to have a knackered Titan.  
The question is - has the gun knackered it somehow?  When I plug in one of my old 8.4v1600mAH Nimh batteries the gun does the mosfet vibrate to show power, but sometimes it won't fire in semi auto, I need to shift it to full auto.  Perhaps insufficient juice coming through?  Jostling the cabling (which I haven't meddled with on this gun / battery, but includes a Deans to small Tamiya cable) can make the power vibration occur again.  So perhaps a bad contact in the guns' cabling?  Or has the mosfet thrown a wobbly?

Connecting the (Tamiya > Deans adapter) Li-Po to the AK seems to work fine, so I'm leaning that way.
But I've not had any problems with the M906 until today, running either the Titan or my Big Foot 7.4v Li-Po.  

I'm scunnered.  Any thoughts?

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by RostokMcSpoons

[Lozart]

My immediate thoughts  - you have a bad solder joint on your connections. 

[EDcase]

Yep, if wiggling cables makes the vibration occur then there's a dodgy connection somewhere.  The problem is finding it.

 

If you'll be doing more soldering its worth getting some soldering flux.

It helps the solder flow better and makes is so much easier to get a good join.

Edited November 20, 2021 by EDcase

[RostokMcSpoons]

Is there any chance I've used bad solder?  It's just the stuff I had in my tool box from years ago...

 

Maplins lead free solder, Sn 99.3%, Cu 0.7%

 

Hmmm.. I forgot to mention I put a Deans on the charger leads too, so if the solder(ing) is bad that would be why I can't get charge into the Titan now

Edited November 20, 2021 by RostokMcSpoons

[Lozart]

16 hours ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Is there any chance I've used bad solder?  It's just the stuff I had in my tool box from years ago...

 

Maplins lead free solder, Sn 99.3%, Cu 0.7%

 

Hmmm.. I forgot to mention I put a Deans on the charger leads too, so if the solder(ing) is bad that would be why I can't get charge into the Titan now

 

Show us your solder joints. 

[Shamal]

Ooer bit forward.

I don't show my shoulder joints to just anyone unless I've had a meal and a few drinkies first. Lol

😉

[Lozart]

15 minutes ago, Shamal said:

Ooer bit forward.

I don't show my shoulder joints to just anyone unless I've had a meal and a few drinkies first. Lol

😉

 

Trip to specsavers due soon?

[RostokMcSpoons]

Haha, you boys... 😆

 

Ok so the good news is I managed to get through the whole day with...

1) my big foot 1300 mAH lipo which lasted maybe 2/3 of the day

2) the Titan.  Yup it recovered enough to keep me going for the last part of the day, based on an hour and a half plugged into a site charger during setup and briefing before play.

 

Thank feck for that!

 

So I think the battery itself is ok, the cabling in the gun is ok. I'll get those pics for you... Once I've levered myself out of this hot bath...

 

[AirSniper]

On 20/11/2021 at 22:45, RostokMcSpoons said:

Is there any chance I've used bad solder?  It's just the stuff I had in my tool box from years ago...

 

Maplins lead free solder, Sn 99.3%, Cu 0.7%

 

Hmmm.. I forgot to mention I put a Deans on the charger leads too, so if the solder(ing) is bad that would be why I can't get charge into the Titan now

Lead free solder is a big problem, mainly because it produces poor joints and what is refereed to as dry joints.

Here are some fluxes I use.

Kalifornia - cleaning the tip of the iron. Made from real ROSIN...

Pasta do Lutowania - which is a paste in a tin that is made out of the Kalifornia stuff
WODA Lutownicza - for very difficult metals like the ali wires that chinesuim sellers palm the west off with...
Topnik TK83 - great for any wire and PCB, the one I use most of.
AG Kwas Lutowniczy - a silver based flux or flux for silver, I use this on difficult metals that WODA Lutownicza or Topnik TK83 doesn't work with.

IN ALL CASES NOTE THAT THESE FLUXES REQUIRE SPECIAL HANDLING as they are all toxic and are corrosive and a couple are going to pose a serious respiratory problem as in lung damage, so you need to be in a well ventilated space with a fan blowing the fumes outdoors or under a soldering hood or a face mask with open ventillation. ALSO WEARING GLOVES as they are corrosive besides pretty toxic.

Suggest that you also buy LEAD SOLDER, it is still available but be careful as many chinese sellers hook people with LEAD SOLDER when its actually the lead free stuff. What you need is the Sn60Pb40 mix for a good all rounder.

 

Solder iron... what do you use? If its your common or garden variety type like you see in home depot or B&Q or similar, then you should buy yourself a temperature controlled one, I got one on eBay for £12 and goes up to 450 degrees Celsius. Many irons do not have great thermal dynamics and can be too hot and you risk cooking the board layers or a component or even unintentionally introducing too much heat and some SMD's may have "Floated" from their posts and now produce a short or bad signal. Temperature control is as important as soldering technique.

Good luck sorting it out...

[Iceni]

1 hour ago, AirSniper said:

Kalifornia - cleaning the tip of the iron. Made from real ROSIN

I use this, it can be dissolved into isopropanol to make a liquid flux. If you are dissolving it you can make any strength you want. Clean up is also done with isopropanol after the solder is complete. Trying to clean it up with water is tedious as it's tree sap resin. On a good joint it'll often pool up well and can be flicked off with the tip of a scalpel.

 

 

1 hour ago, AirSniper said:

Suggest that you also buy LEAD SOLDER, it is still available but be careful as many chinese sellers hook people with LEAD SOLDER when its actually the lead free stuff. What you need is the Sn60Pb40 mix for a good all rounder.

60/40 is a good all rounder but 63/37 is true eutectic and doesn't have a mushy phase going almost directly from a liquid to a solid. 60/40 in contrast has a very short mushy phase that you have the be careful to observe on large parts that hold heat, When it's setting you have to make sure the parts can't move during this phase as it'll give you bad joints. The main difference in the 2 is 63/37 wets out a little better and gives a brighter joint. Both will eat copper based soldering tips on cheap irons.

I use both solders, but on deans I tend to go for the 63/37 as the connectors have a lot of mass. Getting a big enough tip on the iron is also essential you need either enough power or enough heat and mass in the iron to be able to solder as quickly as possible without putting too much heat into the deans. If you don't get the power/heat/mass right you'll end up having to hold the tip for a long time, and the deans will begin to melt.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Iceni

[RostokMcSpoons]

Blimey I hadn't realised there was quite so much in this soldering lark.

I'll get a couple of pics posted today.. at some point.. but as a general 'thang', if my solder is (to use a technical term) 'a bit shit' then maybe I've been guilty of using too much, and there's consequently a deal of it between the Deans terminals and the wire.  Given the whole 'tinning' process I thought that would actually be considered a good thing?

 

 

[Lozart]

1 hour ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

Blimey I hadn't realised there was quite so much in this soldering lark.

I'll get a couple of pics posted today.. at some point.. but as a general 'thang', if my solder is (to use a technical term) 'a bit shit' then maybe I've been guilty of using too much, and there's consequently a deal of it between the Deans terminals and the wire.  Given the whole 'tinning' process I thought that would actually be considered a good thing?

 

 

 

It's a bit more tricky than that, this is a good indication though:

 

[Adolf Hamster]

ITT: people who'd have an aneurism if they saw me soldering

[RostokMcSpoons]

Those pics prove I'm clueless then, cos I can't see much difference!  There's a few stray strands of copper in one of the bad images, but I was well aware to avoid chance of short circuits so I kept it as tidy as I could with as little exposed wire as possible.

 

I've bought one of those multi-adapters to banana plugs off Amazon to use on my charger.   



But I'm intending to change my Li-Po and two Nimh batteries to Deans so I've still got some soldering to do!

Oh yeah, regarding the pics of my existing soldering...
I found taking the AMASS shroud off the Deans on the charger cable was hard work and involved a couple of pairs of pliers and some physical force.  I'm not going to do that to my AK as the leads are very short, there's not much room to work with, and it's working fine already.  

The charging cable one.. ok, hands-up looks like I didn't do so well.  One of the wires was secure, but more 'on top' of the solder rather than buried under it.  Looks like that was the issue. 

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by RostokMcSpoons
Mea culpa

[EDcase]

You should get some heat shrink tubing

Great for covering and protecting joints.  Also good to keep two or more wires together.

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by EDcase

[RostokMcSpoons]

17 minutes ago, EDcase said:

You should get some heat shrink tubing

Great for covering and protecting joints.  Also good to keep two or more wires together.

 

I've got some heat shrink tubing already (came with some cheap extra Deans connectors I bought), but with these AMASS connectors it's not needed, the plastic shroud takes care of keeping the bare parts of the wires isolated:

 

edit:  5 pairs male / female connectors for £7   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Non-slip-T-style-Connector-Wireless-Adapter/dp/B08RTWV8G5/ref=sr_1_8

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by RostokMcSpoons

[EDcase]

Oh yes, those are nice.  Haven't seen those before.  They're slightly bigger than the cheapo Deans connectors but nice grip surface.

[Hatchet]

2 hours ago, EDcase said:

Oh yes, those are nice.  Haven't seen those before.  They're slightly bigger than the cheapo Deans connectors but nice grip surface.

 

I've started using those as well. Went with XT60's for ages, but I find deans easier to re-use. The Amass ones are easier to grip but they're also easier to pull apart anyway (but still hold well). I still heat shrink the connectors though.

 

My soldering skills are massively crap too (as in, "how is the table on fire and the connectors have melted but the fucking solder is still a solid!"), but an adjustable temp one has helped a bit.

[Jacob Wright]

It’s definitely a skill that you can improve on, I used to be shocking but after a few months of practice my solder joints are now neat and strong! Patience is the key!

[Rogerborg]

On 22/11/2021 at 07:49, Iceni said:

ou'll end up having to hold the tip for a long time, and the deans will begin to melt.

 

I solder Deans with the connectors paired together, and with the far terminal clamped in a pair of surgical forceps to help with heat distribution and dissipation. 

[Lozart]

I used to do this kind of stuff for a living (many moons ago) and soldering is definitely a skill you can improve with practice. A temperature controlled iron is well worth it but get a decent one with enough wattage to solder the things you're trying to work with - 30W ish should do the job well. You want something that can heat the joint surfaces quickly enough that you're not going to get a "cold" joint but not so hot that you just melt everything!

 

Lead free solder is fine as long as you use the right soldering tips and work at the right temperature. A solder sucker is worth it's weight in gold for those moments when you've been a bit cack handed and have to start again.

 

Pre-tin the cable and connector before you start and get a decent blob of properly flowed solder on the connector. Hold the two together then apply some more heat with maybe a small bit of extra solder and away you go.

[RostokMcSpoons]

My soldering iron is also from Maplins and just has a very pointy tip to it.  It is a pain to get heat into anything other than the solder itself.
I'll buy a better one off eBay or Amazon

 

edit: is this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Preciva-Temperature-Adjustable-Electrical-Maintenance/dp/B08CKXJMKT/ref=sr_1_12 good enough?  That includes multiple tips, a stand, tweezers, the de-solder pump... and a multi-meter for the princely sum of £17.50

Edited November 23, 2021 by RostokMcSpoons

[AirSniper]

Also good to get is a set of thermal sinks for small parts that carry heat, you can get stainless and aluminium, they are like tweezers... with that, a set of insulated tweezers to help when soldering and one of these soldering iron tip cleaners is invaluable... Dip your tip in the rosin and then the cleaner and a nice clean tip....

[Rogerborg]

3 hours ago, RostokMcSpoons said:

is this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Preciva-Temperature-Adjustable-Electrical-Maintenance/dp/B08CKXJMKT/ref=sr_1_12 good enough?

 

That's what I use, or a rebranded equivalent.  Works for me, and had a decent variety of tips.  That's a decent price for that whole package, everything you need to get going, although a set of helping hands... helps.

[ImTriggerHappy]

Best all round soldering iron you can get is one of these

 

https://www.tooled-up.com/weller-8100udk-expert-soldering-gun-kit/prod/12425/https://www.tooled-up.com/weller-8100udk-expert-soldering-gun-kit/prod/12425/

 

I never use my full soldering station anymore as these are so good.