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[CERES]

  :-)First of all I would like to wish all the Mayhemers out there a very happy new year and to espress my thanks to those who have sent to me words of wisdom in respect of my questions as they have helped this old codger on his learning curve with R/C.

New for 2009 is this:- The limited number of boats built either scratch or kit have been fitted with the Tornado Type flat battery that comes with a Tamiya fitting. My ESC is Viper and in order to connect up to the motor I then purchase Gold Connectors, use the pair out of the packet to suit the ESC and put the rest of the fittings that com in a draw as simply do not know what to do with them.

Now, I have just started to build the M.V. Emily May that appeared in plan form in Model Boats 2007. However I have increased the paln size by 20% to give overall length of 3ft. I shall be using a 555 motor as suggested in the write-up.
Can anybody give me some ideas as to using another form of battery and connectors and also what does one do with all the bits & pieces that have left over as mentioned above.

Look forward to your usual excellent response. Ceres.

[andrewh]

Ceres,
You will have to wait a little longer for the excellent response, but here is mine anyway

I presume you connect your battery cells in ceres?

Most boats are very low-current devices so any convenient type of connector is OK.  Tamiya connectors are fine up to about 20 Amps continuous, are very safe to use (they basically can't be reversed).

All my radio gear has to move around from plane to plane and from boat to boat.  My marine ESCs are fitted with a screw connector (cut from a slice of "banana block" electrical connectors) on the motor wires so that I can easily change them and the motors from boat to boat, and also easily reverse the connections to get the motor running the right way

I use 2-wide slices of this
You could easily use Tamiya connectors on your ESC, and/or you could fit screw connectors to the ESC leads and screw the cable of a Tamiya connector to them to connect to the battery.

If you go to lead-acid battery (also known as SLA or Gel-cell) which has spade terminals you need a pair of female spade terminals (also known as push-on or Lucar connectors) and if you have the screw connector on your ESC you can connect these to the screw connector, or you can crimp the female spade terminals to the end of the ESC input wires (THIS IS ONE TO GET THE POLARITY RIGHT!)

All the connectors including Tamiya are available as "bits" to make up as you want, or as pre-assembled leads with lengths of wire - standardising on Tamiya is a perfectly good idea - they can be used both on the battery-to - ESC leads and on the ESC to motor leads.
As a footnote I don't like the stiff PVC wire that comes with the bought leads, so I make up my own with silicone wire soldered into the metal plugs and sockets.  I also chop off the little locking tongues on the outside of the connectors - they stay together well enough without and I have destroyed planes by appyling too much force separating the connectors
I've rambled on with a lot of words - I hope some of it helps

Please ask more - the excellent answers will be along shortly
PM me if I can help practically
andrew
 

[CERES]

 )Andrew,
This is what I class as an excellent response and your suggestions have gone a long way in helping me. Just the biz as they say. Thanks again, Bernard.