Getting the factory wires off your ESC

[klavy69]

I feel as though I'm going to apply too much heat and damage the esc somehow, is that possible?

Like Reggie says it can happen. If your iron is working right that heat is going somewhere besides right to the solder so its kinda iffy. You touch the board more than the wire and it gets transfered thru the board to the next item in line and poof. I'm not a master solderer and tried doing a repair on one of my old esc and it happened just that way...but then it was broke when I got it and the ebay seller stated installed but never ran (but thats for a different part of the forum )
Good luck.
Todd

[vintage AE]

The part about the heat being transfered to the wrong place is what I'm worried about. I haven't even done anything with this one, it is just out of the box, so I kinda don't want to play around too much. For me, when ever I fool around without success I always end up with something unusable

My wife suggested painting the wires if I wanted them to match the colour scheme

[jwscab]

the problem is that the solder is probably lead-free which takes more heat, and it pretty much garbage. flowing in some lead solder alloys it and lowers the liquid transition temp, as well as adds flux that makes everything nice and flowy.

if you think the overall heat is the problem, definitely clip the wires down to less than 1/4" then try. Flow some fresh solder on the iron, and stick it on the pcb, then it should heat in 5 seconds or so. more than that can cause damage.

if you can stick the board on the edge of a bench and weigh it down, you can gently pull the wires down out of the board while heating from the top.

[klavy69]

My wife suggested painting the wires if I wanted them to match the colour scheme

next time she needs a different color of the same shoe/clothing item just remind her of what she said

You might be getting lucky and the heavy guage wire is acting like a heat sink and pulling up into the wire. For some reason I'm thinkin you aren't getting the heat you are thinking you are getting out of the iron. If you do like jwscab said the wire won't suck up all the heat...
Todd

[vintage AE]

I snipped them off and now I'm going to solder them from the top and cross my fingers

[klavy69]

try heating them up and removing the rest of the wire now before soldering more on. Try like jwscab said and let us know how it worked. Even with low heat you should be able to get the little pieces of wire out now...hopefully.
Todd

[vintage AE]

I tried heating them up again, but had no luck.

It's far from pretty, but it's done for these four wires

I will probably attempt this again to make it look better later on

Now, what colour to paint that yellow one? I'm thinking black, orange or blue. In case anyone is wondering, the scheme is a Gulf Racing theme with blue and orange.

[klavy69]

black

+1

[shirochanwrx]

just throw it away and get a different speedo. that's what H.P. Freak would do.

This cracked me up.

[vintage AE]

black

+1

I agree, black it is!

That yellow one came out on the third try, so tomorrow I just might try again on the battery leads.

[Alex B]

I snipped them off and now I'm going to solder them from the top and cross my fingers

DSCN7157.jpg

You could run a small drill bit through the holes, gradually increasing the size until you get close to the diameter of the solder hole. I used this method on my speed passion brushless motor to clean up the holes that the motor wires are soldered to.

I use bits that I can attach to a small screwdriver (hex drive).

[Coelacanth]

I'm still tugging on the wires, but not getting anywhere with it.

Try pushing the wires through instead, maybe. Strip off some of the silicon sheath and heat the solder point, then push the wires through. If it's indeed snipped off on the underside and not pulling through, maybe a push from the opposite direction will get it through enough so you can snip it off.

[vintage AE]

yup, did that this morning with no luck.

Later I'm daring to break out the Dremel

[jwscab]

they HAVE to be un-solderable. even with lead free solder.

I don't know the exact iron you have, if it's a pencil-type with a small nickel plated copper tip, you might need to clean it up, with some scotchbrite or xacto blade scraping. the junction has alot of oxidation and not allowing your iron to reach full temp.

either that, or you just aren't holding enough iron on there long enough.

save drilling for a last resort. if you ruin the via (plated hole) you SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the current handling of the pcb.

[Mr. ED]

Almost sounds like they're using silver solder.
Before you go drilling: use a solder pump to get as much of the solder out as you can.