Dude, this is EXACTLY what I was looking for! I was worried that the XT60s and 14AWG wires I've used on my drone wouldn't be sufficient for handling bursts over 60 amps, but you've clearly proven otherwise. Thanks!
Well thank you. I will keep it up, as soon as the university lifts the lockdown and I regain access to the laboratory we use for the tests 🤷♀️. Next up: Everything you need to know about the adorably tiny BT 2.0 connector, that's been waiting on my desk for 3 weeks now :/
200amps appeared to melt the solder joints on the Deans Ultras a little sooner than the solder joints on the XT60's. Looks like a case for heavier duty high quality solderless crimped connectors.
I wonder how the Anderson Power Pole would compare. Power Poles seem to get resistive over a time and then get intermittent, but a current test when new would be interesting in comparison to Deans and xt60.
Good info there. I'm coming back to R/C after say 10 years, and I'm a bit lost to the various electric connectors now. I used to wire all my propulsion batteries and electric motor controller with PK gold connectors (PK 4mm) seems I will have to redo all of that using the more common XT60 or XT90 connectors now, expecially because I'm out for a new charger system. (I'm leaning toward a ISDT P30 and 6060 supply)
Damn this is a really good video. This is exactly what I needed to see. Building a 7" quad with a 200a 4in1 and was worried about desoldering. Using a shorter 10awg wire as a pigtail would dissipate more heat and help to avoid issues I'm assuming by these results.
What alloy of solder was used? Wasn't in video or notes. For cabling, I prefer to use lead-free 99.3 / 0.7 Sn-Cu with 3% rosin flux (1 mm dia.), which melts at 227°C, roughly 25% higher than 63 / 37 Sn-Pb at 183°C. They both are eutectic (unlike 60 / 40 Sn-Pb and 99 / 0.7 / 0.3 Sn-Cu-Ag), which helps prevent 'cold-solder' joints.
I'm curious to why a solder connection was chosen over crimp in the design of these? Re-use? With the potential of de-soldering and also mechanical connection being seen as a better stronger connection, less corrosion, etc it's weird to me that these are solder only plugs. For example in high current situations a hydraulic crimp is always seen as superior.
Since these connectors were specifically designed with RC hobbies in mind, ease on installation must have been an important factor. Crimped connectors are, as you say, pretty much better in every way, but the required crimping tools are expensive - but soldering irons are cheap and every RC enthusiast already has one. The risk of de-soldering isn't even that big of an issue. Solder melts at a higher temperature than what the nylon plastic of the connector housing, or the silicone of the wire isolation are rated to. So even if the crimped connector would survive such a high temperature event, the wire and the connector itself wouldn't. Corrosion and vibration resistance are valid points though, but I guess that is worth the tradeoff of being able to service the connector with no extra tools.
XT60 is NOT rated at 60A continuous, it's rated at 30A continuous. 0:48 shows MC of 60A, where the Chinese caption says "Instantaneous current" (MC = Max Current), whereas the Chinese caption for RC says Rated Current, and that value is 30A.
I have a question pertaining to my bluetti eb55. Can I use a xt60 adapter with a 5.5x2.1mm..then connect it to a 5.5x2.1 adapter on my solar panel..which is 120 watt....can I safety use these adapters. Thank you for your response
You need to make a hole(like inserting a small screwdriver) in the female xt60 when your xt60 pair feels loose, helped me a lot. This method could save you from power cycles in midflight and possibly save your kwad in air
I continue to use Deans and bullet connectors for my smaller propeller type RC model planes not needing more than 30 amps. I'm using adapters for models that come with XT-60's to work with my Lipos with Deans female connectors
Too bad indeed. Though the crimping tool would have to be quite massive - like this one for the Anderson SB175 connector: powerwerx.com/hex-crimping-tool-sb-series-powerpole
Is there a straight wire connecter that can handle the watts/amps of a xt60? Sort of, if you could cut a xt60 in half, allowing each wire to move independently. Backstory: I bought a board, has to be assembled. Can't connect the battery to the Controller Box as the xt60 is too large to make it through the cable hole connector. They told me that I need to clip off the xt60, run it through, then somehow reattach. Thanks.
I'm finding my XT60 with 14AWG wire gets quite hot while drawing continuous 40amps. Is 80deg C too hot or is that to be expected? The silicone insulation is rated quite a lot higher temperature but I am a little bit concerned about the possibility of a melt down.
80C is about what I'd expect from 14AWG at a continuous 40A load.We got 70C under 60A (50% more load) but with a 12AWG wire (50% larger cross section ) and with a tiny amount of airflow (slow fan). That 80C won't be harmful to the wire or the connector, but if you want to reduce the operating temperature for your own comfort, a 12AWG would give you about 60C. After all the XT60 with an 12AWG has an "official" continuous rating of only 30A. The "60" in the name comes from the 60A unspecified "maximum current".
@@dronelab1280 thanks. That helps a lot gives me some confidence. I didn't know about the continuous Amp load limit (wow) I will go for a bigger wire size anyway I think. Thanks again.
It goes all the way up to 600A! XT90 is in the pipeline, thought there are 1-2 things queued up before it. We already did the test on it, and the supply did manage to desolder it :D
I have an question about this. When it says it can handle like 180A for about 10 seconds, at which Voltage are these tests be done? Bec it makes an difference if im at 1 Volt and 200A what would be 200Watt or at 5V and 200A what would be 1000W. Can you explain me why they(manufactors) are only telling the Current and not the max Voltage allowed? Thank you
It's a bit counter intuitive, but the voltage does not matter in this case. The connector or wire is in essence connected in series with whatever device you are powering thought them, and only a portion of the voltage transferred to the end device is dropped across the connector itself. As the connector is a purely resistive load, that dropped voltage depends only on the current flowing (V=I*R), and the power dissipated on the connector itself is therefore only tied to the current (P=I²R) as well. It only takes 20-30W to melt that connector, but it can transfer 2000W of power to an end device, as long as less than 20W of that power is lost across the connector itself. And the higher the current, the less efficient the transfer, and the more power is heating up the connector. This is why long distance power lines are at a very high voltage (200,000V and more) - so a lot of power can be transferred without having a very thick (and expensive) wire. Officially the XT60 is rated to 500V, but that wouldn't be safe to handle by hand. In our tests, we never applied more than 0.5V - that's more than enough to melt a connector, if you have the right current.
is there a way to differentiate between different xt60 connectors? My batteries and drones come with ones that fit great... but anytime I buy like an extension cable on amazon or ebay, they fit impossibly tight to the point of being un usable.
Is there an adapter to plug my xt60 down to an xt30? Or to an xt30 up to an xt60? Some of my quads 4s micro quads use xt30 and xt60, and I have batteries for both so it would be amazing if there was some kind of down sized or upsized xt30/60 connector I could use to plug and use my xt60 battery to use in my xt30 pigtail on my quad
Yes! You can even easily solder one together, with the two connectors you want and a short piece of cable (preferably AWG16 silicone). You could skip the cable and solder the connectors directly to one another, thought that's a bit more tricky to make. And if you don't have the tools, banggood sells such adapters. Note that this setup will always have the maximum current of the XT30 connector (60A for
How do these connectors handle higher voltage at the same current? If I was to use an XT-60 connector for a 48V (54.6V peak) at a 30A continuous load, would the XT-60 still hold up?
It will hold up no problem. The voltage plays no role in the load on the connector, so as long as you are below the isolation limit of the connector (500V) it will handle it.
Maybe you got the XT60PB-F? It's the PCB mount version of the XT60, intended to be through hole soldered onto a PCB. I wouldn't use it with a wire, the solder joint won't be as good and secure as it should.
Couple of options: You can find some measured data on your motors with the propeller you are using - a youtube channel "EngineerX" does fantastic motor tests. Your current could also be limited by what your battery can supply - just take the capacity of the battery (in mAh), and multiply by its burst (or "peak") discharge rating (in "C"). Example: 1300mAh * 120C = 156000mA = 156A. Or, if you have a calibrated current sensor on your drone (some ESCs or PDBs have them) you can just take the reading from that.
If you look at the Amass datasheet, the XT60 is clearly rated at 30A continuous, 60A PEAK. The peak current rating is not continuous, but these are being sold as "60 amp" connectors when they are manufacturer-rated at 30A. Keep that in mind! They might be fine for 60A for a while, but are not rated for it continuously! The bigger XT90 ones, I believe are rated for 40A continuously, NOT 90A!
Thank you very much i was looking for this info. I was surprised hes testing it with a fan.. continuous rating is obtained in still air as far as i know, and 70C is wayy to much. For drones good but for everything else continuous rating is most important
It seem like there is some misunderstandings regarding the XT connector lineup in general. The number in the XT series correlates to its max continuous load according to their datasheets, HOWEVER many XT connectors are not made to the same standard as their rated loads and IMO often part suppliers will rate them at a lower Amp rating than nessisary for a saftey margin on defects and intentional corner cutting.
While the connector is in fact limited by the power in can dissipate, and that power is calculated from P = V * I, the "V" in this equation is the voltage dropped across the connector due to its electrical resistance, not the voltage between the two terminals. That voltage can be calculated from the contact resistance, using V = I * R. We measured the XT60 to have about 0.90mΩ of resistance total, so, the connector at 100A is dropping only 0.09V. Plugging this into P = V * I gives 9W of power that dissipated on the connector and heats it, potentially damaging it. All this happens while the connector can be delivering those 100A to its load at 20V or more - so 1000's of W of power. The voltage of the system plays no role in heating the connector. For the same reason voltages as high as 600,000V are used in power distribution networks - to push more power through the same conductors - and smilarily fast charging phones use higher voltages than the old 5V standard of the USB - to push more power thought the same thin USB wire.
Hello there, I am installing LEDs on a RC car and I am opting to use a secondary lipo battery. At the moment I haven’t found me the right switch that would be small enough and will be able to handle I say a half amp.(maybe you could point me in the right direction as far as the switch) The original reason for the comment was in a emergency situation what connector would be easier to separate as a disconnect with one hand Since the space is tight
Will run a 3s 500mah - no more than 1000mah battery. As far as a switch because of space I would like it is small as possible. If you have something in mind that be great
Do you know how much current the lights will take? If it's 0.5A or less, you can get away with a tiny switch like this one: www.tme.eu/se/en/details/s6p/slide-switches/ that you should be able to get in any electronics store. Lights don't usually take much power so that should be the case. And you can definitely use a smaller connector for that than an XT60. Any connector we featured on our channel so far will handle that amount of current with ease.
I can't find any definitive answer, I'm afraid, and the datasheets aren't very clear on the differences and the naming scheme. But I can tell you that at some point the connectors got a sheath that clicks on the back and protects the soldering point - that's something the XT60H and XT60+ have, but not the old original XT60 nor the XT60U. The "U", presumably meaning "upgraded" has drainage holes to prevent dirt from accumulating inside the connector, and has rounded edges, for a reason that I can't really figure out. In any case, they are all cross-compatible, even between a connector with rounded edges and straight edges, and I doubt there is any difference in power capabilities between them.
Nor I, no definite answer too. I've been looking for about an hour now. Yeah i believe theyre all rated at 60 amps. 😁 I was just wondering which is the best, like maybe more heat resistant (maybe the xt60h???) Xt60u is upgraded, unclear what the upgrade exactly is. Maybe the the xt60 plus just means that it has a cover? I dont really know. All's i know is, in the websites that sell it, xt60H is mostly black, and the rest are yellow.
Nor I, no definite answer too. I've been looking for about an hour now. Yeah i believe theyre all rated at 60 amps. 😁 I was just wondering which is the best, like maybe more heat resistant (maybe the xt60h???) Xt60u is upgraded, unclear what the upgrade exactly is. Maybe the the xt60 plus just means that it has a cover? I dont really know. All's i know is, in the websites that sell it, xt60H is mostly black, and the rest are yellow.
The 'H' doesn't seem to be 'heat', all the connectors have the same -20C to 120C rating. You can find their datasheets here: www.tme.eu/en/katalog/dc-power-connectors_112990/?mapped_params=416%3A1641370%3B The datasheet for the "H" has a picture of a "XT60+", so maybe that's the same thing?
Whoah there are a lot more xt60s than i could possibly need. I checked my past orders, i bought from an an online store once. It said on the description XT60 +, then I went and took a look at the plugs i have, it said XT60H. So i just realized that tonight. I guess they are the same.
The pins are very close to 3.5mm, although they are not designed to work with standard 3.5mm bullet connectors, so the connection isn't particularly reliable. I wouldn't recommend mating them with anything other than XT60s.
Yes, you might want to replace that t-dean there with an XT60. It will handle a bit more than the t-deans, and there is a ton of batteries of all shapes and sizes available with it. You do need a pretty decent soldering iron and *leaded* solder to put an XT60 on properly, though. The XT90 is probably overkill, but not many batteries come with it. Unless you are looking for some beastly huge batteries, like 5000mAh or bigger. We will have an XT90 video up this Thursday btw!
This would make it hold a bit longer, but even the leaded solder we used in these tests melts beyond 200°C, so there already is some long term damage to the nylon connector and silicone wire sleeve, and switching to ha higher melting point solder would make that damage more significant.
great video! Might be worth commenting that there are several makers of XT60 and some are definitely lower quality. Amass brand would be the standard and the original creator I think. That's the only type I'll use after experiencing some others.
Hobbyking is the original creator XT stands for HexTronics, the plug was built by hobbyking to avoid paying royalties to tamiya, deans and other proprietary plug makers. Its also open source so anyone can make it.
Can't recommend that. If that 120A really is the average current consumption when cruising, I'd recommend at least an XT90 and 10AWG wires. What kind of battery do you plan to use? Something like a 6s 6000mAh 30C?
Connectors and ampacity seem to be a funny topic. Certainly there needs to be some standards set for safety, but the reality seems to be that the connector itself, when properly mated with another, should be able to handle continuous amperage well beyond their rating. I don't really consider it when using a particular RC connector beyond what I have the most of at the time, or what I'm trying to just make a cross compatible kind of setup. I don't see much benefit in switching from an XT60 to like an EC5. The ESC's are probably coming with 12AWG anyway, so why is the concern over a small solid connector rather than wire that is only rated for 20A continuous? May be a different standard, but still a safety rating. I feel like when it comes to actual thermal failure, what's going to happen is the wires will desolder themselves from the connectors.
So can we safely assume that the connector can handle 120 Amps? You didn't mention the voltages in your tests, so do they not matter? I was looking to build a drone and saw a 60 Amp rating on the XT60 and freaked out. I noticed that batteries that can output more than 60 Amps still use XT60 so I suppose it is safe. Thank you for this video, it was very concise and crisp, liked the style.
Yes, the voltage (counter-intuitively) does not matter. The 60A rating is for continuous current with good airflow. You can exceed that limit for a limited time. We tested 180A to work for 10 seconds, so you should be able to push 120A for longer than 10 seconds, but not continuously. How long exactly will depend strongly on the thickness of wires used, airflow and ambient temperature, but you can expect that to be somewhere in the 30-60 second range.
@@dronelab1280 Thank you so much for replying, it's just the maximum Amperage for my drone's oversized motors, they make 4kg+ of lift at 4S 32 Amps according to the manufacturer and my drone weights about 400-500gms, I'll most likely never push the drone that hard because I won't need to. But I like having the ability to lift a small child anyways XD.
Yeah, it held 180A for 10 seconds, so 120a for 3 seconds will not be a problem. Just make sure you are using thick enough wires, AWG12 or AWG10. The voltage (and with that, transfered power) does not matter.
Nice video. Is the resistance difference between the dean and XT primarily on the wire-to-tab? Is the flat tab-to-tab connection of the deans higher resistance than the rounded blades of XT (eliminating the desoldering factor)? Thanks.
We mounded our resistance probes in front of the wire-to-tab solder point, so we only measured the resistance on the connector mating - this way the quality of our solder job did not affect the measurements, but we do not know what the resistance of the wire-to-connector point is. The "solder cup" on the XT60 has potential to be better, but I don't think it makes a significant difference. The surface area of the 2mm brass cylinder is a bit larger than the 4mm flat prong of the t-deans so I guess that's the reason. On top of that, the spring of the negative contact in the T-Deans creates a perpendicular rotating force that might be twisting the positive contact out of alignment, whereas the cylindrical connectors of the XT60 have independent springing action.
Thank you good to know. I took calipers to a 5mm brass cylinder (for typical lipo battery connector for rc cars), one end is 5.26 and the other is 4.85. When put inside a tube, I suspect not all the surface area are mating to each other? If I look at the wear, seems only 40% of the length is worn out (or making a connection). Whereas the dean where the entire flat prong can slide on top of each other, and I see wear on the entire flat blade? Surprised there was a big difference in resistance when deans utilizes all the surface area and XT maybe only 40%. How about maintenance, easier to clean the tabs of dean rather than XT?
@@rccartips The surface area of that cylinder is just so much more bigger when you "unroll" it, that even if some of it doesn't make contact, overall the connection is better. We never made any proper maintenance and wear tests, so we only have anecdotal information to work with. I've sure seen XT60s that lost their springiness, I even saw one that came loose, started to spark and caused a painful crash. But I've also heard about a lot of people having similar issues with the t-deans. Most battery manufacturers now moved to the XT-series connectors, so you are picking a connector now, and that's already enough of a reason to use it. Add the lower contact resistance (at least when new), and the super nice solder cups, and it definitely gets our recommendation over the t-deans.
A strong 1407, like a BrotherHobby T1, with an aggressive prop can pull as much as 20A. That, times four motors gives 80A - a little too much to be on the safe side. You can find thrust tests for that motor here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hGMDdels79Y.html&ab_channel=EngineerX. With 16AWG wires that aren't too long, good airflow and when keeping the punches short, it would probably work, but I think it is not worth the risk of the wire desoldering mid-flight. On top of that, you'd probably want at least a 800mAh battery, and those tend to come with XT60s. Replacing battery connectors is quite a hassle. If you pick a slightly less aggressive prop, and find some batteries that come with XT30s, you can go with that instead.
Hey man I recently got a GepRc baby croc lr and it’s using a xt30 for power and I accidentally got 1500mah batteries with an xt60 connector . So I guess my question is can I use an adaptor to safely operate my drone??
Yes. If the drone comes with an XT30 connector, and your XT60 battery is the same voltage as recommended for that drone, you can safely use an adaptor. The other way around would be dangerous, but this way is totally safe.
That speaker wire needs to have a cross section of 2mm² or more (=AWG 14 or less) to run the charger at full power. If you don't intend to charge batteries at the full 300W, you can get away with a somewhat thinner wire - a 0.5mm² wire will handle 120W, for example.
@dronelab thank you so much for responding! I think I should use the high power since I'll be buying another extra lipo batteries someday for now I only have 1pc 4s 1300maH CHNL Lipo, should I buy and use the 14 Awg silicone wire?
People put bigger connectors thinking smaller will melt because of the ESC being 130A rated fact is it probably never draws that much a lipo cannot be drawn that much i think so xt60 shouldn't melt on a 2x3s setup or 1x6s on a kraton 6s for say
That depends on how much current the motor pulls. As long as its under 60A (so a 2880W motor at that voltage), you should be fine. Under 30A (1440W) you are definitely fine.
Hobbyking.com is the safest bet since they are the designers of this connector. We never had issues buying form reputable vendors, your friendly local RC model store should be fine. Just avoid random eBay or Amazon listings.
@@dronelab1280 Thanks for the info. I'll be buying my XT60 connectors from Hobbyking. Videos & comments like yours is what I find so informative/interesting about youtube. Someone else recommended Powerwerx the original designer/maker of Anderson Powerpole connectors. Will Prowse recommended suppliers for wires & other electrical tools. I'd never heard or known about adhesive inside heat shrink tubing, which I now have, until I watched his video. Warm Regards from Reno, Nevada.
To get the full capacity of the XT60 (180A for up to 10 seconds) , you need AWG12. A thinner wire will fail before the connector fails, for example an AWG14 will go up to 120A for 10 seconds, and a AWG16 up to 90A. So if you know that your peak current is 120A, it's perfectly fine to use AWG14.
@@dronelab1280 thank you! For additional information I'll be using I'll be using plugs for airsoft though normally awg 16-18, and my battery is just a 3s 1.2v, 15-25c. Should I just stick to xt30 (btw I saw your vid about them) or just go xt60. Also, I have a lot of xt60 and got no xt30 as of the moment..
Yes, an xt30 would be enough for that, but you might as well use an xt60 if you have them on hand. The is no drawback to using the bigger connector (except for weight, but i doubt you care about 4g of extra weight)
Thanks, that was useful info, but when do you speak of conventions for polarity and also use of male and female connector (battery/load)? Sorry, I'm a noob, but the title does say "everything you need to know"...
We might have been a bit too eager to cut the video as short as possible, yes :) For the polarity, the connectors have tiny "+" and "-" markings moulded into the plastic. As for the battery/load connection, the common sense practise of "the side that can't be shorted with screwdriver goes onto the battery" is followed. That means the end with the exposed metal pins (male) goes on the load, and the female goes on the battery.
