Reddit reviews LHI 2PCS WRA0053 XT60 Male W/14awg Silicon Wire 10cm

Take it step by step, once the Motors and ESCs are all Soldered together and to the PDB its less intimidating. I felt the same way when I first laid everything out and now I have a working Quad and feel like I could build another with my eyes closed.

One thing that it looks like you may be missing is a battery connector for the PDB like [ this ] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012IQ7AJ2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

Last attempt at copy pasting the original comment.

Looking to add lights to your bike that run off the existing battery pack for way less than electric bike specific lights? Especially when electric bike specific lights, are typically lame, 1-4 LED dated looking Chinese lights.

I'm going to show you how I added 2 - 7 LED Ultrafire U-L2 bike lights to my bike for less than $100. Do not use these lights on the road, they are extremely bright, and rated at 4000 Lumens each.

You can, however, buy the converter, and some lower power bike lights, or a single light even for even less money.

The first thing you are going to need is the converter. Its $21. This thing will take just about any pack voltage in, and output anywhere between 1v and 30v. Adjustable with a screw. Handles up to 3A

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9S5QNC/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1450034772&sr=1&keywords=adjustable+step+down+converter

The next thing you are going to need is a light, these are the ones I used, they're $46. http://www.dx.com/p/ultrafire-u-l2-7-x-cree-xm-l2-t6-3-mode-4000lm-cool-white-bike-light-black-4-x-18650-241291#.Vm3Gr_krKUk

You are also going to need some things I assume you already have like solder, and a soldering iron. Maybe some heatshrink tubing to clean things up a bit. Maybe one of these so you can disconnect the lights.

http://www.amazon.com/LHI-2PCS-WRA0053-12awg-Silicon/dp/B012IQ7AJ2/ref=sr117?ie=UTF8&qid=1450035007&sr=8-17-spons&keywords=wire+connector+14ga&psc=1

So the little blue converter, has a green clip that comes out. You are going to need to splice into your battery's output cables, and run some new smaller cable out to the inputs of the green clips. Then you want to wire one end of the disconnect to the green clip, and the other to your lights.

I ended up just wiring both lights together, then into the disconnect, and then into the clips.

At this point you should have a disconnect coming out of the green clip, and the other going straight to your battery. The converter should not be attached to your clip yet. Plug the converter in, and measure voltage at the disconnect. Turn the CV screw on the converter until you get 7V. Now plug your light(s) in and you are good to go.

NOTES

If you run 14 Cree LEDs off this thing like I am you will be at the very end of the converters capability at 3A. It's going to get super hot, hot enough to melt plastic and potentially damage anything it touches. You will need to upgrade the cooling capacity. I attached an old intel heatsink I had with some zip ties, it keeps it cool enough that you can touch it and warm up your hands. This is only needed if you plan on running 14LEDS on high, for periods longer than a couple minutes. It has no problem with both on low, or 1 on high, 1 on low. If I had some thermal paste lying around I would have used it.

A COOL FEATURE

The ultrafire lights I have, have this cool feature of changing the color of the button on the back of them based on the voltage going in to them. They go from Green to Blue to Red to Flashing Red to let you know how much charge you have left in the packs they came with. You can set them up to change color with your battery pack. For example if my pack has a full charge at 58.4V, and I want the lights to turn red when I hit 48V I set it to like 7.4V at full charge so that at 48V it will put out 5.4V. These are estimates not exact numbers, you will have to math, if you cannot math I may or may not math for you at a later date.

Another note about that feature. Light output is not effected by input voltage into the light, and the higher the voltage you put into them the hotter the blue converter is gonna get.

Here's a video I did of the lights a while ago running them off the supplied battery packs. They typically only lasted for 45 minutes before the packs died, hooked to an ebike battery they last for as long as you want to ride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTMVEObSdxg

Is it possible? Yes. Is it a good idea? You're an adult, you be the judge!

Flexible 100w solar panels weigh about 5 lbs and are about 2' by 4'. Their maximum power is produced at about 17v, so you'll need a CC/CV MPPT charge controller that can boost the voltage into the 50v range. You can find the Ming He mpt-7210a for $25-35. You'll need one of these for every 10 amps of electricity produced by the panels, but you can easily wire 2 panels in series to double the voltage/halve the amperage, I think you could wire four panels in a 2p/2s configuration and get 300 watts into your battery in full sun. Here are a couple of videos you'll want to check out, since the instructions are inadequate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM6JTquNSZU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVkehQ_RypI

I wouldn't bother charging while riding, I would take a 2-3 hour noon siesta and get a bit more charging in the evenings. I would get 3 or 4 panels and stack them up on a bike trailer, and then lay them out to charge. In the evenings, you can prop them up with a couple of tent poles or bamboo stakes. Tie them all together and then ram a few pegs into the ground to secure them. You could charge while riding but you probably won't want to lay out 16 square feet of solar panels (wind and all that) and you won't be able to position the panels accurately.

A 48v 10ah battery pack has about 500 watt-hours of energy. With 400 watts of panels, in peak sun, after losses from boosting the voltage, maybe you could get 300 watts into the battery per hour. In theory you could charge the battery in a couple of hours. Solar energy peaks at ~12-1pm, there will be twice as much power (or more) at solar peak as there would be about 2 hours before sunset.

It'll cost you around $200 to get one panel, one charger, and associated wires. Try it and report back!

Parts:

Panel

Controller

Controller to XT60

Panel to controller

Extra wire

so i'm looking at buying these bulbs, these connectors and this wire. altogether it'll be around $20, but i'll only need some of this stuff for each.

i'm trying to decide if it is worth buying the extra connectors and wire or if i should just buy this pair of connectors with wire already soldered on and the bulbs and save myself $10.

> I ended up with a bunch of 550mah 3S batteries: can I use them to tinker with this build?

I suspect you would get a minute of lackluster performance from those batteries on a 5" quad. However, those are great bats for a 2" build. So save them.

> Battery options once I'm 100% ready to fly?

Amazon sells Tattu and Infinity Graphene 1300 mAh 4S batteries that would work well with your rig. Ensure you get a high C rating (60+).

> Prop options?

Those DAL props are great. Other options are the HQ 5x4.3x3 props.

> Extra wires?

I have never needed to buy extra wires. You'll collect plenty from parts you buy.

> I feel much more comfortable dealing with this kind of merchant.

There are other reputable merchants with US stock at competitive prices. Examples are heli-nation.com, getfpv.com, racedayquads.com, etc. The amazon/ebay merchants are mostly just buying from the overseas guys and upping the price. But I understand the sentiment.

As far as checking your build. You'll probably need to buy an XT60 connector and wire to solder to the FC/PDB (Like these). You'll need need some battery straps (Like these). You'll need a vtx antenna (rec: Foxeer).

Do you have a battery charger?

Do you have FPV goggles?

Sorry for the late reply, it wasn't loading in my messages. I just got this from amazon. Just make sure you get one that has the right connector for your battery.

Edit: About the wire to use, 14 gauge is sufficient.

I'm happy to help! The people on here were awesome when I was just getting started so I'm glad to pay it forward. If you are not planning on flying FPV (First Person View) than the rest looks good! The charger I got is HERE and has worked great for me. The only issue is that is does not come with the power brick that goes from the wall to the charger, but instead comes with power cord that can be hooked to a 12V LeadAcid battery with two clips to power the charger. I would personally recommend going to a hobby shop and picking one out so that you can get exactly what you need (plus shopping locally is always good). That, or if someone else on here can recommend another charger/power adapter to go with this one since I am still a little new to all this myself. The only other thing I saw is that the battery you picked out comes with a XT60 connector to power your quad, but the kit you got appears to have a Deans connector for your PDB (power distribution board). You should pick some of THESE to solder to your PDB instead of the Deans connector so it will work with your battery. The item I linked comes with one male and one female connector. I used the same ones for my build and they have taken a beating but still work great :)