It’s time to talk about connectors, because it’s interesting. This was brought up in a different thread about waterproof connectors, and I figured it would be better to have its own discussion place.
There are many ways to connect your phase wires and sensor wires, and it’s always been discussed if there was a way to merge them together.
@BenjaminF started working on something but I think it petered out
Anyways, this connector posted by @rosco was super interesting to me, but claims only 20a phase current. Since it’s AMASS I’d be willing to bet it can probably do easily 30. Who knows. It does however look like it’s meant to be mounted into a PCB.
This connector is called “ICM150S17PB” I believe. Really great name, I know.
Let’s use this thread to discuss how we connect phase wires & sensor wires to our boards.
The other widely used existing solutions include: JST plugs, MR60, MT60, 5.5 mm bullet, 4 mm bullet, and some other multi-pin connectors that I don’t know off the top of my head. Share all of your connectors here so we have options when we go searching!
Also feel free to share cable glands here that you use in conjunction with your connectors, as I feel it is relevant.
Part of the problem with these is that the housing for the female connectors is so massive, it’s not like you’d really want it hanging around under your board
That actually wouldnt bother me a bit, as they match my board, and would look cleaner than my mr60’s and capped sensor wires, but i feel that. They are pretty beefy. You know who we need? Boat guys. Im gonna talk to the boat guys.
I’m considering the implications of having a plug at all, the idea of just using cable glands and epoxy instead of any plug seems to have both pros and cons.
With glands:
It’ll be more sturdy, no chance of shaking loose and less chance of ripping out.
Harder to replace parts, harder to replace drivetrain (for swapping from AT to street trucks)
with plugs:
chance of coming loose. Easy swapping.
The other issue I see with having the cables more permanently attached is that sensor wires themselves do tend to fail on occasion, they aren’t made with superflex wire or anything like that.
I like the idea of glands but they can be bulky and you have to make sure you have enough space inside your enclosure for the extra wire too
These seem to be popular for marine electronics. IP68. Still, a bit bulky. A lot of the boat electricians just use quick disconnect spades and heat shrink.
MR69 is not officially dead. There has been some small movement on it recently, I am speaking to a potential collaborator. The problem is figuring out how to make the connector robust, convenient, and cheap. If it misses any of those three qualities, then people will just buy something else.
I talked to HIGO, the company that makes that really popular 20A phase+sensor connector that you see on all the cheap china hub motors. I asked if they have anything rated to 60A on the phase pins, and they said no, but they have a connector coming out soon that is rated to 90A. They sent me some engineering docs that I cant share, but suffice it to say that the connector is far too large for anyone other than etoxx haha.
Plus they dont sell connectors that can be soldered by the user, all the connectors they sell are pre-soldered from the factory with a length of wire. That would work if I were having a custom set of motors made with that connector and customers were ok with soldering the panel mount directly to their ESC’s PCB, but if not it just adds more solder joints, which is the whole thing the MR69 is trying to eliminate.
It’s not a trivial problem. I had no clue what I was getting into when I made those renders last year.
Yep this has been a whole basketfull of shit to try to work around. My plan up until recently was to make a PCB board that the pins would be tack-soldered onto to hold them in place, and then the plastic housing would glue onto that. But then when you go to solder the wires on, the bullet would immediately de-solder from the PCB and get out of alignment. Plus, soldering in 9 bullets per connector by hand is a fuckload of work, and so that labor cost would make the price of the connector way too high.
I am still working (slowly) to try to find solutions to all of these problems, because I feel strongly that a compact, high-amp, low-fuss connector solution is still needed, both by this community and by others. I just dont know how to go about doing it other than paying a couple million dollars to HIGO or Amass to make one to spec
If anyone has ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them (not in this thread though, I dont want to hijack).
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I think the best rugged & reliable “single plug” option we have for the standard board (power that requires at least 3.5mm bullets for phase AKA MR60 & co) is a MR60 w/two MR30’s epoxied/affixed/housed in a 3D printed case.
Printing a housing just for the two MR30’s that then epoxies to the MR60 might work best
A MR60 w/a MR30 epoxied on two faces may also work well but be a bit bulky.
Haggy Timo’s 6pin connectors are honestly amazing IMO, one of the best options I’ve seen. I thought they would be longer in person than they are, and they can be further shortened as it is fairly easily.
Unfortunately, Timo told me they were a custom run he had done in Taiwan(?) - they’re essentially a more compact version of one of the common e-bike connectors I can’t remember the spec of right now. Somebody could perhaps talk to him about these, but it’s still not a phase + sensor connector.
(MR60/30 epoxy combination obviously for plugs located fully outside the enclosure, my current preference - for deck mount/enclosure mount, panel mounted MR/MR60 + 6pin sensors still best option)
Knowing evolve, if their engineering ethos is anything like it was for the GTR those are probably not rated for more than 30A or 35A on the large pins.
Holy crap. Just found out about a company called Harwin.
Their site is being buggy as shit on my phone and desktop right now, but if you Google
“Harwin 60A connector”
&
“Harwin datamate” / “Harwin datamate 60A”
& Look at Google images with the mouser links… they have some incredibly cool stuff. Fairly expensive for our uses, but nearly what we’re after… I don’t have a lot of time to dig thru all of their offerings anytime soon, but I recommend those who can take a look.
Unless they don’t offer female cable housings for most of their stuff & it’s all dependent on machine screws going into PCB modules. That would suck.
