Deans Plugs

Installing Deans Plugs

Before we start, you should note a couple of things about the battery pack I'm using for this walkthrough. First of all it already has a Deans connector on it. In most circumstances you would be replacing the stock Tamiya style connector. The procedure is the same, but when I took these pictures I didn't have any batteries lying around with the Tamiya style connector on them. You may also notice that this pack also has a small section of shrink tubing already on one of the wires. That was used to fix a place where the insulation was torn away exposing the wire beneath it. To prevent this wire from contacting something that would cause the pack to short out, I used a short section of the shrink tubing to cover the wire.

The first thing you need to do, is gather all the materials you need for the job. Pictured below are most of the materials you'll need. Necessary, of course, are solder, soldering iron or gun, Deans plugs, and shrink tubing. You'll also need the item you will be soldering the Deans plug onto, and a hobby or utility knife which isn't pictured. A soldering jig like the homemade one pictured is very handy as well.

The first step, is to clip the connector off of the battery leads. It's best to do this when the battery is in a discharged, or near discharged, state. Also cut the wires one at a time, otherwise you short the battery, and take the chance of damaging it.

After you've clipped the connector off the battery, take a hobby or utility knife and trim about 1/4 inch of the insulation away. Be very careful that the exposed ends do not touch each other while we walk through the rest of the conversion. Even if the battery pack is in a near discharged state it can still short itself out and possibly damage one of the cells.

Now you want to tin the wires on the battery pack. Use the soldering jig to hold a wire as shown in the first picture. Then apply a coating of solder completely around the exposed wire, as shown in the second picture. You will have to turn the wire around to get the underside, but it is not necessary to tin all the way back to the insulation.

When you have completed tinning one wire, tin the other. You should now have both wires on the pack tinned.

Allow the wires to cool a minute or two, and cut a couple small sections of shrink tubing. You should try and make them at least an inch long so when we're done they'll cover the soldered area well.

Once the wires are cool to the touch, slide on piece of tubing onto each wire and all the way down to the battery. This keeps the tubing away from the heat when we solder the wires to the plug.

Now let's focus our attention to the Deans plug itself. Place it into the soldering jig with one metal tab in a horizontal position.

Now apply a little solder to the tab, allowing it to flow smoothly across the entire tab.

After the solder has cooled move the Deans connector and do the same thing for the other tab.

Now position the Deans plug in the jig and solder on of the wires in place. There is positive and negative markings on the plug itself so make sure you solder them onto the correct tabs. The Positive tab will always run parallel to the short side of the plug and is what I've soldered in the picture below. Make sure you heat the tab and not the solder, otherwise you'll end up with a weak joint that will come loose later.

Now solder the other wire to the other tab.

Once again allow the solder and wire to cool. Once they are, slide the shrink tubing up to the Deans plug and over the solder joint.

Using a lit match or a lighter, use heat to shrink the tubing around the joint and the wire. Make sure you use heat from the flame, not the flame itself. Otherwise you may burn or melt the tubing.

After that your Deans plug is installed and ready for action. If you have more plugs to install, just use the same procedure to install them until you're finished with all of them.

Part One:	Introduction
Part Two:	Installing Deans Plugs