I think it was the combination of mini tamiya, the standard front wired blade connectors for disassembly, and some random soldered joint (didn't look at how good or bad a job that was).

Rewired to the rear with high quality silicone wire, no joints just the one mini connector. In the picture I hadn't shrunk the shrinkwrap on the wires yet :P

http://i.imgur.com/l0CupWZl.jpg

That's a nice wiring job.

is that leaded solder?

Thanks!

No it's electronics/rosin core solder.

there's electric rosin core solder that contains lead, at least so says the big spool of it on my bench.

I have a spool of it too. Works so well, but so bad for you...

I hate non leaded solder lol.. shit don't stick.

I always use leaded solder as well... I've tried silver solder and it's too much work...

As for the health issues, leads vaporization temperature is 1750C... that's a pretty good soldering iron if you're worried about lead.... it's the rosin core that's creating the smoke so still suggest using a mask but there are no lead issues....

Well this is Bernzomatic Electronics lead free solder.

I've heard/seen that opinion a lot lately, and I use non-leaded solder and never have a problem with it adhering.

I find people that have problems with non-leaded solder are doing two things wrong;

- using a 20w instead of a 40w soldering iron (go big or go home); and
- not using flux to prepare surfaces for soldering.

It could be true, I haven't used nonleaded since I got my soldering station, but even using a 40w crappy iron I had issues with the non leaded not adhering properly.

I just gave up on it and bought the leaded stuff and have been using that without issue, only when I run into crappy wires will it not adhere, and that's usually because pretinned/coated wire sucks up solder much more efficiently I find. Uncoated wire seems to need a lot of flux, whereas the coated stuff needs none at all aside from the prefluxed solder.

Heh, I have a Mastercraft (CanTire) soldering station with 20w/40w settings. I've never touched the 20w setting.

Mines an 80W, I have no problem getting anything hot lol
I'm also using this ancient acidic flux that just works fantastic on everything

I deal with PTW motors now, so everything is silver solder. The end bell gets so damn hot most leaded solders actually melt and let go after as few as 6 shots O_O

I should probably get a better/more powerful iron...

Gun doctor tag isn't necessarily a sign of competence, its just a sign that an admin thinks you're good enough to swap parts. There are a lot of really good techs that don't have the tag (obviously).

As for soldering, I use 60/40 Pb/Sn solder. I've tried lead free stuff and its fine for basic soldering up to 16 AWG, but when you want to quickly cover the entire soldering surface of a deans connector, soldering the inside of a motor connector, soldering MOSFETs together, or soldering bigass batteries with 10 AWG wiring, you need something that melts more easily. I sometimes have to use a bigass 240W soldering iron on 10 AWG wiring, and unless I use lead solder I still have trouble doing a nice, clean job.