Poll: Should I remove red wire from ESC when connecting to my Naza?

I had a question about connecting my ESC’s to my NAZA flight controller. I have seen on the internet that some people suggest that you should remove the red wire from your ESC;s before connecting them to the flight controller. But I have also seen that many other people dont do this and say it does not matter?

  • Does not matter as most ESC and Flight controllers can handle this
  • Its best to disconnect the red wire from your ESC’s

What are your comments about this?

My suggestion would be to remove the red power wire from all of your ESC’s if the flight controller is powered via a power module, or battery. If your flight controller is powered via the ESC;s then you should disconnect the red wire from all but one ESC.

The reason why you probably see both opinions on the internet is that many users (including myself) have had ESC’s all connected like this with no problems,

One other tip, its best not to cut the wires from the ESC but rather use a small screwdriver and simply remove the connector from the plastic servo connector and then just fold it back and tape it using some electrical tape, that way you can always re-use the ESC;s on other projects in the future :slight_smile:

I think the main reason for doing this is if all the esc’s are supplying 5V to your NASA, it’s possible to get variations in the output voltages, this would mean the ESC’s 5V could be ‘fighting’ against another esc’s 5V, variations in ESC’s are noticeable, some at 4,9V, some at 5.1V etc in this example a 0.2V difference causing an increase in current in the esc’s as they are now effectively working against each other, it just wastes LiPo energy.
I have a DJI Naza-M Lite coming from HK, I’ll lose the red leads on All but One ESC, you only need the 5V on One port, more is pointless, as the power connections are paralleled internally in the NASA.
It’s not worth the waste, just pick the red wire out on all but one ESC …sorted.
I know some will think having them all in parallel gives more power, not really, sharing power rails is a voodoo science, not easy to get balanced power sharing between all the rails, without a low Ohm power resistor on every 5V line to absorb the differences.
I’ll probably just use a low noise UBEC for all my 5V needs, more efficient.
Steve