Red loctite on the grub screw is a PITA, I did that once and had to grind the gear off my motor's shaft because it would not come off no matter what I did to it.

I tried cleaning the top shaft and gear on my Rustler and loctiting it on and it held for about 1 pull of the throttle. It'll probably work better on a pinion because it's still a cleaner surface but on tranny gears it fails.

It's really not bad -- if you know the trick to remove the pinion. We use a small torch to heat the pinion, and the loctite just melts. Then the pinion is easy to pull off. A heat gun also works, but takes a little longer (sometimes we use a hot air soldering station with a 12mm tip -- that seems to work very well.) You have to be careful to keep tension on the pinion so that it slides off when the loctite melts -- if you char the loctite it will be harder to remove.

What I was trying was a hot soldering iron pressed directly onto the grub screw while trying to pry it off with a pair of pliers and could not get it to move at all. I must not have gotten it hot enough fast enough though. I don't like to keep the soldering iron on for too long, maybe a minute, because that heat will go right down the shaft and start to heat the magnets up and I don't want to ruin a motor over a pinion. I have a Butane casette lighter that I could try next time I use red loctite on a pinion.

Yeah, I wouldn't think that a soldering iron could get it hot enough quickly. Most irons are fairly low wattage (below 60 watts) so they can't heat up a large volume of steel very quickly. (we have to use special 270 watt irons to solder to boards like the MMM -- just because of the amount of copper in the board...)

I was trying it with a 140 watt soldering gun, it got hot but not hot enough before I took it off. Would 140 watts be enough to replace the wires on the mini Sidewinder?

Yes, that will work fine. The MMM has about double the copper and double the surface area as the Sidewinder Micro. Do be careful though, there are some parts close to the wires. If you aren't comfortable doing it yourself, you can send it in for wire replacement -- I think the fee is $10.00 (but I'm not positive -- you can call and ask for Jenny -- She'll know the exact amount.)

I've soldered the wires on the MMM with just a 60w Hakko iron. The trick is to use a clean and properly tinned large chisel tip as it has more "thermal storage". I then let it heat up for 5 minutes so it gets as hot as it's going to. Then, I add a little flux. After all that, it takes about 3-5 seconds to solder the wires. If it takes longer than that, I may warm up the whole ESC with a heat gun (on low) to around 100*F. This reduces the speed at which the soldering iron heat is whisked away.

Thanks for the tips.

I have the Losi micro system on my MDT and it has been awesome ! Hasnt missed a beat in 2 years .

IF Castle made a micro ESC I would get it for sure , heck I tried a Sidewinder for a little while and it was better than the Losi ESC , but it was just too big .

We actually created 1/18 scale controllers before we ever did 1/10 scale.........
http://www.castlecreations.com/produ...micro_pro.html or http://www.castlecreations.com/produ...der_micro.html

Mike , I belive we are talking a 1/36 scale brushless system . (Micro Desert Truck)

I have a V1 Castle Mamba 25 ESC that is like 5 years old now and it still works like new .

Oops sorry about that.........I just noticed Micro system and thought we were talking about the 1/18 scale. :whistle:

No prob , Castle makes the best ESC's no matter what scale IMO .

The Mini ESC is the one I'm considering for my Micro. Right now it's a toss up between re-wiring the CC Mini or going with Tekin's Micro sized ESC :neutral: