remove red wire?

[BrianG]

An ESC's BEC not only powers the receiver and servos, but it's own low-level circuitry (brains). When you unhook the red wire, it simply keeps the BEC from powering any external devices, but is still running to power its own circuits. The BEC chip should not get hot at all if the red wire is removed, since the ESC internal circuits are low-power.

Also, the heatsink in most ESCs I've seen are not attached to the BEC circuit at all, so any heat generated is usually wicked away using the PCB traces. Maybe some of that heat is making its way through the traces to the FET board, to the FETs, and then to the heatsink, but that's indirect at best.

The Tekin might be set up differently though - what I said above applied to the MM, Quark, and BK Warriors.

I do know that at anything above 2s/6 cells, the internal BEC can heat up quite rapidly. So, if running 2s/6 cell, I'd use the internal BEC. If anything 3s or higher, I'd use a switching BEC...