So much dread
A regular at the place I work happened to start a conversation related to what I’m working on and he is the son of the owners of a hardware store a few blocks down. I mentioned trying to solder without helping hands and that it just wasn’t happening. He ran home and brought back his box of soldering equipment with helping hands and said feel free to use whatever i need. Bless
I will try and get a diagram drawn tonight. Had a long day at work 
Diagram looks ok. Butt splices will always be inferior to a proper soldering job IMHO. Look for the XT90 anti spark connectors with 1/2 cups on the ends for easier soldering. Do use short lengths of heat shrink over the wires for added protection.
Remember, heat the thing you’re wanting to solder then add solder. Dont heat the solder first. Solder will naturally creep toward the hottest part of what you’re working on. And do one wire at a time to prevent nasty sparks and 4 alarm fires.
Yes that looks correct.
I’d solder those though. The best way IMHO to solder 3 large wires together is to strip, twist, and tin (put some solder on it and flick any extra off) then snip off the very tips. After you do that to all 3 wires, put shrink wrap onto the wires if you’re doing to use it, then strip a scrap piece of wire and take one of the strands out of it. Wrap that single strand around all 3 wires to hold them together while you solder them. Afterward, cover it with sealant, either conformal coating (5 layers) or some acrylic (not gel) nail polish (5 layers) or shrink wrap with pieces of HMA (hot melt adhesive: aka hot glue) shoved inside and shrunk with a heatgun.
Electrical tape sucks, don’t use it.
This is important. If you’re working on red wires, have ALL the black wires taped up on the ends. Do NOT remove ANY of the tape until the red wires are done and either sealed or taped. Never have both sides bare simultaneously.
Yes i have marine grade heat shrink tubes of all sizes for wires. I was just really awful at soldering because the section wouldnt seem to get hot enough for the solder to melt, i also cut the wires too short on the battery without thinking (not both poles btw, yet), i was trying to shorten them a bit but made it a hassle to work with the helping hands. Got them soldered together but the wires were so thick i couldnt get the solder to melt so i did it with a f*ing heat gun and that seemed to work better?
I still probably need to redo all of the soldering, but im kind of stuck right now… im not sure how to finish the rest, I’m so confused and my diagram isnt exactly helping. I’m sure ill Get it but I’m going to be the strangest wiring job…
What soldering iron are you using? Whats its power ratings? A trick I learned is to wet the solder tip with a bit of solder to help transfer heat to whatever you’re trying to solder.
Wait is it ok to just put both positives for each side on single xt90 male/female connectors and eliminate the xt60 entirely?
Like i feel that might just be rhetorical?
Yes, but putting two wires on one pin of an XT90 is difficult. But yeah, it would work fine.
However, if the XT60 is attached to the battery, I would leave it alone. It’s always best to avoid working on the wires you can’t turn off if it can be avoided. The battery leads can’t be turned off, they are always live.
No i mean both on sets of negatives on the same xt90 connectors, from battery to controllers, for both sides
If you meant putting all negative wires on the same negative XT90 side, then yes. You can do that as well. But, you cannot put the negative on the positive side. They must remain separated.
My bad that came out wrong… this basically, minus the *, think I will just use the buttsplice on the controller side for reds until I get my new controllers
That works fine.
Ok I see the soldering iron you’ve been using in one of your pics. Probably underpowered. Do you know its watt rating?
Butt connectors sound sub-optimal to me. Also theres a Beavis and Butthead joke here, but maybe later. If you do use those, check and see if they heat up more than the wires that connect to them. Neither should get more than barely above ambient temp.
Ive been using a few butt connectors already and they seem to work fine, i use them for controller to motors. I dont know how well i did them tho. Progress updates: close tovfinished and made a few changes along the way. I’m able to make the rest of these solders perfectly fine…. That first big one was a beach, and the 75w soldering gun is a shidder… the 30w working so much better and dont need 4 min downtime after every minute…
Alright i finished wiring her up for now, til i get the new controllers then i gotta solder them in again lol but will be better at it. Got it to run without blowing myself up, without load. Will test it in a bitbut looks way cleaner bc so much less wire, still need to seal and weather proof it
Loopkey works like a charm, runs fine, if anything feels like a little more torque. This was a pain in the ferret’s ass, but worth the experience. Thanks guys, cant wait to Finish this, fiznally
Mwah 
Update: And sorry long post
So i went into a panic when it began to shut off on me again, thinking a connection was getting too hot so I started cutting cables, bought a new motor (it’s matching voltage and watts but different brand) and tire for it, got an actual soldering station, etc etc… tire should arrive tomorrow…. Turned out the buttsplicers were working fine and the front wheel with that dent and slight wobble got exponentially worse much faster than expected and the tire wobble began rubbing against the bundle of wires running to it, exposing 2 of them, yellow and green i think
I made some improvements to all of the solder joints. Did a better job with heat shrink tubing, and since i dont trust anyone, not even myself, i added a layer or two of super33 tape for anxiety insurance.
Not gonna lie, i was seriously beginning to panic because I didn’t realize how short i trimmed back my battery cables until i rewired everything again, needed to get the helping hands to work in some janky ways, and hoping my soldering so close to the battery wouldn’t cause it to e-splode either from heating the wire or stabbing it with the iron because boy I came very close a few times. Some extremely stupid mistakes and setting a 750 degree iron on top of a 52v lithium ion battery pack was one of the more intelligent of the low IQ power moves.
But i did get the new 35 amp controllers and…. They are like 3x larger than both of the 25 amp sets… I already sawed off the mounting brackets because they are an extremely tight squeeze and think to make it work i will need to move the two charging ports and probably cut off some unneeded wires, unless it’s possible to make the boxes smaller?
I got mixed answers for these new controllers btw. They are dual drive but some ppl said they dont work with eco/turbo but i assumed that was the same thing as a dual motor button?
Those metal shells act as heatsinks for the controllers and will work best with at least a little bit of airflow over them. And at 35 amps max you probably wont have the headroom to remove them from their boxes and just run them with heatshrink tubes covering the boards.
