What type of electric connectors do small-scale R/C planes use?

While outside in a local park recently I came upon what was left of a small styrofoam-based R/C plane. The fuselage, wings and tail section were broken beyond repair but most of the electronic and mechanical components were still intact, except for the battery. Specifically, the receiver with attached servo motors, the main motor with gearbox and propeller, and connecting wires.

Looking around I couldn't see anyone it might have belonged to and it appeared to have been abandoned, so I yanked out these parts and took them home. After some googling using identifying information on these parts, I determined that the plane is most likely this one, or perhaps an earlier version of it since the propeller I found didn't have a built-on cowling:

Horizon Hobby Champ RTF (HBZ4900)

I pulled the wires that connected the main motor to the receiver unit and tested it with an AA battery, and it spun right away, and appeared to be in good condition. Even the propeller was in decent shape, not seriously bent or imbalanced when it spun. So it looks like I found some decent salvage parts to use in a future project, either a plane, or, more likely, an air boat or propeller-driven cart, controlled by an Arduino Nano, Micro Pro or perhaps even Attiny85, once I figure out the proper voltage and current range.

The problem is that the connector that connects the main motor to the receiver is not a standard one in Arduino world. It has just two pins, each around 3-4mm long and 1.3mm apart, around half the standard 2.54mm pin distance of most breadboards, perfboards and headers. So I'm not sure how to use it since I have no connectors they can connect to. I had to use microhook test leads to test them.

I suppose that I could cut off the connectors and connect Arduino-standard ones, but the wires are really thin and not very long, plus I'd prefer to use the connectors that came with these parts. Does anyone know what kinds of connectors these are, that I imagine are standard in the R/C world, at least for smaller planes such as this one, and where I can buy them? Does anyone make adapters that allow you to use them with Arduino-standard headers and such?

Btw, I'm not sure what to do with the receiver. I don't have the transmitter, and they're more expensive than I'd like to lay out right now. I used to build and fly R/C planes and still have my old transmitter, but that was decades ago, when everything was analog, and there's no way it would work with this without major upgrades. Are there R/C transmitter breakout boards or modules that work with modern digital R/C receivers, that can be programmed to control such receivers, including frequency selection and signal encryption, that can also work with Arduino? It would be awesome if there were.

To word my question better, can you post pictures? Is there a part number, some markings, a datasheet on the product page(not likely)?

Isaac96:
To word my question better, can you post pictures? Is there a part number, some markings, a datasheet on the product page(not likely)?

Click on the link in my original post.

I mean something on the connectors. (Sorry if I am being really dense)

Isaac96:
I mean something on the connectors. (Sorry if I am being really dense)

I think I've figured it out, something called a Deans connector:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXDKA2

I think I found a good enough solution for my needs. I dug up some old PC connectors with very close pin spacing that while still a bit wider than these can accept these plugs. IIRC they're the kind that some sound cards came with to connect them to optical drives. It's secure enough that I was able to connect them to a little H-Bridge circuit I breadboarded and controlled from an Arduino with a basic script I wrote to spin the motor in either direction up to full throttle. Worked pretty well actually, although I wouldn't use it in anything that actually flew. Good enough for playing around though.

You won't find Micro-Deans inside that plane unless the previous owner fitted them. If there is connector on the motor, i'm 99% sure it's this one: http://www.mr-rcworld.co.uk/products_pictures/JST_cons_lge.jpg

// Per.

Close, but not quite. Here is what it actually looks like (from the produce page I linked to above). The board I found was slightly different, but the connectors are the same dimensions and type:

It's a "neutral" connector, without any features that make it only work in one orientation. And the pins just stick out and aren't surrounded by a shroud to protect them, nor is the jack. It's just a plug with 2 pins and a jack with two holes. Very basic. Either these aren't that common or manufacturers aren't interested in making it easy for hobbyists to jerry-rig these things on their own by buying aftermarket accessories like cables and such. I understand that the ready-to-fly market is pretty big and they probably want to keep it that way.

Actually, it looks more like this. I'm guessing that differences are minor, but this is closer to what I found.

Receiver/ESC DSM2/X Ember, Champ, J-3 (PKZ3352)

The connector I'm interested in is the black one on the board itself, into which the plug from the motor connects. The one dangling off to the right is the battery connector, which I'm sure is what any battery I got to plug into it would come with. But I'm looking for female connectors just like the one on the board, so I can use the motor apart from this board w/o having to remove this one from the board, as I might want to use it someday.

Between this, the motor and gearbox/mount, the retail value of what I found is nearly $80! Can't believe someone just walked away after crashing it. Perhaps what actually happened was that it went out of range and they couldn't find it, or it got stuck in a tree and they couldn't get it down, and days later a gust knocked it down and I lucked upon it.

I have a Blade MQX Quadcopter from Horizon Hobby, too. It uses the same connector for the motors. The connector is proprietary.

// Per.

Zapro:
I have a Blade MQX Quadcopter from Horizon Hobby, too. It uses the same connector for the motors. The connector is proprietary.

Do you know where I might be able to buy or get connectors that can connect to these, even if it's not necessarily a 100% match? A dab or silicone or hot glue can make up for that.

Meaning, what connectors that can be purchased online or in a local r/c store or even a Microcenter would be a good enough fit to do the trick? At this point I'm fairly up to speed on where to get "standard" electronics components and connectors, but am new to r/c, which seems to have its own universe of components and connectors (well, not exactly new, as I built and flew r/c as a kid, but that was ages ago when everything was big and analog).

When I lived in Seattle there was this great place called RE-PC that had all these bins of used computer and electronics parts and components that you could buy very cheap and take apart for such things. I haven't been able to find a similar place here in NYC although I'm sure there are a few somewhere.

I have taken apart almost any electronic device (from large room-size DNA-sequencer to miniscule hearing-aid, and never came by a connector like on the Horizon Hobby gear. They have their own proprietary connector. Why do you insist on using the connector? Just remove it and use something else.

You can buy a set of arms for the MQX heli, here you get two sets of connectors:

// Per.

Zapro:
I have taken apart almost any electronic device (from large room-size DNA-sequencer to miniscule hearing-aid, and never came by a connector like on the Horizon Hobby gear. They have their own proprietary connector. Why do you insist on using the connector? Just remove it and use something else.

You can buy a set of arms for the MQX heli, here you get two sets of connectors:

Blade BLH7502 mQX Thruster Boom With Wiring 2pack for sale online | eBay

// Per.

Umm, because I don't have anything on hand that would work with it given the motor wires' very thin gauge and am going to have to buy something that will, so it might as well be of the same type as the ones they came with? They look to be around 28 AWG, which is way too small to solder to header pins or crimp onto Dupont-style connectors, which is all I have.

I see no problem soldering the wires to header pins. If you feel this is a problem, maybe you should start practicing soldering before going further.

// Per.

Zapro:
I see no problem soldering the wires to header pins. If you feel this is a problem, maybe you should start practicing soldering before going further.

It's less an issue of being able to solder the tiny wires to a standard 0.1" header than that it would make for a really awkward setup. One inadvertent tug on the headers and the wires will likely snap off at the motor.

I'm also looking to keep the existing connector so that I can re-connect it to the receiver unit, which has the matching jack, if necessary. That's why I asked where I can find matching connectors, so that I can connect the motor to custom-built circuits and keep the modular aspects that connectors provide.

I'm sure that I could solder these wires if I wanted to. I just don't want to, for these reasons. I'm not a big fan of soldering together modular subassemblies that may need to be separated eventually.

It looks like I'll have to look for answers on RC-oriented sites.

Microcenter has Molex connector kits, but they are kind of expensive. What I did was go to the "build your own PC section" and just buy some simple fan connectors for the fan on a PC. They have 2, 3, 4 prong connectors. I even found connectors to match the arduino.

You can also find lots of connectors on Digi-Key. It seems to me that connectors are not really standardized so you probably will have a hard time finding exactly what you want.

Please note, I did not realize this but connectors usually consist of 3 parts, and you need all three. These include the wire, the metal attachment and the plastic connector housing. I bought some connectors but it was only the plastic housing, so they were worthless because I did not the metal pin inserts.

Molex is WAY too big for this scale of motor. The connector itself is twice as big as the motor. Even Dupont connectors are too big. This is a toy motor, not a "serious" RC motor, and everything's quite small.

Btw I too had to find out the hard way how connectors are put together. I also got some plastic housing pieces (in my case Dupont) only to realize that I needed the metal male or female pins to complete the connector. I also ended up getting a crimping tool as it would have been a real pain to build all the connectors I needed. Now everything's nice and neat, without ugly poorly-soldered custom connectors with heat shrink tubing that constantly break or come out. But the RC connectors are WAY smaller than this, and require a whole other kind of solution.

I've kind of put this aside for now to work on other things, but will get back to it eventually.