RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

i removed the old switched from my king tiger (HL electronics) and replaced it with a flick switch as it looked alot better, but as soon as i turn the power on the minus (black) wire burns up and melts the insluation! and the switch burns too! smoke pours out everywhere filling my room! was scared that it was all gona burst into flames so iv un plugged the battery and the switch, does anyone know what the matter is? guessing atm that its the switch? As thats the only thing i changed.

sounds to me like you have created a dead short between positive and negative somewhere in the circuit

i would agree with brel

a dead short and i take it you have either the rx13/14which is earthed from the board and the neg connection join these two blacks together and join to the plug on your battery and put the switch on the positive side of the battery

that's the way I would wire a switch in to a circuit of any type using batteries, always putting it on the live side of the battery, there is no need to try and be clever and use a double pole switch for the feeds

i think brel and ive seen this in a h/long tank they use 2 reds and a black on the switch and only one is live sure got me till it smoked and messed myself with it now i hook up as shown in my dia

too true there Rob, it cost me an RX13 to work this out about the dodgy HL standards for the wireing, so I have always rewired the master switch the same way as your diagram

The black wire on the switch is there to drain the capacitors on the Rx13/14 boards when the unit is off - in that position it is shorting the positive side of the board to the negative, and the positive (battery) side of the switch is disabled (off). 
As a general rule you can do without this feature - the idea is to ensure the tank always powers up in the 'off' state and doesn't do anything until the engine start button is pressed on the tx (The capacitors might otherwise hold enough voltage to enable a function eg smoke, MG... on switch on).  I did away with the black wire on my tanks when moving the switch to a more accessible (hidden) place with no problems in hours of use (RX 14 - can't speak for RX13).  Suggest you just remove the fried black wire and the tank will work (assuming the switch isn't burnt out).  Also suggest you replace the cooked red wire! 
You should then end up with a switch with a positive (red) wire from the battery on one side and a positive (red) wire to the board out on the common side of the switch.
You won't have killed the electronics because the short is in the wire, not the board.

thanks for your help everyone!  didnt expect so many replies lol so thank yu very much! shall start re-wiring my tank this afternoon, went out last night and still smelt of burning and all my mates could do when i told them what happened was laugh  :-[
thank you fv432 for the diagram its gona be very helpful
shall keep you lot updated when the wirings done