10S custom skate ESC: testers wanted!

Stupid question but if you don't want to put a whopping 10s battery, could you instead put a smaller voltage battery and still be fine? In my case, it's the ohso popular 6s.
 
as vedder mentioned, the actual FETs are "rated" to 60V (or whatever part we settle on), and we will actually sue the boards up to 10S. We are designing enough tolerance to run at 10S / 42V safely, but it would probably work higher...

We'll also test at lower voltages; I'll probably have 6S and 8S LiPo in daily use.
 
Just bought an Alien 8S 120A Twin. Looks awesome and can't wait to get it, but I'd also be a keen tester for an ESC that can do 8S for two NTM 50-60 motors. Sign me up!

Recommendation is for maybe a single and a twin version, as these seem to be the most popular configs. But I'd say if not, a twin - cause you can easily just use one half.

What sort of current rating per motor would you be looking at?
 
makepeace said:
Just bought an Alien 8S 120A Twin. Looks awesome and can't wait to get it, but I'd also be a keen tester for an ESC that can do 8S for two NTM 50-60 motors. Sign me up!

Recommendation is for maybe a single and a twin version, as these seem to be the most popular configs. But I'd say if not, a twin - cause you can easily just use one half.

What sort of current rating per motor would you be looking at?
Click to expand...

According to vedder's specs it is rated for the following:

Current: Up to 240A for a couple of seconds or about 50A continuous depending on the cooling.
Voltage: 8V – 60V.

It's a beast of an ESC -- I truly can't wait..

Alien ESCs are great but it's kind of been what we've been stuck with. Creating your own ESC is a pretty big task as Vedder has spent thousands of hours working on it for over 3 years :shock:
 
Silenthunter said:
when would it be available and how much would it cost?
Click to expand...

It will still be a while. We are still checking if there is interest. Vedder is still testing and we still need to get the PCB boards made. Don't have any idea on costs currently. It will definitely be cheaper if more people purchase.
 
torqueboards said:
According to vedder's specs it is rated for the following:

Current: Up to 240A for a couple of seconds or about 50A continuous depending on the cooling.
Voltage: 8V – 60V.

It's a beast of an ESC -- I truly can't wait..

Alien ESCs are great but it's kind of been what we've been stuck with. Creating your own ESC is a pretty big task as Vedder has spent thousands of hours working on it for over 3 years
Click to expand...

That seems epic! So two of them for two of the sorts of motors we use would probably be a safe bet.

It would be really awesome if a bit more acceleration and braking programming freedom is possible. I guess we all want the sort of forced response that ICEs and mechanical brakes give us as it's mostly what we're used to. I quite like the regen. braking capability too, but surely this would still be very limited? What sort of return % of motor current do you think is possible?
 
makepeace said:
It would be really awesome if a bit more acceleration and braking programming freedom is possible. I guess we all want the sort of forced response that ICEs and mechanical brakes give us as it's mostly what we're used to. I quite like the regen. braking capability too, but surely this would still be very limited? What sort of return % of motor current do you think is possible?
Click to expand...

Honestly the biggest reason we started this is because there are some significant flaws in the programming with the flier ESCs, but they won't let us see or change the code (not even for $$money$$). This ESC would be open source and fully reprogrammable, if you want. I am expecting to get a development environment set up for my first prototypes so I can tinker with it.

Braking should be pretty good; on the ESCs I've tested with 50xx motors I can generally get as much braking as I'm able to use while standing up. I've been measuring regeneration pretty closely, and at least for me it doesn't add a lot. I can launch with 1500W power and regenerate maybe 450W on braking, but I spend more time speeding up than slowing down. On a loong 6.7-mile ride to my bus in the morning I'll burn off about 7000mAh total, and regenerate something like 15-20mAh. You probably recover more in a hilly area, but you lose it on the way up.
 
Is there any way to utilize regen while coasting? Braking uses power so wouldn't it make more sense?
 
Honestly the biggest reason we started this is because there are some significant flaws in the programming with the flier ESCs, but they won't let us see or change the code (not even for $$money$$).
Click to expand...

I suppose that doesn't surprise me...did you try asking Bruno as I think the Alien ESCs are pretty much the Flier ESCs - but with custom firmware that I Bruno has either written, or had someone write.

There's always the reverse engineering angle. The firmware updates for Alien come through the Internet...and you know...everything is hackable ;)
 
benj said:
I suppose that doesn't surprise me...did you try asking Bruno as I think the Alien ESCs are pretty much the Flier ESCs - but with custom firmware that I Bruno has either written, or had someone write.
Click to expand...

AFAIK the Alien code is something they paid Flier to write, and the resulting firmware is available. I think I've run it, but maybe not. It's OK, not great -- significant flaws with the startup sequence, and it seems to run the motors hot. Also the neutral detection logic is just broken, and many of their settings either don't work or don't work correctly.

There's always the reverse engineering angle. The firmware updates for Alien come through the Internet...and you know...everything is hackable ;)
Click to expand...

I seriously considered this. The driver appears to be an Atmel part (ATMega8L maybe) and the code is a straight up .hex file. It can be decompiled into assembly, and from there I'd get the pin assignments and start from scratch. At this point I might as well take any open ESC / BLDC ... which led me down this current path. Even if I rebuilt firmware for the Flier ESCs they still have overheating issues, and I can't really provide any upstream input, or have much confidence in the quality of parts. And we're still paying flier for the privilege.

Screw that. Let's make something great instead.
 
austindavid said:
benj said:
Screw that. Let's make something great instead.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Thats the attitude 8)


I like where you guys are going with a dedicated motor/ ESC combo for best startup. I think that is really where the market is heading, with dedicated firmwares for each motor so that operation is optimal in all ways.

I have no use for electric skateboards, but I think this is great.
 
It would be really awesome if a bit more acceleration and braking programming freedom is possible
Click to expand...

Braking is completely different in my firmware than most chinese ESCs. Since there is current feedback, the amount of torque can be precisely controlled with several thousand steps. Also, the PWM technique I use for braking is different since I use synchronous switching and track the commutations of the motor while braking. This results in having a quiet brake (no squealing noise, same sound as when acceleration) and higher efficiency (more current fed back into the battery).

dedicated firmwares for each motor so that operation is optimal in all ways
Click to expand...
Actually you don't need different firmwares for different motors any more, since all more parameters can be configured from a GUI and stored on the ESC. This is the latest addition I made to the firmware and the configuration GUI. I also added auto-detection of the most important parameters by running the motor without load while measuring them. I will probably make a video tutorial soon that demonstrates how to configure the ESC for a new motor. I got it working for every motor I tried so far, everything from tiny inrunners to industrial motors, outrunners in many sizes, bicycle hub motors. With a 700w bicycle hub motor, I can make a "burn out" from a complete stop while sitting on the bicycle without using hall sensors. The latest version of the GUI can also export/import parameters to/from XML files, so we could make a database where different motor configurations can be downloaded for different motors and applications. The motor controller has an USB port, so all you need for changing configuration is a USB-cable and a laptop running some Linux distro.
 
Hey guys-

Vedder posted a video describing how all this works in plain language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJKdh1KZ0w

re: "round in circles," that thread didn't seem to conclude with an ESC anyone could use. I saw a schematic, but no PCB, no code, no parts list, and -- most importantly -- no working skateboards. Maybe the market has changed, who knows.
 
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