FLIPSKY new 20s 100A tiny controller (vesc based)

[b264]

What if there is no source? What if they just took the 75300 binaries that you can get direct from vesc tool/vesc project and looked at the linker script to just edit the values in the binary?

It's still illegal to ship that binary, modified, or unmodified, without the ability and willingness to ship the source code for it.

If you ship the binaries for GPL copyrighted software, you must also provide the source for those binaries upon request. Full stop.

It's not open for negotiation. It's against the law.

@mxlemming Did you read the GPL software license? You seem really intent on allowing people to steal from you. Either that, or you work for, or are bribed by, Flipsky.

I feel like a lot of misunderstanding would go away if you just read the GPLv3 license.

Cheers

[minimum]

...
For the uninitiated, here is a short list of 3rd party VESC addons:

• metr (&robogotchi, ilogger) - A powerful web & android data recording device that produces beautiful GPS graphs of each ride that displays motor current, battery current, voltage, motor temp, esc temp, speed, etc. Metr's website now has an LTE and GPS enabled model.
• Davega display - A UART based display that can display all VESC telemetry in real time including range estimates & BMS data
• FlexiBMS & Ennoid BMS - smart CAN enabled BMSs that can send data to the VESC so it can make decisions based on p group voltages or other parameters
• LED controllers(Maxkgo, TelTail TTL) that read UART data to change LEDs based on throttle, brake, standby & reverse (example1, example2)
• uSplit - A UART splitter to add more UART ports

...

Thank you , you just made my day (I've been looking for a solution of vesc display and LED lights for a while).

[Koxx]

and for low cost, we created the SESC
partially VESC based, open source, vesctool compatible but running on a 25€ xiaomi hardware. sorry out of topic.

This looks very very good. Tidy codebase, runs on cheap as anything hardware... Uses ST MCSDK which supports field weakening, MTPA... out of the box. Does it work well already? This is great.

yes, we have pretty good results

github is here :
https://github.com/Koxx3/SmartESC_STM32_v2

and telegram help group os here :
https://t.me/+5ZUGjIWBmHg1ZDhk

i'll stop talking about it here to avoid misleading the topic.

[john61ct]

started a fresh Smart ESC thread here

viewtopic.php?p=1695514#p1695514

[Koxx]

[mxlemming]

...

Either that, or you work for, or are bribed by, Flipsky.

I feel like a lot of misunderstanding would go away if you just read the GPLv3 license.

Cheers

I don't work for or am bribed by flipsky, I own one flipsky ESC I paid full price for on bang good. I'm an engineer in Cambridge UK who likes high tech, helping other people with their projects and power electronics. I make zero profit from any of this.

I understand you meanwhile represent one of flipsky's competitors and have ongoing form for trash talking them and other competitors. You rile me with your unhelpfulness so I've responded.

Go take it up with flipsky if you actually give a shit. I somewhat doubt your sincerity.

I actually am coming to really like the vesc project, I've found in one of the the VESC groups Benjamin is quite active and really helpful and interesting, but he's also going to implement what he wants, from scratch in his own time. Even if flipsky had some magic (which they don't) it's not like it would ever get back into the project, Benjamin might hear about it and implement his own version as and when. The header, jaykup already created so no loss.

Meanwhile, if anyone around Cambridge area has one of these new 75100s and is willing to let me probe it with a scope... On the basis of "I break it I'll buy you a new one" it would be pretty interesting to get some double pulses tests, current shunt tests etc done.

My wife has banned me from buying more ESCs. I have enough custom and other half dismantled boards that even I'm seriously wondering what to do with them. I've run out of shelf space for ebike stuff.

[b264]

I actually am coming to really like the vesc project

If you really like the VESC project, you would advocate for it to not be stolen.

[mxlemming]

I actually am coming to really like the vesc project

If you really like the VESC project, you would advocate for it to not be stolen.

I advocate for a mod to fork this thread into the dumpster.

[john61ct]

Yes we've made our point with the FOSS enforcement / piracy issue, harping on it further, more than say once a month anyway is pretty pointless

[jaykup]

I loaded the new beta firmware to test out field weakening on a small hub motor, and tested the amps at which it will eventually thermal throttle with no ESC airflow.

13s battery, Ancheer 27.5 mountain bike with a 500w geared hub motor, GPS base top speed of 22mph on a full charge. Will run at that top speed all day long without overheating.

When I used 40A of field weakening, the top speed increased to 30mph! Phase amps also increased substantially. With field weakening active, it will always draw a set amount of amps based on RPMs instead of just load. If the controller has zero air flow, it will drop down to about 35A continuous phase current after a few miles.

Detailed metr logs are posted here

[chuyskywalker]

Detailed metr logs are posted here

Nicely gathered.

Seems like with a bit of active cooling it could hold that 50ish amps, you think?

Quick side note from the other forum

Feature wise it would be nice if field weakening only worked when a button was being held.

I believe, if I recall correctly, that (at least in the ASI/Phaserunner world) field weakening only kicks in when you reach the max speed the motor will normally run at as doing it any sooner would be wasteful.

[Oli.Hall]

Meanwhile, if anyone around Cambridge area has one of these new 75100s and is willing to let me probe it with a scope... On the basis of "I break it I'll buy you a new one" it would be pretty interesting to get some double pulses tests, current shunt tests etc done.

I might be able to help, send me a PM and we'll see if we can work something out.

thanks,
Oli.

[jaykup]

Seems like with a bit of active cooling it could hold that 50ish amps, you think?

Sounds reasonable. The IGBTs are screwed to an aluminum bar that uses a thermal compound to the outer aluminum case so heat transfer to open air should be decent, but it may still need a finned heatsink mounted to it.

Feature wise it would be nice if field weakening only worked when a button was being held.

I believe, if I recall correctly, that (at least in the ASI/Phaserunner world) field weakening only kicks in when you reach the max speed the motor will normally run at as doing it any sooner would be wasteful.

Yeah, in the beta VESC settings you can set the duty cycle at which the field weakening begins to activate, and a ramping time to allow it to come to full power. The runs I posted were set to activate at 90% with a controller max of 95% duty cycle... but I remember seeing a discussion about the duty cycle calculations being affected by field weakening so in practice that should roughly activate it when it reaches base speed.

What I was thinking of is an optional feature that kept field weakening disabled even under full throttle/RPMs, and would only turn on when a button was held down. That would keep the bike running efficiently but allow for an extra boost of speed at the expense of range when needed. Otherwise I would always be trying to back off the throttle to stay out of that field weakening state, or just get used to the speed and burn through a battery twice as fast. I know for field weakening's intended use on IPM motors this is a moot point, but when used to inefficiently overspeed SPM motors, it might be useful.

[rogervize]

Has anyone tried this controller on a heavy ebike like the Stealth B52?
I need to replace my crystalyte controller after the regenerative braking components and other circuitry was severely damaged.
Cost of a new replacement is higher than I would like and I am thinking that this new technology is the go especially as it is open source and cheap.
I am quite technical and fully understand the BLDC .
Thanks for any advice.

[BalorNG]

As I understand, new firmware and tool is out of the beta.
Does it work on this controller after replacing the bootloader?

[jaykup]

Yes 5.3 works after replacing the bootloader. You have to load the firmware manually as it's not part of the main branch yet. See instructions here

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=113445&start=150#p1693925

[b264]

Hi

.... Critically here, if I started with one of Benjamin's images and made the changes as above and supplied them to you, it would not even be possible for me to supply you further source, at gunpoint or otherwise. The true source is already supplied.

Come on mxlemming, you're surely playing the devils advocate here for the lulz, aren't you .

I mean, I know editing the binary is not that uncommon, but it is done more to hack some ready made proprietary product (or?). Also, I don't think it's the case here, especially since they gave a black on white response to jaykup: "Our engineers have done some changes based on vesc, not opening source. Sorry."

And the argument that it's for hardware protection and/or something to do with warranty is... unconvincing.
Not releasing the source is ineffective, as you yourself actually told us it would be earlier in the thread. And as you correctly predicted, people have easily figured out how to flash software! Not releasing the *supported* software just makes the situation worse, since people are flashing anyway. There's far better ways to detect tampering for warranty purposes.

I think it's just that they can and probably will get away with it, and they don't give a rats ass about our GPL whining as long as they considering keeping their changes proprietary good for business.

China. As long as the cat catches mice, they don't care what color it is. True story.

The only way they'll stop this practice is if it's bad for business.
Either bad press resulting in bad sales, or some legal action where it hurts, like they can't sell it anymore outside of china (can't really imagine how that could happen).

Br,
badgineer

Tbh, i just hate GPL and the"what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine"attitude. I got really kicked off the other day when I found the entire python source code with the MIT license striped out and replaced with GPL v3 on GitHub. Hopefully that's been nuked by now...

I also hate:
B264 derailing all technical discussions into this debate the second they smell a GPL infringement (which I'm not helping by continuing to be fair)
The way the GPL licence allows manufacturers to shirk their responsibilities to provide a statutory warranty (there are examples of trampa publicly telling buyers they're not getting warranty because they did something like change things in code) (i advocate for me by advocating for warranty on hardware)
The general disposition of the GPL community of "the only licence that needs obeying is ours" (see casainho and the recommending buying fake seggers debate).

I'm sure you're right. Flipsky probably did recompile the code. But GPL is one part of law and there's a ton of safety and warranty related bits of law it really isn't compatible with, which is far more relevant to the 99%.

Why do you think they refuse to release it then if not warranty related? Of course it won't stop me but it will stop the other 99% of people who don't know anything about power electronics. Let's be honest, there's no IP to protect in the header files, none of their time and effort to protect and that's all they'd need to release.

A lot of the technical problems were actually caused by their theft. The fact that you are advocating so hard for criminals is very suspicious indeed.

It's not legal. Full stop.

[john61ct]

Full stop.

Man I am on your side with this, but really that's enough.

People are free to choose evil, and most do.

A monthly reminder is fine, but constant harping does no good

[mxlemming]

A lot of the technical problems were actually caused by their theft.

This is an important one.

What are the technical issues we (users) should be aware of and what's their cause?

Does it cause safety issues? Instability? Damage?

[jaykup]

I think he's referring to the technical problem of not being able to update the firmware from the factory because Flipsky is intentionally refusing to share their source code. If they did it the right/legal way, they would have simply submitted their changes to the main VESC GitHub and the firmware could be updated through the normal process like just about any other VESC based controller.

I keep putting miles on my hacked version of the firmware, and it keeps working without faults or issues. A few other people are running it and haven't reported any issues so far.

Also, I can't let this linger like a fart in an elevator.

@mxlemming Did you read the GPL software license? You seem really intent on allowing people to steal from you. Either that, or you work for, or are bribed by, Flipsky.

I don't work for or am bribed by flipsky, I own one flipsky ESC I paid full price for on bang good. I'm an engineer in Cambridge UK who likes high tech, helping other people with their projects and power electronics. I make zero profit from any of this.

I understand you meanwhile represent one of flipsky's competitors and have ongoing form for trash talking them and other competitors. You rile me with your unhelpfulness so I've responded.

b264 doesn't represent one of Flipsky's competitors. He doesn't sell anything except for an occasional used part. He doesn't own or even moderate the forum you are talking about. He's both recommended Flipsky and pointed out their poor quality in the past. Your presumption that his criticism of Flipsky is financially motivated is incorrect.

The VESC project is one of the coolest open source EV projects out there, and it's a shame that manufacturers like Flipsky are stealing from it. Instead they should model companies like Luna Cycle and Lacroix Boards who contribute to the development.

[badgineer]

Hi Jaykup,

Thanks for the writeup about the vesc related projects, and thanks for the writeup about how to flash the software.
Very very cool!

Also, I can't let this linger like a fart in an elevator.

Maybe just maybe you should have ... You were one of the people both on topic AND really really helpful in this thread! Please don't get dragged into the GPL-related side-discussion that's slowly descending into unpleasant territory!

I keep putting miles on my hacked version of the firmware, and it keeps working without faults or issues.

THIS is what we need more of in this thread.
I'm still not convinced flipsky didn't do anything significant with their hardware/firmware (this is the only flipsky "vesc-based" controller they specify firmware upload is not supported... why?)

So please do keep us up to date with real world first-hand information! Thanks in advance

PS: obviously b264 isn't a flipsky-competitor employee, and obviously mxlemming isn't a flipsky employee. We're all in this elevator so let's just stop farting (I love this analogy)

Br,

[jaykup]

Agreed, and thanks. Back on topic!

There are a few wiring diagrams floating around for this controller, and there were two inaccuracies in the early ones. I was shipped an inaccurate diagram and a few of the vendors on AliExpress still have old diagrams. The biggest issue is the placement of the ADC1 and ADC2 pins.

This is the most current and I believe most accurate pinout.

e4dd7ae1bf52b469549ce3b90908bfef0ae0f701.jpeg (166.4 KiB) Viewed 637 times

I'm still not convinced flipsky didn't do anything significant with their hardware/firmware (this is the only flipsky "vesc-based" controller they specify firmware upload is not supported... why?)

I think this is also the only Flipsky VESC-based ESC that has different enough hardware to require custom firmware, so this is the first time we are seeing how they deal with that issue. It's easier for them to just say "not updatable" rather than trying to figure out how to get it merged with the main project, or continuously provide new binaries. I mean it seems like a silly business decision to not release binaries for 5.3 which is the first firmware to include field weakening... on a controller marketed towards ebikes. The more I think about it, the more Hanlon's razor seems to fit.

[kaning]

Getting in love with this little thing.

Am i wrong to assume this controller does not allow for PAS?

Also, after reading almost all thread I'm still a bit confused on the current spec. Meaning, I still don't understand exactly how much phase current it can handle. Can someone elaborate on the current spec? Thanks!

[john61ct]

Cycle Analyst v3, aka CA3, CAv3 can add PAS to any system that has a throttle input.

100A is the nominal peak phase amps, 50A is the max battery draw rating.

I think no testing to destruction yet, many members are skeptical.

[jaykup]

Am i wrong to assume this controller does not allow for PAS?

PAS was added to the VESC firmware a year ago by @marcos (Axiom guy) on this forum who works with Luna Cycle on their Luna Ludicrous V2, a VESC based controller for the BBSHD.

I haven't tested it yet, but here is the info:

This commit enables cadence-based pedal assist for ebikes using
quadrature-style pedal speed sensors.

There are 2 operation modes:
* PAS only: Motor current is based only on pedal feedback
* ADC + PAS: The code will use both ADC and pedal feedback and use
the strongest command to provide seamless overlap when the user is
pedalling and requests extra torque with the throttle.

It uses the 5v, TX, RX, and GND pins on the COMM port (#3 above). You have to switch the mode to "PAS" or "ADC and PAS" in the VESC tool under App Settings -> General -> APP to use. Then a PAS section will appear which has some additional options to set.

Also, after reading almost all thread I'm still a bit confused on the current spec. Meaning, I still don't understand exactly how much phase current it can handle. Can someone elaborate on the current spec? Thanks!

I also can't tell you definitively as there is no standard for how ESCs are rated. What I can tell you is that Flipsky limited their firmware so that both battery amps and phase amps can't be set higher than 120A. Since the VESC only goes to 95% duty cycle, even at 120 phase amps, you will never reach more than 120*.95=114 battery amps.

The MDP10N027 MOSFESTS have a package limit of 120A so my guess is that 100 phase amps would be a safe level to use it at. Flipsky's website gives specs of 120A max and 100A continuous. Since they make mostly electric skateboard controllers, and most esk8 mfg's don't list battery amp ratings on those, it's safe to assume they are talking about phase current. It will thermal throttle down to much less amps anyway once the ESC reaches 80-85C (and/or the motor if you have a temp sensor), so it doesn't necessarily matter.

On the esk8.news forum there is a guy who recently did some testing.
First unit he put his bike against a wall and held it at 120 phase amps for 10-20 seconds. After doing this a few times he ended up with a nice hole in the fets.
Undeterred, he got a second unit and modified the firmware to accept 150 phase amps, added a large heatsink, and did an uphill test with it. Logs show only ~5 second bursts at 150A that level but it didn't blow up!

IMG-20220111-192030.jpg (2.33 MiB) Viewed 595 times

IMG_20220119_183702_882.jpg (143.81 KiB) Viewed 595 times

So yeah, 100 phase amps should be fine.