Any interest in a custom e-foil ESC?

IMHO 90% of the value of VESC is in VESCtool; so if your drive doesnā€™t work with that Itā€™ll be hard for it to catch on.

Agree! Since all I am changing is the config files, the wavebreaker (or should i call it something else?) is compatible with VESC Tool. The binary just isnā€™t included and you have to load it separately like with the A200S and all the other custom builds.

Here is my concept, which is an evolution of @pacificmeister concept. It needs a milled-out brick of aluminum for a housing, and some lathed penetrators to get the wires into the housing. This way, the whole thing is in the water when not foiling (0-200A motor current), and can conduct through the aluminum mast when foiling (20-80A motor current).

Itā€™s a very different concept than what everyone else has done (except pacificmeister). I am wondering if anyone else is interested in mounting the ESC this way? One thing is that the wires need to be glued into the penetrators, so the wires need to be jacketed in a material that sticks to glue (not ptfe not silicone). I have been thinking about EPDM as a good jacket material for 8awg battery and motor wire.

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Simple and without water cooling. Love it

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Very nice I was still trying figuring out how to put my vesc between the mast bolt ā€¦

Ok so MY idea looks lot like this which just showed up on insta an hour ago. Whoever you are: Iā€™m good at design, let me design it for you!

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8iEaUZhZ--/?igshid=qrom9qllz4eo

He is @Mantafoils :+1::+1: I will build you guys the remote and bms :joy:

Fliteboard is gonna be after them straight away. They have patented the ESC on mastā€¦

oh jesus. Now how is someone gonna patent ā€œESC on the mastā€.

Iā€™m about to buy some ESCs. I should have sell-able units in about 1 month, unless Wuhan flu gets worse. Iā€™ll dyno test each one, so you can be assured that they have been tested to 7kW before you hook it up.

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Here the patents are:

Their patents does not even cover the EU ?
There are nearly no informations on this patent. What does it cover ? ESC above the mast ? In which position does the ESC need to be to be patented ? Because yes, you have to describe everything in the patent and even the orientation of the said esc / cables, otherwise I will just flip over the ESC or put my cable elsewhere and we are out of the jurisdiction, arenā€™t we ?
The best selling products in the world arenā€™t even patented, just think of the Coca colaā€¦

Look how Pegasus foil got rid of their patent ā€¦ How are they going to sue them ?

Pwrfoil also have esc on mastā€¦ The flite patent covers esc on mast passively cooled by a special heat convection systemā€¦ Thatā€™s what we can read in the patent and this is why other companies have already started to sell efoils with such features.

Well, I ordered a batch of wavebreaker 2 for us. Was going to put them up for sale and give some away in trades. But the asian pcb manufacturer got held up due to the wuhan flu, so I just got the boards this week. Being a smart guy, I decided to on-shore the manufacturing at a assembly shop close to my house. But I am in CA, and now WE are on lockdown.

So if anyone wanted a wavebreaker 2, sorry about that. The universe has decided this project shall not happen this year.

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Hello Nick, just curious to hear about your ESC projectā€¦ still on track ?

I stopped working with vesc software when I met a embedded motor control software guy (kai) on eskate builders. Been workin with him. Done a 300A esc and a 90A eskate esc. Hereā€™s the 300A version. Whatā€™s way nicer is he does rotor saliency tracking for low speed torque and has way better motor characterization. Altogether I am also way better at designing motor controllers than I was a few years ago. Evolution not revolution I guess


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What a gem ! Is it possible to know more ?
Dimensions ? Has it been tested on an efoil ? Do you still plan to commercialize it (a few) ? Recommended cooling: above the ESC or under the board deck ? Would you have some data curves youā€™d like to share with us ? ā€¦ Would it be possible to do PID rpm (cruise) control ? ā€¦

That looks gorgeous!

roughly w x l x h is about 3 by 4 by 2 inches.

We do not have an efoil to test this thing on.

We eventually want to sell these things, have some customers from battlebots interested (but they will pay diddly squat so weā€™ll see). I canā€™t make many this year because of ongoing semiconductor shortage.

Cool it through the bottom heatsink, but there will be an enclosure that thermally links the top and bottom. May do a board rev that moves all heat producing components to the bottom, depending on whether I can convince Nick to draw that.

Donā€™t have curves, but we have a video of it running a 10kW barbecue for 5 minutes. We already know itā€™s better than APD and others.

PI speed control is possible, but will require user hand-tuning of the gains. I could do bang-bang openloop speed control (i.e. voltage control) or bang-bang closed loop speed control. That would not require tuning but may have poor dynamic performance.

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@Gamer43 is the actual designer, and the funder and parts buyer. I am the electronics tradesman that did the layout and mechanical design. His motor control algorithm is much better than VESC. VESC doesnā€™t do a good job estimating rotor position over 100A and you wind up with a poor lead angle pushing far more current for far less torque.

Our current test rigs are an electric go kart and the dynamometer at work, which is limited to 10kW and is a sterile lab setting so not good for real world type testing. If anyone knows of a way we could aquire an efoil deck to test, any suggestions would be appreciated.

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Bang-bang control ehā€¦ how does that one work? Iā€™m super curious how youā€™re performing better then VESC. also what particular part are you facing a shortage on?