Bolt-on build in Perth

Hey bbe - yes the 120A model I have does get a bit hot after prolonged use, so hopefully the 200A one will work a bit better for you. (My ESC is fully enclosed in the box with no external cooling - so pretty good that it can get away with that).

It has been a few years since I looked into the ESC’s, and that was the only real low-cost 12S high-amp ESC I could find. I wonder if there are more options now?

I used the throttle programming method, and yes it was quite finnicky.

Good luck with your build :slight_smile:

Thanks!
Yes, it took me a while to figure out (halfway) what settings was activated. According to the manual
https://files.banggood.com/2016/09/FVT-BOAT%20ESC(English).pdf

there are 6 settings, but listening to the “beep” menu it seems to be eight, and the number of choices on each setting seems to differ from the manual on some of the settings. Luckily the Timing is 2nd choice, so “easy” to find. Changing timing has a tremendous impact on the power of the motor. With the setting it came with, I could slow down the motor with my hand. After choosing what I believe is High timing the motor span faster and was way more powerful when touching it. So I figured that was a good setting to test it on water.
There is also a setting no6: Frequency Low/High that could have some effect on performance, but I never managed to figure out if I was in this setting, so didn’t try to change it.

My plan is to use it in the sea, as I dont have good lakes/rivers in my area (Oslo/Norway), but for initial test I needed to do it in freshwater so I went to a tiny lake nearby, about 200 meters across. I havent efoiled before, but have learned wingfoiling this year so know a little about foiling and the speed I usually start foiling. My setup is a Gong Hipe 6’5 170L Wing/Sup board with battery/ESC strapt in the back. The cables to the motor are taped to the trailing edge of the mast, and I needed a hoseclamp on my poorly printed broken mastclamp in PETG (beginner in 3D printing), so quite a lot of extra drag. The initial runs sitting on the board I wasn’t getting speed to get on foil, and me weighting 105kg+ with wetsuit, I figured the motor was probably too small for me. My foil is a 1900cm X-over with good low end and speed should have been enough for foiling, but I could feel the extra drag from the e-foil bits holding me down.

Since I thought I was in High timing, I knew there was a Very High timing available, so I reprogrammed the ESC with the remote on the beach, and to my positive surprise that gave the motor significant more power and the speed was enough to get on foil! It was draggy and poor technique + short runs and low battery made me only make one run in bumpy foiling mode standing. Anyway I consider it a success first run and now is next step to reduce drag by putting cables inside mast and printing a new clamp. I hope the ESC will work long term as it is cheaper and more practical than a VESC, which on 10S is a bit overkill. Since it is waterproof I have mounted it on a alu-plate on top of battery so all electronics is waterproof and gets fresh air for cooling, so if you don’t use the watercooling I should probably not need it either?

Hope to test it next weekend, maybe with a slightly smaller and faster foil to find speed potensial, which I hope to be around 25 km/h with 10S. I chose 10S because I got hold of four 10S batteries with DLG cells which I just put in parallell, but with 120kV motor it might be better to get a 140-150kV motor to get more speed, maybe a 63100 if a faster kV 6384 will be harder to get on foil.

Regarding longevity of this cheap motor: How many times/hours roughly have you used it in saltwater before failing?

Hi all, thanks for your interest in my build

I’ve done a new post on “Mk II” with several improvements

  • Folding prop
  • Better attachment of battery box to board with “3M Dual Lock”
  • Hydrodynamic cable guide for the mast
  • Reliable water-proof remote control
  • Water-proof treatment of 6384 motor
  • Bigger battery

I also some discuss some future ideas including

  • Active stabilisation
  • Latching motor mount
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