I’ve been thrown numerous times because of braking, it’s not attenuated enough for me to safely brake quickly. I ride in Manhattan amongst aggressive drivers & feel unsafe in emergency maneuver situations. Sometimes I have cars behind me honking, & I push accelerate on the remote & my esc doesn’t send power at all or it’s maybe delayed or I have inadequate speed below 75% battery power. The ESC gets VERY hot & made me nervous of fire concerns when riding up or down the hills of Park Slope, Brooklyn, so I try to stay only on flats, which is rather impractical. The remote froze, so I sent it back for repair & it froze again. So they sent another & that froze too. Apparently, you have to unscrew the remote cover, which wasn’t possible to open all the way b/c of a stripped screw. I had to pivot it around the stripped screw, from their earlier repair, & unplug/replug battery wire. Upon closing it up, the throw now sticks, making it even more hazardous to brake. Anyone have any solutions to this problem?
The battery is a whole other issue, it drains quicker from 75%-0%, than 100%-75%. At 50% battery, you have decreased top speed & torque. Heavy voltage sag. Not getting advertised specs.
You can fit the Sanyo 20700b 10S2P battery packs sold by Meepo ect. in your enclosure. And replace the esc with the new one sold by Meepo, Ownboard, Wowgo etc. If you got some spare cash, buy two Focboxes and let some one build you a Samsung 30Q battery pack and your riding experience will skyrocket! I did those upgrades with Meepo style hubs and it’s just amazing.
Yeah man totally agree with @goldrabe, you would be better off with dumping the esc and controller. They are not interchangeable with any other after market remotes. The receiver is built into the esc. I know the wowgo and meepo are swappable between each other and are the same as the diyeboards but not sure of the backfire. I have the meepo style hubs running on 2 hobbyking 4.12 vescs (cheap) with a 10s 3p lg pack and a nano remote and boy it is a different animal. Still get a voltage sag but unless you go 30q you will unfortunately.
Is the BackFire upgrade ESC kit the same as the new meepo, wowgo, etc. ESC? Is it FOCBOX or VESC? I know nothing about controllers or DIY, that’s why I went with prebuilt. But looks like I need to learn now, because the battery & controller don’t suit my needs & need replacements. The hubs seem powerful enough for me, but they vibrate, are noisy & don’t have enough shock absorption properties, especially transitioning from asphalt to sidewalk & riding over those bumps. Jaw rattling & the constant harshness of road vibration wears on you, especially feet fatigue. Hopefully the 96mm wheels I’m getting solves that issue. Not sure if they are softer duro than stock. I like the board feel. So I’m not too disappointed overall, but out of the box, it needs improvement. I wonder about the long term reliability of the trucks & hub motors. I remember Meepo had a recall on trucks. The board feels quality made, I think it will be as reliable as any other proper board. Who currently makes the most reliable hub motor?
The new Backfire ESC is the same as what Wowgo and Ownboard are using, Meepo’s ESC is different and not so much recommended.
At the moment there are no really good options for hub motors. But @Hummie is in the finalizing steps of his own hub motor development and when those are available this might be the strongest and best.
Learning how to diy is defiantly the most fun and you can trust your board because you build it.
Yes those Focboxes i mentioned are based on VESC. With those and a good battery, you get so much more torque!!!
Focbox is an Enertion branded 4.12 hardware vesc. The Backfire speed controller is a dual motor esc, with factory programmed settings/parameters. You’re running into the Kleenex/Tissue issue, yes a Focbox is a vesc, but only one style of vesc is a Focbox.
an ESC is an electronic speed controller with factory settings that generally can’t be changed, Vescs on the other hand are programmed by the end-user and are based on software/hardware developed open-source by Benjamin Vedder
For the issues you spoke of there are a few fixes. Battery life is easily doubled from the stock 4.4ah battery to a 10s2p sanyo pack at 8ah. It will fit into the stock housing so no change there. If the board is braking too hard for your liking, you will notice a slight decrease in torque/braking power by swapping to larger wheels. You can make the vibrations and ride feel smoother by deck swapping to a more comfy deck. Note sure what to do about your remote, as the receiver is built into the esc. If you want to change your remote, you must change your esc to a compatible one for your board. Or swap out for vescs/receiver/remote, although the second option will be more expensive by far.
If you’re located in USA I have a brand new spare dual esc and remote I can send your for like $10 + the price of shipping, its a WowGo 2 model (not 2S) so it should be a direct replacement for the BF2 setup, with a slightly different remote. Not sure if it will be any better for your board than what you have but shouldn’t have a damaged remote at least
I read in another post the Teamgee remote can pair with the backfire so if you’re looking to swap just the remote it may be possible, but I don’t personally have experience with that remote