BIG TORQUE - Reliable board for the larger rider + DIY CNC Tab Welder

Extraordinarily helpful, thank you!

Its a “3020T”, don’t know the company but its some cheep chinese machine. They can be acquired for around £300.

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That stepper looks so freakin big wtf, haha

Just had some more time on the CNC. no aluminium yet but i did have some time to redesign and cut my Trampa Cable Riser :grin:

Not the best finish ever but i guess you wont see the faces . . . right?

These have been cut from poly-carbonate which im hoping will make them robust and able to withstand the shock and vibration at the trucks.

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Also while im here, a quick update on how the enclosure is holding up . . .

The only problem i have been having is that as the seal compresses around the screw holes it has created pressure points, causing the case to split around the screws.

And here is my temporary solution (so i can keep riding) :

This is just some 4mm acrylic strips to distribute the pressure along the length better. The wiggly bits allow for a slight amount of compression and expansion as the board flexes. seems to be holding up well so far.

I guess in the long term i will have to mold another enclosure and make some kind of metal strips or something.

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BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN:

A months or so ago I managed to get water inside my temporary electronics enclosure :frowning:

managed to blow a DRV on a focbox. After replacing it I decided I probably shouldn’t ride again until I had sorted out my enclosure situation to a more permanent solution.

The plan here was too CNC a base plate which I could mount focbox’s and bms on securely.

Then CNC an outer housing and EPDM seal to keep everything dry inside.

Then when I had time I finished the Tampa riser wires.

Got these mounted on my trucks.

Mounted the enclosure and plugged everything in.

So far I’m happy with the way it’s working out.

The best bit is defenatley the cable risers, the cables look so good coming out the end of the board.

There are defenatley some things I would change next time around but I’m interested to see how well this is going to hold up to some abuse. Also it’s awesome to finally have the bms on-board and not have to wire up lots of cables ever time I want to charge.

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After a few great weeks of riding it seems that water has once again returned to my electronics :cry: After a very wet ride to work today one of my motors is no longer spinning.

I have not had a chance to open it yet but it seems odd. It is the master focbox thats not driving the motor, but its still connecting to bluetooth, receiving commands from my remote, and passing them over CAN to the slave which seems to be running.

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Might be worth thinking about using a waterproofing spray on the electronics. Think CorrosionX is one option, seen someone spray it on a quadcopter esc then run it under water with the motor.

those trampa decks… are they solid carbon fiber or is there wood in there?

neither.

https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/basalt-fiber-fabric.html

No carbon at all I believe, it’s glass fibre composite. Just looks like CF

nice… i was thiking of doing a hybrid build using s-glass and carbon… since carbon is stiffer and s-glass is “stronger”

yeah its a fiberglass like composite. unlike carbon fiber its not conductive which makes things easier.

so my fault on my master focbox is weird.

Im getting “FAULT_CODE_DRV” show up in the app but only when i try and run the motor, as soon as i stop it goes back to normal. Also “ESC Monitor” app by @Ackmaniac is showing “invalid command: can_member” followed by “Error : Unknown fault”.

But the CAN seems to be working as i can control and connect the other focbox. any ideas anyone?

FOCED FOCBOX . . . again.

Had another focbox fault recently. This is my third failure so far (admitted one was my own fault caused by water damage). anyways i ordered another DRV and when it arrived i opened my board to investigate.

First thing I found was that all of the hot glue / silicone round the capacitors has broken. This has resulted in one of the caps breaking both legs.

I think our rural English countryside provide to much vibration for many eskate components.

The second thing is that it looks like one of the fets has released the magic smoke. I assumed this was going to be a DRV fault so had a replacement chip ready but unfortunatley it looks like it might not be the driver that caused the problem :frowning:

At this point im thinking it might be a better idea to wait for the unity or a dual vesc6 than to buy another focbox. I dont seem to be having great luck with them. I dont think they can handle my current requirements and local road conditions.

I guess i will just have to ride slow on mono for the next few months :cry:

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Just had some time to look at this in more detail. This is what the FET damage looked like under the TIM.

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After cleaning up I start to get some clues as to whats happened.

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Looks like the PCB has corroded and copper had been exposed on some areas. Also the edge of the FET seems to be corroded here. Maybe a short between the FET housing and copper has occurred.

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Decided to remove the fet and asses the damage.

IMG_20180626_111536

Yep, that defenatley looks done.

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The board dident look great either. So I tried again to clean it up.

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This actually doesn’t look too bad. It looks like the PCB has worn down to the copper in a few areas. Maybe this is caused by vibration or maybe water ingress? not 100% sure. also cant work out how to check the other FETS without removing them which i don’t really want to do if i can avoid it.

So I plan to re coat the bare copper areas again some how then replace the FET. Wish me luck :slight_smile:

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WOOOOOOOOOOOO

So today i fitted the replacement FET and rebuilt the focbox. after conecting it on the desk it seems that everything is working again. Hopefully i can get some time so to put it back in the board and try it out under some load :smile:

Also finally got round to uploading the cable riser to thingiverse if anyone else wants to make one.

Hope this is useful to some one :slight_smile:

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I’m currently printing something similar… it’s based on the unikboard riser and it’s coming along swimmingly

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Is that cable riser not aluminum, it looks it in the picture, although there’s no way it is cause that would short your phase wires for sure.

Actually, come to think of it, are you sure it’s not water getting in the cable riser and shorting your phase wires that’s killing your focbox? I know shorted phase wires during operation will cause a dry error on any vesc

The cable riser is milled from poly-carbonate. I think its the rough finish that makes it look like aluminium but if i bothered to polish it up it would be clear. its not conductive and the only other thing the wires touch is the composite deck.

Also after looking under the fets in my focbox im 100% sure issues were caused by water ingress from somewhere.