DOA DIYEboard esc?

ESK8 Electronics
1

So, I finally received some parts from diyeboard today and while most of the parts seem to be in order and the housing looks pretty good (my 3d printed ones didn’t last…), except the ESC appears to be DOA.

I’ve Verified 36V on the battery as well as on the input blobs of solder on the esc, but when I try to turn on the esc, nothing happens.

No lights, no sounds, no spark when plugging in the battery, nothing.

I can see a few solder pads that say “6s” and “7s”, neither of which are bridged; If that makes a difference.

When I connect the battery, the voltage drops to 5v, and creeps up very slowly to about 22v. Once the voltage has crept up, if the on button is pushed it starts to beep and light up (as the voltage rapidly drops back down) but then goes dark and quiet again allowing the voltage to creep back up.

If it makes a difference, this esc is the double hub motor version and appears to be the “v2” with the two layers of pcb soldered together at the corners with some pins.

This is a BRAND NEW esc that has not successfully turned on, even once. (They claim that they test parts before sending them out (to justify not having a warranty!), but I’m going to have to call “b**-****t” on that because if they had so much as plugged this esc in, they’d have seen that it wont even power up!)

Does this place have a reputation for ripping people off like this, or are the likely to fix this?

Am I missing something simple, or is this esc as it appears, doa?

Where do I even start in troubleshooting it to try and get it working? (I have a hot air station and know how to use it, but haven’t used it because I don’t want there to be any question that the board was DOA and that I didn’t do anything to destroy it.

I have a hot air station and know how to use it, but I think that a brand new out of the bubble wrap esc should at least work when its delivered. (and as such am assuming that I’m missing something or doing something wrong…)

2

Just contact him, he seems very helpful to me.

Shit happens during shipping.

3

wow, that was a quick reply, thanks!

I sent an email to the address “[email protected]” but haven’t gotten any reply; Is there another address that I should have used?

How else can I contact him? If the one I’ve used is wrong, do you know the right one?

4

Im not completely sure to be honest with you.

But if you go to their webpage you have the contact form aswell as they have a live chat, Try that!

5

Oh, I didn’t know that had a chat on their website, Ill try there now…

thanks

6

Talk to Jason, he’s their representative @diyeboard

7

It has more solder bridges than that. I would first verify if you are actually using the correct voltage for what the esc has been set to. If not, who knows what might have happened.

8

What sort of battery are you using? And are you sure the button is plugged into the correct port?

9

That is a strange behavior. Check the Battery and charge it, to verify that you don´t have a defective one.

10

well, no go on the chat on their website; it just kept timing out with a "no reps available send an email " message, but I did use their support form to submit a message in yet another place; I’ll not assume that its like yelling at a brick wall until at least tomorrow or the next day…

@telnoi That makes sense, but I couldn’t find any documentation about the newer two layer esc, and when I had a look over the pcb (with a usb microscope) I couldn’t see any other bridges on the areas that I could access; Its possible that there are some in between the layers of pcbs, but I didn’t want to start de-soldering it to separate them and risk giving @diyeboard any chance to say that it wasn’t DOA and that I’d done something to kill it, and since I ordered it as a 10S esc, one would think that the bridges should should be set as 10s anyway…

Can you tell me where to look for the other bridges you’re talking about?

@pat.speed, I’m using a 10s3p battery that they sell, didn’t even have to solder the connectors to it; specifically made for that setup and esc…I caved and bought their housing and battery since I was having problems with the terrible roads here combined with my 3dprinted housing causing the spot welds on my last battery to keep breaking. ;I’m certain that I’ve plugged the button into the right place, as it says “LED, GND, GND, POWER” on the board side connector and the connector doesn’t fit anywhere else on the board…I even connected the pins on the back of the connector momentarily (the button does exactly the same thing except at the end of some wire) to eliminate the connector being a culprit, to no avail.

@TarzanHBK, I agree, however, I’m fairly certain its not the battery as I also tested the ESC with another known good 10s4p pack that I’ve got and got the same results; Best I can tell is that its as a result of a capacitor charging up. (which makes sense in how it will start to power up for a moment as the voltage falls rapidly again)

The battery is at 36V…that should be more than enough to simply turn on the circuit as the cutoff voltage isn’t supposed to be until around 3v per cell (30v)…I also tried testing with a fully charged 10s4p pack (which was at 41.8V) and it didn’t make any difference…

I’d test that pack on something else, but unfortunately I don’t have anything else that can handle that sort of voltage (not anything that draws a significant load anyway…)

@diyeboard, can you shed any light on this? …

11

If you tested it with another one, i´m pretty sure the ESC is broken somewhere…

12

Try to reach [email protected]

13

well, it seems that although the battery seems ok (it reads just under 36v) the charger they sent may also be defective…

I’ve tested the esc with another known good battery, but had no change in the results, so there is definitely a problem with the esc, but it appears the charger is defective also.

Plugged in, the green light goes on and the output reads 42V, but despite lifting the battery voltage slightly (by 1/2 a volt) the led doesn’t turn red and it does not draw any more current vs just plugged in when plugged into the battery. (my inverter has a digital ammeter…) I left it plugged in to both 240v ac and to the battery overnight thinking that the draw was low because it was full and the current was past the “starting to taper” point, but the battery voltage and the “sitting on the charger voltage” was actually slightly (0.2v) lower when i checked it this morning. (the charger doesn’t appear to actually start the charge cycle…)

(EDIT, Ive tested the charger and the esc independently with a known good and working battery; I’m confident that the problem isn’t the battery)

I mean, I can just rig up another charger and would probably use the house-bank driven charger 90% of the time anyway, but Ive paid good money to get parts that work without having to do that; It’s just not acceptable that not only one, but 2/3 of the non “simple piece of plastic” parts are DOA.

@XTLA thanks, I’ll do that now; hopefully he will be able to salvage this situation!

14

I hate to say it, but this sounds eerily like a “buy cheap, buy twice” sort of situation. I hope I am wrong though.

1 Like
15

@Sender

An item not lasting is one thing, but one that doesn’t work at all out of the box is quite another; this was sold as an esc, and as far as function is concerned it is a paperweight.

16

Well, they have finally started replying to my emails.

Still no solution, but at least they seem to have quit with the “we test before we send out, so its not defective” line. (but only after I made/posted a video demonstrating the problem; which they demanded despite the fact that every shred of info in the video was already in the previous email I had sent…)

17

That’s normal for them, they always ask for video evidence because it could help them to diagnose what’s actually wrong, or if there is a simple fix before shipping it back to China. It also does take a day or two for them to respond sometimes but apart from that they seem very helpful

1 Like
18

I’ve just hit the same problem, looking for 10s, desoldered the 7spins and hookedmy known good 10s pack and beepbeepbeep ad nauseum,any fix? maybe it’s only something fixable via firmware

19

yea, ill put my 2 cents in, there service/support via email sucks , no return policy on anything electric, BS. I bought two 12s4p batteries from them and could even get them to full charge, then week and half of argument via email on if I was plugging it in correctly… only returned the batteries after I threatened to open them up in from of a video camera. RMA the next day… last time I bought from them, end of story

20

This was before we started offing custom packs built to suit, we walk you through the process answer any questions and you get pics of your build as its being done… you see whats in your battery pack as its being built, quality and attention to detail is our SOP.