I didn’t realize torque boards vescs were questionable :(.
There could still be a possible short in the motor. I remember when I got my Space Cell in and tried riding, it suddenly spazzed out a little and would just shake on throttle, which would mean something is wrong with the 3 phase wires.
I had no resistance when turning the motor either, so I went ahead and opened the motor up to insulate the 3 phase wires. It worked with zero issues after that.
On a side note, I had something weird happen to my old VESC where I kept getting a DRV error when I would let the motor come to a stop after hitting the throttle. It magically disappeared though, when I did another motor detection.
I don’t think they are. I did get mine shipped with the max ramp step bug, and defaulting to 50, which was causing that exact behavior you’re getting.
@Carvin_Ginger By questionable, I mean I do not know what components, pcb materials ect are used. This is why we only service VESC’s made here in our shop. The VESC is not something easily manufactured cheaply and will continue to be haunted by those that try to find every possible way of saving money in bringing it to market.
There really is no reason why your vesc will spontaneously fail unless you short your phase wires or run a high kv at high voltage. If it fails for some unknown reason it is usually a manufacturing fault.
The VESC was working intermittently yesterday, and now it won’t respond at all to motor detection. Every fault is DRV8302.
I did manage to find a friend who replaces small chips like this for a living, so I may get out of this with minimal repair costs :).
How much should I pay him for the troubles?
Kris, check the solder joints on your phase wires. If one of your wires is not making connection the motor will act just like yours is. Jittering back and forth. I had this same thing happen and it was a bad solder joint on one phase wire. This might be the cause of the drv fault as well. And would also explain why it fail intermittently.
remove the shrink wrap and pull and twist the connectors to see if they come loose. Check both the vesc’s and motor’s connectors and check the solder joints at the vesc. Also your motor may have a disconnection of one of the phase wires internally. If you could get your hands on another motor to try. or if you have an ohm meter you can check for continuity between the motor wires with the motor unplugged there should be continuity between all three wires.
1 Like
@Namasaki I took apart the motor and checked the solder joins on the VESC. Everything looks insulated soldered well.
Now the VESC just throws the drv8302 faults and won’t spin or detect.
I did find a friend that can swap in a new drv8302. I will see if that works.
if you have a volt/ohm meter check for continuity between motor phase wires with the wires disconnected from the vesc. also check continuity from the connectors at the end of the vesc phase wires and the solder joints on the vesc pub You could have a cold solder joint that looks ok but is not ok.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt to resolver them. I’m borderline getting a new VESC entirely. Prolly from @chaka
@Namasaki I ohmed out the VESC and it was solid. I’m not familiar enough with the brushless motor to know what to look for. I broke it open and looked at the wires and they were insulated, but besides that I don’t know what to look for.
Your motors where acting like one of your phase wires was disconnected not shorted.
Putting the motor out of phase and making it jump back and forth instead of spinning.
Just check for continuity between all 3 phase wires.
There should be continuity between all 3 of them like there connected together.
See how all 3 wires are connected in the middle
Inspect all your solder joints closely. The solder should be shinny not dull looking. If its dull looking, that is a sign of possible cold joint. Take it apart and clean it and solder it again preferably with a new connector and trim the wire and basically start the process new.
You really need a high power soldering gun 200-300 watts to solder these heavy connectors and wires.
I know that people are doing it with low power soldering pencils. But there is risk of cold joints without the proper tools.
When soldiering, the trick is in and out fast! You need high power to heat the joint quickly so that you don’t burn all the flux away.
@Namasaki I ohmed out from the connectors to the vesc and they checked out.
I then ohmed from the connectors to the Motor, and found then the copper on the top was all connected to each phase wire. is that normal?
Not sure what you mean by “the copper on top”
Where the phase wire insulation ends and the copper wires are exposed at the “top” of the motor as I put it. Each strand of copper wire that goes to the spools ohms out as being connected to each phase wire.
It doesn’t appear as though they are shorting anywhere either.
check your solderings at the vesc, your motor wires and your battery. 140 Amps through your vesc are definatly not a good way to go. and check that before you replace your drv, because if there is something wrong, you just burn another chip down.
@Namasaki i took some pics:
The third pic joint is visibly loose.
Could these joints be the problem?
That does not look good. There should be no continuity between any of the phase wires and the motor housing. The solder joint and wire close to it needs to be covered with shrink wrap As you may know, The wire for the stator coils is insulated with a special clear coating. So that they don’t short out.
1 Like
