I believe this is the most reliable remote/reciever ever! I have used it with TB ESC and VESC and never had any unexpected braking or accelerating. I can turn on my board jump on and start rolling down the hill and then turn on the remote and hit the throttle or brakes and it works perfectly. I can turn the remote off at any time and the board just sits there patiently waiting for me to turn it back on. Sure I have lost connection a couple times, maybe interference but when that happened the board just coasted like it was off and I just turned the remote off and back on and it was reconnected instantly. Maybe itās the receiver. It just goes to neutral when theres no signal. diy-electric-skateboard-kits-parts/torqueboards-2-4ghz-mini-remote-controller/torqueboards-2-4ghz-mini-remote-controller/
Due a personal issue I ran into recently (multiple actually), Iāll be taking a look into some safety measures. My day to day job involves developing software and problem solving. I think the main one that should be used at the moment is a clutch system on all the motors at the shaft itself. Why? If the remote fails and you have a Pi or Arduino or some form of processor to enable a slow and safe brake thatās all good. But how do you prevent shorted wires in your electric motor? The ways I can think are to measure values from each phase and cut the connection when something unexpected happens, but what do you do if the short is internal and impractical to have a sensor placed with a switch? You need a mechanical interface to disconnect the motor from the wheels themselves. It would work the same as an electric drill works. They have clutches on their shafts to prevent you breaking your wrist when too much torque is transferred. This does introduce a mechanical part that does wear away especially if mistreated, but is much more disposable than life itself.
Thatās my first step I will be taking. Another will be to create some monitoring software that tracks anything and everything I can. To hopefully even embed ESC and ABS into our esk8s. Itās not really that hard, itās mostly about getting the information, processing it and acting on it fast enough that you donāt create more issues.
Idk what remote youāre using, but after using the winning remote for a little Iāve noticed that if the controller disconnects at any moment whether it be itās too far away from the board or you turn it off or battery cuts off the motor goes HAM and goes full power
hey man- thereās a fix for this. You have to rebind the remote. Iāve followed these instructions and tested fail-safe by turning off the remote while at full throttle (bench and real-world) It keeps going for about half a second then coasts to stop. Here:
I will say, I have personally experienced the sticky throttle issue with the Winning remote. its definitely just jenky/cheap construction. If I pull down all the way toward brake, then it seems to āresetā the stick and the stickiness goes away. The torque response is not constant with this remote. There must be some play between the throttle mechanism and the plastic thumb stick. I think Iām going to eventually switch to the Benchwheel controller after @jinra finishes being the guinea pig.
To be clear, the issue I experienced was NOT a remote failure - it was multiple shorts in the electronics & motors. No amount of monitoring or rebinding would have made any difference.
The back-torque limiting system I was referring to is a mechanical design and effectively only allows torque to be applied in one direction (forward). This is why such a system precludes electric brakes (and of course, regenerative braking) and reverse. There are other skateboard brakes available though.
we are also having problems with November 2016 Evolve GT boards (carbon and bamboo) and their remotes / drop outs, stuck acceleration, delays in throttle and braking response - I was wondering if DIY was actually better (because you can update firmware and replace the radio link yourself)
I think getting a totally reliable radio link is the holy grail of electric skateboards, DIY or Prebuilt / factory releases - everything else seems easier by comparison - all the development seems to be in other areas - I guess its just easier to use a radio link already in production - what about one of the higher end RC protocols from Spektrum, Futaba, Taranis, Jeti etc - not perfect but well developedā¦
XBee. Designed exactly for this sort of thing.
Hard to go past GT2B remotes
I used Arduino Mini Pro and Arduino UNO. I am switching to Teensy these days. Because I use multiple serial ports, reading data from UART, writing and reading from Bluetooth, debug writing to Serial.
Arduino has huge latency on serial communication compared to Teensy. It literally becomes unusable, if code is doing anything more than read number from bluetooth apply PWM to VESC.
I had some accidents due to Arduino. It didnāt cause much trouble luckily. Thanks to my plastic motor mount setup, it just breaks apart in any crash onto wall, saving me from runaway board problem.
I totally back this up. I have at least 1500 kilometres on my GT2Bs and never had any signal issue, even in crowded places with lots of interference.
Iām just starting to experiment with XBee. Hoping it is the answer to my remote requirements.
Could one just disable the braking altogether? Iāve never needed brakes on a longboard.
Everyone needs red to learn to fall like this guy.
You can minimize braking by adjusting your VESC settings. Certain setups have lower braking power as well. My Carvon V2 single has enough braking power to keep your board under control, but doesnāt give that sudden jerk that throws you.
Also if your using 2.4ghz RC controller like gt2b then they have built in failsafe to stop rc from running away and need to set that to neutral aligned with vesc settings.
I too knew a guy in high school who ended up in a coma after longboarding a mild hill. But I still donāt wear a helmet regularly just cruising on my push board. Now we are strapping 2hp motors to boards and haulinā ass around what used to be safe flat ground. People seem lulled into a sense of safety because they are cruising flat ground?
The community needed someone to instill the values of safety gear and I can say your doc filled that need for me. Helmet? Check. Always while E-skating. Your courage to put together a film has saved lives. The eskate community needs to continue to spread your doc, and others stories, to get the community to truly embrace safety gear.
Would it be possible to modify existing remotes to include a ādead-switchā which would use a different transmitting/receiving frequency/technology than the original remote and would just shut the power off whenever itās pressed? Youād probably need another power source as wellā¦
Thanks for sharing your story. IĀ“ll hope you will get better and better over the time. Search for scenar devices, āmaybeā it will help you in getting full recover. Wish you all the best!!
Iāve had this happen on two separate boards and the one accident was near fatal! I was on the Santa Monica bike path going full speed when I had an esc failure. The brakes engaged and sent me flying! I broke my back, hip, both feet, hand and tons of Stitches. Both of the boards had high quality car escs. I am not sure if the Vesc does the same but would love to know because if notā¦that is a reason to buy it. I never ride full speed anymore and when I see guys that do it makes me cringe.
I want to add a helmet will protect your head but there are still many other vulnerable parts of the body as you can see from my accident. Does this mean I now ride with full gear? No, but I ride slower and 15-18 mph is still plenty quick!