I’ve been using Enertion VESC v4.12 boards for a while, and I’ve just gone through my third (only paid for 1, thankfully), and all have given me the drv8302 error. This third one was a used one from Enertion, that they said had thorough testing, and had worked fine.
The last 2 saw a pampered operating environment in terms of temperature, as they were mounted in my custom made aluminum case, with direct mosfet heat sinking. Made hill climbs easy with a single motor! So I can’t imagine I have had any temperature issues.
I’m quite disappointed with the lack of reliability these boards have been giving me. I’ve kept the battery current at 50A or less, and the motor current 120A or less, which I’ve heard is fine. I’ve heard of others using 200A on the motor without issue.
So, my question is, who sells the most reliable VESC? Is the VESC-X any good? At this point I’m hesitant to try anything else from Enertion…
Do you insulate/separate phase wire push connections on motor connection. I didn’t once and although very little exposed I reckon a short here caused a DRV to fail, just like yours, no visual evidence just game over. Like you I’d taken so much care with settings, heat and current draw just missed something simple.
120A for the motor is already very high. 200A is recommended by hummie and makes absolutely no sense.
Do you run in FOC or BLDC? And did you have errors where the VESC shut down in between before they died? And did you do a proper motor detection?
And I would not recommend to go higher than 100A for motor max to give the VESC the chance to handle current spikes a bit better.
The mosfets are rated for well over 200A if I recall correctly, so I don’t think the 120A limit really caused any issues. Besides, it would only be able to deliver that 120A up to around 41% duty cycle, at which point the 50A battery limit would kick in. (120A * 0.41 = ~50A) I would like to keep a higher motor current setting, as it makes startup torque and smoothness so much better than when it was set to 80A.
So far, nobody has answered my question as to what VESC they think is the most reliable.
From our experience, if you keep having the same problem over & over again you might need to rethink your setup to be sure nothing else is causing the fault.
if you can show us some photos of your enclosure that would be good, how did the vesc get the dirt on it? was the vesc protected with some shrink tube?
@Hummie the problem with these unit was that the resistor they place where still passing the test, and it was a complete manufacturer error, NOT A PROBLEM WITH THE DESING.
@Alanhunt123 I can read that you use a 245KV with a 10S battery… I do not recommend that kind of configuration since the VESC is more sensible with high ERMP, you don’t want to exceed 60k, or it can damage the DRV. (245 * 42 * 7 = 72 030 ERMP). You can put the MAX ERPM at 60K, but still your borderline with the limit of your electronic.
Probably Olin, but aren’t people having g issues with delivery times? Seems like I’ve read a couple of time where people have waited weeks.
Axle, I don’t know. They seem pretty new. I’ve read that @longhairedboy likes them. I might give them a try.
Honestly I usually buy VESCs based on my support experience, meaning it’s more valuable to buy from someone that I KNOW is going to be there to assist.
I’d have to recomend @oriol360 or @torqueboards, both have been awesome for me. But their VESCs do not have the upgraded FETs like the VESC-X, which is why I thought it strange to look for a “better” VESC.
Frankly, after 3 I’d think it was an issue with another component causing the problem, not the VESC itself.
@JohnnyMeduse I have my ERPM limited to 50k, which is plenty fast for me, and also well under the 60k limit.
I found the issue, it seems my VESC case had too sharp of edges on the wire holes that it cut a tiny slit in two of my motor leads, and led to a short.
Looks like I’ll have to fix that, and that should fix the issue once I get a new VESC.
