Mountainboard bad 36V battery—can I use 40V?

ESK8 Electronics
#1

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I just bought a dead mountainboard with a bad battery for parts from a defunct random manufacturer “electric rides” in Florida.

It came with a 36V battery pack that was down to 0.4V inside so I understand that it’s dead and those cells are all scrap now.

I’ve got four 40V removable batteries I use with my other board so I’m trying to determine if I can connect them to this new board at full charge without frying anything—unfortunately I don’t have any clue what these ESCs are. Is it something anyone recognizes that might be configurable?

I’ve got a regular street (polyurethane wheel) board that I’m using a flipsky VESC where I can control all the parameters but this this is a bit of a mystery. My “worst case” scenario is that I just use the two VESCs from my other board or buy a nice new dual VESC but I’d love to see if I could get anything going so I can evaluate if I even like this board mechanically. That’s obviously not that bad of a worst case scenario and probably what I will do eventually but even if I order a suitable ESC today it’ll be a while before it’s at my door.

I know the low voltage cutoff on the ESCs would be low enough to damage the 40V batteries but otherwise the worst I can do is fry the generic ESCs I wanted to replace anyway?

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#2

Ok I couldn’t wait around to try it. Turns out it’s fine so far but the remote control feels extremely janky compared to my VX1 so even just on that basis I’ll probably upgrade before I take this anywhere besides my yard.

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The motors don’t have sensors or anything so it’s all pretty barebones but considering it cost the same as a single set of cloud wheels I’m happy with it so far. If I had to guess, it seems like the ESC has a pretty conservative current output limit

#3

Most escs can do up to 60v max. You should be good. But i guess you found your answer.

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#4

Update in case anyone else undertakes this project—if you find an unbranded generic ESC like these just go ahead and order your replacement ESC immediately.

This had been working ok while I played around in the yard stopping intermittently to work on the battery mount and figure out how to get my bindings setup but… I just did a stress test to try and figure out what kind of range I could get and the board slowed down to a crawl after about 10 minutes of slow but constant speed. Unplugged the battery and felt the ESC enclosure was really hot. Then I caught wind of the obvious smell of fried silicon.

Came inside and put in my order for a makerx dv6. Gives me some room to move up to 12s in the future if I feel like it.

At least I’m grateful for the failure mode that just had it slow down to a crawl and then not move considering it could’ve involved fire, an abrupt stop or uncontrolled acceleration.

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#5

Welcome to the DV6 club. You’re going to enjoy it. But you are correct, it is recommended to not always buy a generic esc. When you have to, create a heat sink for it (I’ve learned that you need to do it since these escs can go hot after 10 minutes of activity without a heatsink. In fact, many escs needs it).

Always good to learn these things.