My Time Mistakes

  1. don’t cheapen out on vescs. get focboxes
  2. don’t run canbus run split ppm for 4.x hardware.
  3. get pneumatic tires if you have shit roads.
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hmm I was told to set mine at 3.7 which seems high to me. before I had it set at 3.3. does anyone here know the official cuttoff? like theres the 80/20 rule i guess

3.7 is way too high.

IIRC its 3.3 for lipo and 3.0 for liion

or just solder. If there’s one thing i gained from my drone days, it’s a healthy fear of connectors

get a bms. get a bms. having to unplug ur lipos to charge them is such a pain. and it means that you cant charge ur batteries unless u bring ur bulkey charges with you which doesnt really work for school/work/cafe. basically u can only charge it at ur house or if ur staying in one place for a while

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Why not any other vesc, I have the vesc 4.12

If it’s the DIYes vesc you should be on if you run in BLDC. I recommend @chaka vescs over focboxes though

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Yeah Im setting it up in BLDC tool, so I’m good?

Yeah as long as you set it up right you should be good. You can run more power through some of the more expensive versions like the FOCBOX and chakas heatsunk VESC though.

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@cwazy1 don’t cheapen out on vescs. get focboxes don’t run canbus run split ppm for 4.x hardware 3.7 is way too high. IIRC its 3.3 for lipo and 3.0 for liion

I have multiple FocBoxes and multiple DIY VESCs, no trouble out of either. In fact, Im running FOC on both. I run Can bus on 4 boards. Where are you getting.this info on cutoff voltage? It’s not in line with acceptable limits. It should be 3.7 for lipo and 3.2 for li-ion.

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My thread here:

I’m burnt and jaded. I ordered 4 foxboxes and am awaiting shipment.

u said that 3.7 was too high and 3.7 was the correct cutoff for lipos in the same post. which is it?

I second this. Or you can go even lower in my experience. I’ve run 3.0 volts on lipos for a year. No problems.

Are you running FOC at 12s? I’ve been told that FOC at 12s on a DIY VESC (mid 2016), will kill it, but so far I haven’t gotten an answer from someone who has actually tried it.

Well, I have opposite experience…I hook up my lipos in like under a minute and after about 35 minutes I have them fully charged and ready to go. That’s 10A parallel charging of 2x 4S 5000mAh. And they give me 15 kilometres of range while discharged to 3.75V.

I’m planning to go after 10S4P of 30Q’s which with 12Ah should extend the range to 30km. That’s a whole week of trips to work and back for me (6km per day). I’ll build two 5S4P 12Ah batteries and I can charge them in parallel at 1C @ 24A. That’s not what I’ll be able to do because my charger is 20A max with external server PSU. :slight_smile:

How long would BMS take to charge up the 10S4P 12Ah pack? Chargers are like 4 - 6 A max, right?

Discharging lipos to 3.0V per cell is bad in the long run. Basically after 3.6 - 3.7V you start to loose performance big time. You should feel there’s lack of top end power. You must realize that when your battery indicator shows you for example 3.8V when standing still, you easily go below 3.7V while riding…

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I was told not to buy a cheap soldering iron. I bought a cheap soldering iron. I bought an expensive one 3/4 through the build.

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well yes is nice to charge them quickly but I think a bms could be set up to do that. just need a bms with faster charge rates. im just saying like what if u want to go somewhere and charge ur battery while ur there? i mean sure if u only go to and from work its fine, but for more random/unplanned situations, lugging around 2 lipo chargers is a bit of a pain

Even if you buy a BMS with bigger charging current (like 35A) you can charge only as fast as your fast charger can handle. These are usually 4A. Correct?

I use a setup similar to this:

When going on vacations or other locations I can easily take them with me. I could even fit them in my backpack just a little on the heavy side to ride with. But it’s doable.

I can even use a bigger lipo battery to power the charger…like 2x 4S lipos in parallel with 10Ah which power the charger. Even better for remote charging, you don’t need to look for places to hook up…just crash wherever you like. Like this:

Win - win :slight_smile:

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Do you think I’ll have this problem with just a single vesc

I run 10s on most of my builds.