[New member] Open source hardware - what does the community need?

ESK8 Electronics
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Hey

You were working in escs…and battery pack boards… Lol not antispark lol

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Yeah… It only 4 years and over dozen of people to refine the electronic on a simple VESC and even there they are only a hand full of people that could done it :wink:… as @SimosMCmuffin said [quote=“SimosMCmuffin, post:19, topic:43217”] Hardware costs money, software is free. This was the saying in good days of Nokia. [/quote]

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It was never production style project there vedder put his 100% of time into it. The whole design is from several reference designs.

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So… It still took 4 year to refine the product!!! and it wasn’t vedder who done it by the end… You can make easy electronic, but will they be reliable??

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First, look at the schematic difference between 4.12 and 6 for e.g. What was changed? Not much DRV was changed because it went obsolete so its whole sheet was changed because of new requirements for that DRV, added current sensors and etc.

I created my own VESC design without DRV in a week working for several hours in a day.

I have been doing production level electronics for over 10 years and I can say there are no easy electronics like you mentioned. It’s just electronics…

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So was probably the Vesc 1.0, but still it went over 4 Major hadware design revision (probably most of them had never seen the light of the day) and 12 minor change, which are simple as adding a capacitor to improve FOC ability. I have some doubts that it took one week to go all over those change. If this in one week… I’m impressed.

But truth is, making electronic circuit reliable and efficient take time and testing.

You can make a good Rye Whiskey in the backwoods with corn in a week, and It will get you drunk, but you ended up blind… And it won’t taste like a recipe that people have developed over centuries, and fermented for over dozens of year.

And It is nice for you.

Edit: I think we are going off topic now… let get @AKF is topic back :wink:

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Sadly i don’t think i will ever find the time to do this so i mind as well share the idea

1S4P pack PCB (other flavors can accommodate more P’s) with a high power bleed circuit directly on each 1S pack (2-3W bleed).

PCB 4P pack example

on each pack (slave) has a CAN bus voltage monitor/gas gauge that communicates with a master that controls the main fets.

This would make the BMS fully expandable, up to the max number of slaves on the CAN bus. Eliminates all the sense wires, only a CAN bus will run to each pack. Saves a lot of real estate on the bleed circuit. The master would also be very small, the fets & the high current path will be the biggest component on the master pcb.

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But it will require isolated power supply on each board :smiley:

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i just flirted with the idea a bit, but i think it would be acceptable to run 4 wires across each pack (if you would want an external power). But most 1S gas gauges i looked at can take it’s power from the 1S pack.

I’m just giving ideas… i don’t have an entire solution designed

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I looked too, and almost went with one design which would let me to big BOOM, because that cell ground for other stuff can be not ground…

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P.S. Interesting idea, but I think it would be expensive and not much for this community…

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I also think it is a safe solution, no battery voltage dangling on a small gauge wire

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I’m aware of that, but as i said i’m doing it for educational purposes. I want to learn more about the programming part, which is why i’m interested in the complexity. Obviously it’s going to take some time to finish. I might start with something simpler.

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I agree, space is an issue but design could be compact and vibration issues could be solved. My point with the FOCBOX is that the packaging and quality have been improved greatly. As far as the FOCBOX being a VESC, VESC’s and ESC’s are the same thing, the VESC being open source and ESC’s not but both do the same thing. The new VESC tool is coming closer to plug and play and one day in the future it will be.

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ESC is a just short term for Electric Speed control, It has nothing to do with being a not open source. And VESC means Vedder Electric Speed Control

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Sorry but not really (and that why there was such a fuss abouth the trademark)

VESC = Vedder Endless Sphere Controller !!!

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Where are PCB design available?

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Oh ok, you got me with this :smiley: I thought it s Vedder ESC

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They aren’t