Lol I feel you man… I have to re-configure myself … And I’m LAZY to do it…
I say cut a door and let it hang down a little like an air scoop … I think that’s your least invasive and most effective way to push air over the esc without having to take the top off or installing a fan…
Box cutter … Three cuts (leaving one side attached ) and bend the plastic down and go for a ride a see if it helps…
Edit: it could be a matter of a few degrees separating you from your endless ride
Ok, I’m going to try cutting a scoop hole over the esc to send as much air as I can over the heatsinks. I’ll post back if it works. These things might just run a lot hotter than I had expected.
Same as @torqueboards I run mine in an enclosure. My enclosure has a big hole in the end of the motor side (motor wires come out of that hole) and some air gets in there.
I run mine outside and they still get warm with dual belt drive 230kv 16/36 gears when climbing long hills.
With hub motors, they would get down right hot and I even burned one up on those long hills.
Although, it may have shorted out because 2 of the caps had come undone.(wires broke off the the pcb)
and there was never a temp cut out. The wires from the caps where very light gauge and may have just failed because of vibration. Plus I was running dual and only one esc failed. I disconnected it and rode back up the hill with just one esc/motor.
Thanks for the feedback and link to those enclosures. I’ll take a look at those.
And since these were used, I took the screws out, and went over the esc with alcohol and a q-tip to make sure there was no debris interfering with anything. So, I know the heatsink is still stuck well to the circuit board, and the screws are snug. I’ll have to do a test run and see if that changes anything.
@torqueboards & @lox897
Thanks for posting this. I thought I could get away with enclosing the esc without issue, especially if I’m just cruising on flat ground. With or without airflow though, getting the esc heatsink up to 170-180*F after only a mile of riding while the motor and batteries are barely warm doesn’t seem right to me.
On a side note, and this might be a dumb question, but what do I need to connect two of your 12s esc’s or two of your 6s esc’s together to run a dual setup?
@torqueboards Thanks for the link. I’ll have to get a couple of these. I can’t even find these connectors on Hobby King, and I thought they had everything.
Do you have to cut the red wire when running dual 6s only? Is that cause each esc supplies is own power to the receiver?
That’s a misleading statement. How hot the ESC gets depends on rider weight, ambient temperature, speed ridden, hills. Saying it doesn’t need air is too generic. His might.
The last two boards I’ve built (one a 10s VESC board) both had problems until actively cooled.
Thanks Dexter. I got a couple y connectors coming, so I’ll make sure to do this.
On the overheating front, I’m perplexed as to why these are running so hot. I tried swapping out my sk3 245kv with my Tacon 245kv, and still had it overheat, although I did manage to get almost 2 miles this time before it cut power. Then I tried the other sensored one, and that one overheated too in about 1.3 miles. Also, on the non-sensored that I’ve been running this whole time, I can easily get up to 25mph without topping out, but when I swapped the sensored one in, it topped out at 19-20mph. I’m gonna check the settings, but I thought they were both set up identically on the same firmware. I’m not sure what the issue is or if I’m doing something wrong, but this is frustrating. I think the only other thing left for me to try is to add a fan or cut open a scoop to directly cool the esc. For 170lbs. on 9s, with a moderately loose belt, on flat ground, I’d like to think I could go more than 1-2 miles without the esc hitting 170-180°F and cutting out, enclosed or not.