75v/100v dual ubox fire

Esk8 Electronics
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#1

So recently my 100v dual ubox from spintend caught on fire while riding and upon opening it up, it seems like the fire started within the ubox. I was lucky enough to have my vesc top mounted away from the battery and the vesc case was metal otherwise it could’ve melted a plastic case and there would be sufficient oxygen for the fire to continue. Looking at my metr, there was no unusually high temps, ranging about 120-130F between the motor and vesc before shit went bad. I was running 18s, 110a motor, 75a battery but most of the time, i can only reach 50a battery during a hard acceleration and i was only at 35-40% duty cycle before the fire. It looks like it started on the lower level pcb because theres a big ass hole in it. Im probably gonna buy a replacement but does anyone know how this fire could have started? Maybe any flaws in the design? And what can i do with the rest of the ubox seeing as the top pcb looks ok?

Edit: i hit one of those bridge extensions when my vesc blew. And ubox was running 5.2fw

Update: i believe 1 or 2 of the fets blew under the phase wires (where the hole is).

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10 Likes
#2

Is this a V2 unit?

#3

Yea when i bought it, it said v2 on product title.

#4

@Shawnl55 What firmware version were you using?

2 Likes
#5

get an old paint brush and brush the pcb off to see what blew up

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#6

I would suggest maybe not a ubox :sweat_smile:

5 Likes
#7

Idk, i was using whatever it came with. 5.3 maybe? Is there a way to check in the metr logs?

Edit: nvm i think 5.2

1 Like
#8

@John-Spintend

2 Likes
#9

@longhairedboy They are not active on here it seems. They have timely customer service however.

(Side note: I am resorting to tagging people as the respond function (reply button) has not been working 100% of the time after the latest forum update.)

2 Likes
#10

@Shawnl55 was this ever resolved?

Was firmware confirmed to be 5.2?

I believe they were advising to run only the custom Spintend versions- was that the version you used?

1 Like
#11

Did you run the no limits firmware?

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#12

I never touched the firmware versions, i just used what it came with and according to the last connection my metr had, it says “ubox_v2_100_100 FW5.2”. Havent had time to look deeper but its something with the bottom board. I forgot to mention i did hit one of those bridge joints while accelerating, so maybe voltage spike or something? But they advertise 22s and i was only running 18s.

1 Like
#13

I dont think so. I used whatever the ubox came with and i decided to try 110a one day and it worked. Its the 100v not the regular 75v, im not sure if it has the same limits and stuff.

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#14

It works but you’d be prone to run into overcurrent errors… did you track your rides with anything “live” like metr/yours truly?

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#15

Yes metr but in the log if doesnt give me much useful info, it just looked as if it turned off when it went boom.

Also had no errors in any logs nor did i feel any faults.

3 Likes
#16

any update on this? considering one of these units for 18s

3 Likes
#17

Have you seen the other reports of flaming uboxes of various models? Seems a common occurrence

2 Likes
#18

wait until this comes back instock:

2 Likes
#19

everyone says it’s common but I actually haven’t seen many cases tbh… wonder if I’ve just missed em

1 Like
#20

only here asking after reading up on stormcore ‘design flaws’ from a trusted fb member. said spintend is better designed in terms of shorts and xt90 placement?

1 Like