Bog Roosh | Range Boat | 18s8p 50s | Skp solos | 151kv reachers | Matrix 3s | Megan | 4gs 5/1 | Lacrox ss deck and enclosure | COMPLETE

[SternWake]

Nice plan.

I have not ridden too much after dark, but now that the days are so short and getting shorter, along with My dusk rides and preference for dark clothing, I am thinking of adding some lights to Fiona’s chariot in order to be seen better.

When I do need forward lighting I have some powerful head mounted lights, an Armytek C2 pro max warm, and a Sofirn HS40. The former has a super floody hotspotless beam and is insanely bright, the latter has more throwy narrow hotspot. I wear both together, and their output is nearly as good as automotive headlamps, even after they throttle output down from heat.
I just got a 50s cell for the Armytek and an eve 35v 18650 for the Sofirn, both of which are superior to the cells they came with, and airflow at speed keeps their brightness higher than they would otherwise.

For Fiona’s chariot i have some more waterproof RGB strip i was gonna use the red only on the back, and aim for an amber up front or cool white if red and green leds alone are just too orange and weird.

Trancejunkie sent me some shredlights, but my deck is angled upwards with big pneumatics up front, and 90mm hub motors in rear, so Id have to use spacers to aim them at the road, and they seem a fraction as bright as my headlamps, so I’ve made no effort to employ them.

I do like how they try and widen and flatten the beam. Maybe they will go on the chariot.

[Pecos]

The shred lights do make a pretty good handheld light too. I kinda want to add a couple loops of elastic to the back of my glove to hold a light. Board mounted lights are fun but because of the low angle are either too dim for everything or too bright to use around other riders/drivers/pedestrians. They do a great job of showing terrain defects though helping me to avoid or anticipate obstacles and gaps

Handheld lights are great but sometimes awkward and i like a hand free. When i was using a helmet light it was never floody enough or was pointed not just right.

My personal preference is a mid to low board light for visibility and terrain and supplemental hand light. I intentionally fog or frost the lenses on my board lights to soften up the hot spots and make them brighter at bigger viewing angles. A little 220-400 grit does wonders on the soft plastic lenses.

The high beams on the big beam lights i do mostly for novelty but occasionally on high speed night rides. I haven’t frosted the lenses on these yet but i think im going to to see if it softens up the hot spot a bit… maybe idk. Cant decide

[SternWake]

Interesting.
I find the shredlights to be pretty dim compared to my inexpensive handheld 18650 or 14500 flashlights.

I am pretty much always towing Fiona in her chariot, its handle in my right hand, remote in left, so can’t often do the handheld light thing, perhaps a wrist mounted light or something on left (leading) hand.

I have done a few solo night light rides, and the handheld in combination with headlamp is pretty darn good.

I used to choose between the super bright, super floody hotspotless Armytek, and the hotspotty throwy Sofirn HS40 headlamp, and learned to prefer the Sofirn, as it could put more light where i wanted/needed it, even though it has about half the max lumens available.

Then one day I put both on my head and since then, always both.

I dislike the road reflectors and streetsigns with a headlamp though, as they are blindingly bright, which screws up my nightvision. A handheld at waistlevel, is not reflecting the source back at my eyes nearly as badly.

Like at night, walking on grass with a headlamp, one can see every spider’s eyes reflecting back, but use a handheld at waistlevel and see no more spider’s eyes.

I have not tried board mounted lights, But i imagine precisely aiming them ahead, for the speed one is traveling, is paramount to their efficacy,

Too much feelgood foreground light constricts one’s pupils, making things farther ahead harder to see.

Most automobiles or trucks with ‘fog lights’ are counterproductive, when used in addition to low beams when travelling over 25mph.

The increased amounts of feelgood foreground light is obvious, but foreground light constricts pupils letting in less light, makes it harder to see things at the edges of the low beam’s reach.

Not to mention most automotive ‘fog lights’ are just horrible beam patterns for actual use in fog. They are mostly fashion lights, but everyone will vociferously swear they can see better with them and always have them on, at any speed.

Another issue with head/helmet lights, is insects bouncing off one’s face.

I usually wear my amber glasses, to protect my eyes from bugs, but also temper other vehicle’s blue white dazzling headlamps.

As one ages, the more blue the light the light source, the more it dazzles one’s eyes, and the longer it takes for them to readjust afterwards.

I am not a fan of opposing traffic’s LED headlamps, but the worst are when LED bulbs are placed inside halogen reflectors, behind frosted faded lenses.

[Pecos]

Cf repairs are getting boring, i love and hate silicone. Been scrubbing this crap on the old side project enclosure and I just hate it. I wish there was anything that would soften or dissolve this crap but that’s a part of its magic i guess. Gonna pause and get back to the bog roosh

Finished the bms layout and much of the wiring too/from that and think i like the solution so far. Just need to execute the plan. Charge port goes to bullets after the neg hits a fuse block - using various bullets to keep from having too much bulk. This will hit the bms/ass/and 12v buck. The ass will go to the high beams control via the channel 2 from the receiver and also have the lights go through a 7a fuse incase i short the lights or the buck takes a shit.

Did some more on the graphic. Sanded and scraped the deck with some 120 grit and im going to hit the edges and a few complicated spots with some 80 so it has no excuse to not bond - doing it all with gloves so maybe cleaning it up will be easier… except i wanted to get the scale of the graphic mocked up too so ill have to clean the tape spots probably.

Did a couple different scales and this was my first attempt. I like it so now i need to modify the image to reflect the changes. Added a bunch more coral and bubbles on the tail because i didn’t like the negative space there. Going to adjust the original coloring a bit to keep the same “monsters on rocks” feel. This think it worked but I’m going to try for more depth by scaling the coral at the tail to be larger as it moves down and see what it do

[SquishyCat]

That graphic looks great dude, with frit this thing’ll be prettyyy

[Pecos]

Dang it, cropped my crab out of it…

[Pecos]

Ok now im done, time to color. Going to try and match the pallet from these two pages

But im going to try and saturate the green highlights to match the wheels and filament color. Need to go get a can of spray paint too for the board edges and see if i like it better than just blacking them out. Frit gets here in two weeks and it will probably take a week to get fabric from the printer… after I finish the coloring

[Pecos]

Testing some frit ideas, this cruiser needed better grip anyway… but my garage is too cold. Gonna put in the heat and mess with it tomorrow

[Pecos]

Ok so kinda worked, too much detail with too little contrast. Would have been better to get fine back frit to use as a detail and another color to highlight like red or orange.

Just a pattern with lower detail or send it with high contrast frit or tint the epoxy i think is the way. I like it but i can do better i think

[Flyboy]

I think you might be happy with colored mica powder instead of epoxy dye? High opacity and a pearlescent effect.

OLYMPIC BLUE - Metallic Mica Powder - EPODEX - USA

[Pecos]

Oooooooo, that looks fun. Don’t know if i could get away with another layer on my cruiser but that’s giving me ideas for my next build: 18s6p p45b in a naz enclosure and deck with dualities + novas with white and baby blue color scheme. Haven’t fully formed what i want for a graphic yet but it’s gonna be super simple and clean. Pearlescent white background would be nice. Was kinda thinking of a white/blue china ceramic look and maybe cedar or fir print but it’s just ideas rn.

Gonna try to knock out the color on the bogroosh this weekend so i can get the graphic printed and finish the last little bits on the 12v and get the settings adjusted on the solos regardless so it will be rideable.

This rain has me being productive as all fuck. I should finish my buddies carbon fiber repair first actually. I just hate cleaning off the silicone - it’s such a pain i keep pushing it out. Also it’s noisy work so i can only do it at certain times of the day… that’s the excuse anyway

[Pecos]

[Pecos]

Added an external usb c port, currently it is on the esc but after I finish tuning im planning on injecting power into it for onboard charging. Im always forgetting to fully charge my phone or a light or something and getting too much good use out of a board mounted usb. I don’t think there is a good way to have both power and a data connection to the esc. Without getting creative and im just not feeling it. My builds get so complicated already and im starting to fight scope creep activity.

Not satisfied with the pigment i got to white out the epoxy under the graphic. I mixed a crap ton in the first batch and it wasn’t very opaque at all, looks like cum all over the deck. Second coat i went nuts and added 2parts epoxy to one part paste pigment and it still came out meh. Going to use paint so i got some compatible primer paint but i want to sand down the epoxy layer i put on a bit first for adhesion and also because i got some rings due to surface contamination.

Also fuck cleaning up sanding mess and dust indoors, built a little tarp awning so i can be dry but i need to get some cheap tarps for the sides. Been sick af with rsv going through my house slowly and i think we are all finally on the mend

Been tinkering with the cheap headlights mod that @janpom figured out in the eskate lights thread and i like my solution but not the implementation yet. Only had some longer push buttons and had to modify the button back to make them work but it’s inelegant

My bigbeam ryan lights stopped having a high beam fsr. Both failed simultaneously so maybe user error but i like the manual button solution - just gotta get some 15mm round snap switches… i usually get pretty low on my board so the switches are in reach usually.

Coloring in the graphic has been a learning process and im low on the curve. Using digital tools and figuring out how to make and use layers properly has been fun and frustrating at the same time. Im getting better but i feel like ive made very little actual progress but have made a ton of preparation and lateral movement. Probably won’t get the graphic done by the end of the year which was my secret goal but im fine with that as long as it turns out as good as i want it.

[Pecos]

Took a minute and looked at the firmware and decided that there are enough improvements that id risk updating. Did the whole process to get 6.2 on the solos and used the tuning and detection process that @dimos15 linked at Endless sphere .

Kept running into weird issues on my sensors and coging on takeoff until I realized i had my sensor cables plugged in to the wrong ports when i had the enclosure flipped and was working on it derp.

Got that sorted and it feels nice and locked in now. Closed everything up and took it to a garage session to test a little bit. Made some slow modes in metr (still need to get my voyager app setup) and did some laps to try things out carefully. Garage was still pretty damp and the oil spots got me on one hard push and i took a fall at 15ish mph

Was fully geared up but i didn’t have my regular helmet, i was wearing a half-shell climbing and fall pro helmet that’s not exactly for skating but is in excess of the ratings for biking and climbing so it did good. My tail lost traction and caught while my weight was very forward and i went down heal side hard and slapped my head down hard enough to retire that brain bucket.

Was so happy i didn’t let my bad thoughts win and go sans helmet or i would have been toast. Helmet did great, thanks kask, fucking poped up from the hit like a champ. Not even dazed and I whipped down hard and fast - no time to react. Dropped into 15mph speed mode and finished messing with my settings

Ended up on 80m -50m & 50 batt -20batt with a slight expo +5 throttle and brake which is very close to what i was running before. Doing manual detection was so much less stressful than using the wizard, just methodically plugging it all in and a quick double check. Everything seemed much more stable compared to 6.0fw. No weirdness

Edited because misattributed praise due dimos15. Such a useful link and thread

[Dinnye]

@Pecos

Took a minute and looked at the firmware and decided that there are enough improvements that id risk updating. Did the whole process to get 6.2 on the solos and used the tuning and detection process that @Dinnye linked at Endless sphere .

It wasn’t me who linked that article, but that was a nice read. Damn that was technical even though I spent the last couple months studying and simulating FOC

[Pecos]

Huh, ill have to go back and re like that as it a nice breakdown. A lot is still over my head but the step by step process and what results are expected/nominal was done so well even a layman could replicate it. I bookmarked it my vesc resources file on my pc

Maybe you have some insight on step 8 of the process?

Op says if the ldlq is over 20% of L to engage the mtpa - what does the motor torque per amp setting do exactly and how is ldlq being a large % value affect this? My ldlq iirc was nearly 40% of my L value but i don’t have an intuition for what this means

[Dinnye]

Hope it will be understandable.

When you have a 3 phase machine with balanced phases (120 degree apart and same amplitude), then you apply the Clarke and Park transforms, after which your system is simplified to a 2 phase machine with constant phase values - the Clarke transform essentially outputs a 2 phase equivalent system with 90 degree between the axis. The Park transform essentially makes the coordinate system rotate synchronized with the rotating voltage and current vectors, essentially taking out the sinusoidal components and leaving constant values.

We apply control in the dq frame where the variables we are controlling aren’t sinusoidal, and this makes applying control much simpler.

The bonus of being in the dq frame is that Id directly controls how much field weakening we have, and Iq directly controls how much torque we have. Total current is given by sqrt(Id^2+Iq^2)

We want all current to flow in the q axis during normal operation, because all we want to produce is torque. This torque directly proportional to q axis current is called electromagnetic torque. However, motors with high Ld-Lq difference aren’t as simple - they also have a reluctance torque component. Injecting some of the current in the d axis can actually produce more torque and thus higher efficiency for motors with a large Ld-Lq difference. MTPA (Maximum Torque Per Ampere) is a control algorithm that finds how much of the current should be injected in the direct axis to produce the maximum torque possible.

[Pecos]

That makes sense, at least enough that know what to do

Thanks!

[Ash]

@Dinnye

Hope it will be understandable.

surprisingly it was, really good explanation.

[MichaelWA]