My favorite ESC has been discontinued (FOCBOX 1.7) and the company that made it (enertion) is about to fail for unrelated reasons. I am searching for a new ESC I like. This one seems pretty nifty.
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Hey @neo2121. If you really want it I can see about getting the assembly files to you. Just know this controller isn’t perfect and I intend to personally fix that with a new gen of cheap FOCer. Read up about this topic in this thread if you haven’t already
In other news, JLCPCB has launched their SMT assembly service to the world outside of China. The service is limited but seems massively useful to hobbyist stuff. Basically this service can handle all the hard soldering for you for cheap. It leaves the easy through hole stuff up to you. I will be designing the next cheap FOCer with this service in mind.
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Haha I saw the JLC SMT service and was wondering if it would be be useful for people like you making a Homebrew VESC.
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This is sweet. Gonna save alot of time, more time testing.
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This sounds awesome.
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Hey @shaman thanks for the reply. I know about the JLCPCB service, but they only do single sided. I’m designing and building a custom electric scooter from scratch, I want to make 5 cheap FOCers at first to test them out, but I would need like 10-15 if it works out ok. As you can imagine, it would be quite a task to hand solder 10-15 even on a single side 
So, getting them made in China would be a big time saver. I can post my exploits on this subject, maybe other less skilled at soldering can go this route if it doesn’t end up costing an arm and a leg.
I’m interested in this design in particular for the price and repairability. I’m currently using a VESC 4.12 on my day to day e-scooter (1000w single motor), and for my prototypes I use generic chinese controllers (also for the price, I burn through quite a few).
Would be willing to donate a sizeable chunk if you’d develop the 2.0 version of this sooner, (fixing the noise issues on the power line, adding bulk caps to each phase so you don’t need such beefy traces, the ceramic caps etc.), let me know. Meanwhile I have 10 PCBs in my hand (the version with the hole under the DRV) and am ordering the parts from Mouser to try it out.
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Gotcha @neo2121. So yeah the Cheap FOCer will at least beat out those chinesium controllers. Yeah hand assembly of 10-15 of these could be tedious however @MartinSp has done 20 units before for me for a beta unit batch at a good price. You may want to ask him about his services for small batches like this. From my experience, he’s more active on the esk8 builders forum.
I do appreciate your offer to donate. However the problem is time not money. I’m pouring all of my free time and effort into getting my commercial stuff to the market. I may be able to work on the Cheap FOCer 2 here and there say like when I’m waiting for a shipment of materials for my commercial stuff or I’m otherwise just waiting for something in order to make progress. This would mean that progress on the Cheap FOCer 2 would be sporadic and unpredictable. I also intend to design a 3D printable enclosure and few other supporting accessories that add to the Cheap FOCer experience.
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@shaman I also plan to design a 3D printable enclosure for my testing. I will put it up on thingiverse and link here when it’s done, just waiting to have a working board to measure heights and stuff. If you could at least post that .pos file it would help me out for now, you should be able to export it with 2 clicks from any software (here’s the instructions from seeed: http://support.seeedstudio.com/knowledgebase/articles/1911202-how-do-i-export-pcb-pick-and-place-xy-files-for).
I just finished ordering the parts for my first few boards from Mouser, hope to get soldering next week.
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What are the commercial type gonna be? You mean the Serious Focer?
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Yes. That and the little FOCer. The ones I actually intend to sell
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Alrighty. I’ll get you that assembly file tomorrow. I’ll also put it on the GitHub repository in case anyone else wants it by chance.
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I do plan on making an order or two from this service in the future - it seems like an absolute win to be honest especially if the price is right (i haven’t gotten that far yet).
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Managed to get a quote out of Seeed Studio’s PCB assembly service. Unfortunately there are too many parts in the design to qualify for their 5 free assembled PCBs. Without the offer it’s 430$ for 5 PCBs without any of the through hole capacitors. And it takes 20 days because they don’t stock either the DRV or the STM32.
That said, I’m waiting for a delivery of parts from Mouser to get started assembling some boards and also looking into getting just the DRV and STM soldered by JLCPCB for future boards.
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The STM for sure but the DRV8302 isn’t stocked. Only the DRV8301…which is why the Cheap FOCer 2 will be more advantageous for JLCPCB’s assembly service.
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hello shaman
I am looking for a vesc greater than 14s. could you help me? because I want to reach 100kms / h with my prototype
https://www.facebook.com/ridermanfrance.ridermanfrance
thank you
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That looks so funny, in a good way 
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Check out my other thread for my commercial ESCs. Up to 20s but still in development. Will be assembling the prototype this weekend.
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yes :))
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Oh awesome. I love what you’re doing. Welcome!
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