ESC Short? Other Issue? Chinese clone board :(

How-Tos & Esk8 mechanics Esk8 Mechanics
1

Hello all, almost a year ago I got an AC Electric Longboard, and its been treating me surprisingly well for a being a cheap clone dropship board, up until about two months ago. However, due to midterms and snow, I haven’t really had time to pay attention to it.

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I don’t know how to diagnose what is wrong. I think the ESC is malfunctioning, due to a variety of factors. Those are

  1. The power button does nothing. It does not turn the EBoard on nor off, regardless of the boards previous state. The board turns on whenever plugged in and the motor wheel is turned.

  2. There appears to be some burnt plastic on the capacitor(fuse?) on the green wire, so perhaps there was a short?

  3. When the board is on, the remote still works, however, the braking system does not. I could hear/feel the motor trying to break, however, it simply would not decelerate me more than the slightest amount per attempted rotation.

  4. When I opened up the cage for the ESC, I was able to see that whenever the remote attempts to brake, there is a solid red light, which makes me think that the ESC thinks it is functioning well, however there are many issues.

My Video

Pics:
power button
ESC
burnt plastic
ESC Pic 2
ESC?

I believe the motor is still functioning fine, and the battery also still functions relatively well for its age, however a replacement wouldn’t be too bad. If the issue is the ESC, some recommendations would be nice, as I’ve never built a board before.

Finally, the company that produced this clone of a nicer EBoard no longer exists, so a warranty is completely useless/void at this point.

Here is a link to the Specs (Link 2)

Motor: 350W Brushless Hub

Deck: 6 Bamboo layers/ 2 Maple layers. There is a hole in the deck allowing the battery to connect to the ESC and powertrain, which I like.

Remote: Bluetooth remote w/ reverse, brake, and 3 diff speeds. (I have a spare unpaired one)

Battery: 36V 4.4AH Samsung Li-Ion battery. (18650 cell)
17 MPH max speed, 10 mile range. Three speed settings, reverse capability in one speed, and brakes.

All in all, this $300 clone board was a gift, so i’m not too mad that it’s finally shit out on me after about 9 months of use, but I do have my tax return coming, and I have decided I want to dedicate about $450 to either fixing/improving this board, or starting a new build/buying a new (to me) EBoard.

I was hoping y’all could help me out and inform me on a couple potential solutions, either zombifying, fixing, or replacing this EBoard.

Thanks for any and all information.

I have been lurking these forums for a few weeks so I know that $450 is a tiny budget for starting a new board, so I would most like to just replace the broken part/parts and continue using this board. I mainly think that this is an ESC issue, so please let me know what you guys think, and also forgive me if this is in the wrong thread. Relative to me being a noob at this, how would I determine what kind of ESC I currently have in my board? The manual has no parts list, and AC, the company that made this, no longer appears to exist.
This looks a lot like my current ESC? , but how do I calculate or figure out what kind of specs I need?

EDITS

Any recommendations on specs or ESC’s would be extremely helpful

Would This ESC work?

Would it be worth it to get an ESC/VESC capable of running two hub based motors, and still running just one motor for a couple months until i get a second hub based motor?
Any suggestions for a new ESC/VESC? Maybe around $80?

2

Hello,
So to me, the esc looks like one of those cheapo diyeboard style esc which is pretty generic escs.
Now to your questions:

  1. The physical switch could be broken or the esc can’t process it for whatever reason.
  2. To me, that looks like a phase wire. So the “fuse” is a slightly burnt cheap Chinese bullet connector which could have wiggled itself loose over time and sparked because of that.

For the remaining questions, someone who knows more about the esc than me should chime in.
In theory you could replace the esc with a vesc which would come with a slight price but way more custom options. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thank you!
That’s basically exactly what I was hoping to hear.

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For the replacement esc, you could replace it with a relatively cheap flipsky vesc or something similar but you will also need a new remote if you replace it. :slightly_smiling_face:

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