this seems cool, but at $300 that’s a hard sell
my $70 amazon charger weighs less and has same output… looks to have all the same protections too
this is almost 5x the cost for silent operation and the ability to take it swimming? am I missing some other big benefits?
aren’t the main benefits of ~gan~ just the more efficient power delivery and thus smaller form factor/volume?
yet by the looks of it the competition offers the same/better power output in a similar/smaller form factor at a fraction of the price
there’s a kilo of silicone in this thing??? is there that much demand for charging in the rain?
Probably needs it for passive cooling…
Good point, I guess I didn’t realize people wanted a silent charger this bad lmao
nah, more like charging under water
Silently
i’d be more surprised if u can hear the fans going brrrr, if it had any, above water 
how do they turn if it’s chocka block full of silicone?
of course, with the POWAHHHH of
personally, i see almost 0 reason as to why the charger requires the IP rating
seems like an unnecessary cost, weight, and annoyance for servicing to the charger, which could have been put to, giving us a 12-18s voltage range for example
but sure, i guess i’ll charge my 18s board with 14s voltage while underwater basketweaving
I’m not trying to compete with any existing charger options, this is why this charger is priced as high as it is. There are numerous amount of unique features added to this charger in particular that surpasses any existing products, such as being a fast charger while staying silent which makes it acceptable to use at a cafe, an office, or a classroom setting; it is afaik the only charger at this wattage that allows easy switch between 12s/13s/14s which makes it quite versatile, allowing you to only need one charger for all your different voltage devices (12s is reserved for most 2020 - 2022 era production/DIY boards, most ebikes are 13s, and we are seeing more 14s scooters and eskates coming to market throughout the past year as well); not to mention the physically smaller form factor which allows you to pack it into a smaller ride sling bag, no longer needing to stuff an enormous brick down a backpack
I also understand the 300 dollar price tag is a bit of a tough pill to swallow, which is why I brought it down to 230 for the founders edition. There is definitely a little bit more room to make it even lower, but that’ll come at a great cost where it’ll make it almost impossible to scale up and allow us to get the UL certificate which cost a ridiculous amount of investment with.
It has a smaller form factor, which means it’s more portable. It can support 12s/13s/14s with a built in switch, which allows one charger to work with multiple different board with different series construction. It has easily replaceable cables which makes it a bit more portable on top of much more flexible for anyone who knows basic soldering skills or knows someone who does.
Good point, might revoke that decision if most people don’t need that much protection.
The silicone also helps with the drop resistance, with the construction right now you can easily toss this around without damaging the circuitry. I’ll drive a car over it and toss it 4 ft off the ground a couple of times to show its toughness later.
video would be sweet!
It definitely helps a bit with cooling, there’s about 24W of heat being generated while working at max load, which is effectively equivalent to cooling a modern computer CPU’s average workload. However, there are only a few ICs that are the primary heat emitters, and they are all on the bottom side of the PCBA, so I think we might be able to achieve similar passive cooling effects with only a fraction of the silicone that exists in there now. There is also built in temperature control that will throttle the output from 10A to 8A, in order to help it stay in the temperature range that allows the components to have long cycle life, so without as much silicone, you might experience throttling on longer charging sessions (over 90 minutes)
There aren’t any haha. That’s the whole point. The main reason to go 600W was also that any more would be difficult if not impossible to achieve passive cooling in a sensible size, even with the 96% efficient GaN construction.
too bad practically <5% (generously) of the DIY esk8 community uses 13S
The issue with getting the IP rating isn’t the cost of the rating, but the unnecessary-ness to get it, that’s why it is pending and potentially abandoned if people don’t like the use of silicone potting
There will be a version that supports 18s - 20s coming out later, since there are a lot of ebikes that runs on 20s. The 18s will be made available mostly for eskate riders
so no adjustability fire 18-20:?