I just replaced a 10s2p battery with a 10s3p battery in my board - do I need to change any VESC settings when I do this?
I put a bigger battery in the board because on my way home from work (total 8km return) I usually have a 20 knot head wind and there’s a small hill that slows me right down and seems to drain the board a lot and then after that the board seems to just limp home.
I just tried the new battery and it felt exactly the same as the smaller one so was wondering if I need to program something into the VESC to tell it there’s more juice now?
And the follow question I guess would be if there’s no relevant VESC settings, is this some kind of thermal overload problem or something?
Sorry that reads a bit vague. When I say I tried it and it felt the same I mean I just rode all the way to work and back and it died the same way on the same hill.
What cells are they? If its a 2p and you pushed 30A last time, on the VESC tool you can bump it to 45A now since you have extra 1 in parallel. That should give you that power boost.
Oh just read your next reply, you mean you still get roughly the same range with the 10s3p??
Hmm… No not the same range, but it struggles to get up this particular hill and then feels gutless after that for the last km or so home. It’s like the extra battery power made absolutely no difference. When I get home there’s still three out of four battery status LEDs on the remote so I don’t think it’s flat. get
Not sure of the cells but Marsen (bloke here in Oz) built the battery and said its good for 45A continuous, 75A peak. I reckon if I bump the amps like you suggest that would get me more power over less range and might solve the problem.
Where do I change that in VESC exactly? I haven’t used the software for ages
I just realised I can see real time data in VESC. Dammit that could have answered a lot of questions.
Also noticed in VESC it’s saying I have 297% battery and esc temp is - 87. Is this because I haven’t put the right settings into VESC? How do I get that battery guage accurate?
OK so I just went for a test ride on 45A. Much better, and I still haven’t charged the board since I rode home so it’s definitely not a ‘range’ issue as such.
It’s strange tho - it’s like the board loses power after you work it hard - like something is getting hot and throttling the power down? It was much zippier just then than when I got home before, even tho I hadn’t charged it.
Nah no smart BMS. I can’t find soft cut off in VESC. What’s that do exactly?
I can see mosfet, motor and battery voltage cut-offs. I suspect it could be the mosfet or motor getting warm that’s reducing power? Which might explain why its zippier now that it’s had time to cool down?
I might try a few runs with VESC RT running and see what gets warm.
G’day mate! Dunno if you remember but you walked me through resetting this board completely after I accidentally wiped the VESC settings. Legend ha ha.
Anyway - I don’t know if it has a heat sink. It’s an off the shelf 2021 single motor BKB so unless that sort of thing normally comes with off the shelf kit boards it probably wouldn’t have one. Here’s a photo of the internals - I can’t see anything that would soak up heat
I’m with @b264 here. I think it’s heat soak on your controller, motor or both after climbing that hill. That would cause the controller to drastically reduce power and has nothing to do with your battery. Heat sink your controller and I’d bet you’ll see improved performance.
Yes, you’re definitely hitting your ESC thermal soak limit.
That will happen with a 4.12 style single VESC like that.
There’s not much you can do to fix it. None of these suggestions will work.
You could turn down your battery max a bit to 15A but the performance on the hill will be bad, and it likely won’t even be enough to prevent it from reaching its max temperature.
I would NOT turn up the maximum allowed ESC FET temperatures.
getting a battery percentage of 2-300%… if you find a fix lmk…