How to: Ackmaniac ESC Tool

[mmaner]

Nope.

My apologies, I understand that to be the opposite.

[DerelictRobot]

Have you tried therapy?

I’ve tried to be logical and concise, not bait you when we have these discussions. You have NOT

Once again, your shit ain’t the only shit that matters Frank

God knows he couldn’t do any worse than Frank

So many people have NOT said that for fear of Frank’s reprisals.

BS, he coded for you.

The VESC is no longer a community project that can rely on community support. It is a for profit enterprise where a single organization reaps all the rewards.

Trampa has called me childish and made unproven accusations, just in this thread…professionalism

Trampa owns the TM too and at the direction of Ben who is an employee of Trampa

Lastly, let’s not forget that Ben is now an employee of Trampa.

Nope.

My apologies, I understand that to be the opposite.

Sure I took a couple of jabs at Frank

Mike, I love you bud. But this isn’t good for the community.

I understand that Frank rubs you the wrong way with his manner of posting, but he’s not resorting to personal attacks.

You’re bias against Frank is pretty apparent, and as a moderator and community leader I would hope that you could resolve this in a more direct manner.

Furthermore, I find some of the unverified claims you’re making here to be somewhat inappropriate. Benjamin Vedder & TRAMPA’s business is not your own.

The article was great.

The comments:

[mmaner]

It makes me sad that you are so blind to the misinformation and marketing ploys that being used by Trampa, I really wish you would go back and read this and the SPlit-PPM thread with an open mind.

Edit: we are all a bunch of skaters, right? If Frank can’t take a couple of jabs in good humor then maybe he’s in the wrong business.

Also, I noticed you didn’t actually prove any of my arguments wrong.

@mmaner, why do you want to slam Vedder in the face, for all the good work he has done for the community? Such an unfair childish move against someone you don’t even know and are not in contact with.

Can we remove such childish statements?

Split PWM/PPM settings

You are hopeless! Ground loop your systems if you feel that it’s adequate. For everyone else out there: DON’T do such stupid things.

[Jc06505n]

Furthermore, if you think we should interact with Benjamin Vedder himself, nobody is stopping him from coming here and interacting with the community.

To be fair to Ben , the same way you dislike his forum , can be the same way he dislike this forum as opposed to his own. With how much he can be working on his own stuff , he probably prefers a community he’s familiar with and can navigate with his own moderating abilities as opposed to a technically now fragmented community that he would have to keep up with in addition to his own forum. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t fault Ben on, its coming on here and answering a brigade of questions. That’s Franks Job.

And before anyone attacks me of being some sort of Ben advocate or Trampa advocates, please see my previous interactions on the old forums with Frank & the backward compt incident.

[DerelictRobot]

What evidence am I looking for in the split PPM thread?

He’s objectively correct in what he’s saying. You’ll notice other EE’s backing that up.

A poor CAN bus hardware design & implementation on other ESCs is not a valid argument against CAN bus, which is a very robust and widely adopted industrial comms used successfully in numerous applications.

Splitting PPM can cause ground loops, it’s not the correct way of implementing that control configuration.

Those are facts.

[mmaner]

He said split PPM “WILL” kill your voltage regulators. It will not in most cases. I in fact have a board that uses split PPM and the voltage regulators are fine. It has thousands of miles.

It is also a fact that on older VESC variants if 2 units are connected through can and only one unit was powered the second unpowered unit would ground itself through the bus and blow all the can ICs. There are a number of reasons why this could happen. Using split-PPM is at a minimum safer for new users who are not going fast enough or taking turns at a high enough rate to make use of traction control.

All of the above info was in the split PPM thread and had you read it objectively would have understood why Frank’s statement was misinformation.

[DerelictRobot]

Split PWM/PPM settings

Split ppm will cause ground loops. Depending in the ESC, that will kill your voltage regulators.

He qualified it with “depending on the ESC”. He’s correct. Ground loops can kill your vregs.

It is also a fact that on older VESC variants if 2 units are connected through can and only one unit was powered the second unpowered unit would ground itself through the bus and blow all the can ICs.

What you are describing is a failure due to incorrect CAN bus implementation. Irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I read the thread objectively, and as someone with a good number of years of EE & Embedded Control Systems engineering background. I agree with what was being stated there by @Trampa & @linsus.

On the NRF topic, You could say that the switch to NRF modules is akin to the OSRR using Xbee modules. We’re both switching to uart because of the additional featureset it allows, not to make anything more difficult or lock people out.

[mmaner]

What you are describing is a failure due to incorrect CAN bus implementation. Irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I never said it wasn’t an incorrect CAN bus implementation. I said split PPM has been use successfully by hundreds of people in order to avoid possible CAN issues.

Misdirecting the conversation does price your penises, it only means you don’t understand the argument it’s are deliberately detailing the topic.

I read the thread objectively, and as someone with a good number of years of EE & Embedded Control Systems engineering background. I agree with what was being stated there by @Trampa & @linsus.

I don’t, but it’s obvious no matter what logical Irvine I choose your going to side with Frank. I’m curious if there’s some motivation for that?

On the NRF topic, You could say that the switch to NRF modules is akin to the OSRR using Xbee modules. We’re both switching to uart because of the additional featureset it allows, not to make anything more difficult or lock people out.

In a year when you can’t by an inexpensive ESC because the VESC firmware doesn’t support them come back and re-read this thread.

[mishrasubhransu]

In a year when you can’t by an inexpensive ESC because the VESC firmware doesn’t support them

Haha, it’s a open source software and ton of forks exist. There is no way of undoing it. We will always have awesome cheap ESC because of Ben’s hard work. The worst what might happen is that future hardware/software is not opensource. So what? We can’t expect the same hand to feed us all our life without getting anything back? BTW, what’s gotten into you Mike, what’s up with these prophecies?

As for your “severely downgraded” comment, you pointed me to Frank’s comment and not any actual change log. To clarify, he was talking about a future feature, different stuff. With how it is right now, it has not been downgraded in any way in the context of being able to go reverse with ppm. I even checked with latest firmware.

[mmaner]

That’s an opinion, not one I share.

I told you he said it, I proved he said it, that’s still not enough. I’m done.

[b264]

The worst what might happen is that future hardware/software is not opensource.

Unless you’re willing to brazenly break the law, like enertion, you can’t do that.

The license on the software says it must stay open-source and any forks or changes must be published as open-source. If anyone doesn’t like that, they are free to just make their own software instead of using Ben’s.

more reading about GPL licenses

[mishrasubhransu]

Thanks for stating the facts in my support. That means cheap ESC’s will always be available, unlike Mike’s prophecy.

more reading about GPL licenses

Thanks for the link, I will do a bit more reading. But I have seen the original author(of a lidar mapping application:loam) close source his code and starting a company. Forks existed so a lot of us started using and maintaining that. So you are saying Ben can’t close source future software( derivative of his current code) that would be used in a new ESC(again closed) ? What about if someone is the sole author?

[mmaner]

unlike Mike’s prophecy.

You can keep breaking my balls all you want, it doesn’t change the facts. Frank has a history of using lawyers to enforce his desires.

[mmaner]

Also, @Trampa I’m curious why they only reported motor and battery “bad values” from the latest version of the VESC-Tool Wizard are ALL from competitor products?

[b264]

There are different kinds of open-source licenses.

Some “permissive” licenses, like the ISC License, allow you to closed-source a fork or derivative.

Some “copyleft” licenses, like the GPL License, do NOT allow you to closed-source a fork or derivative.

The VESC firmware is copylefted under the GPL.

Of course, if you’re Jason Potter, you just break the law. There’s always the crime option.

[Goldrabe]

As I see it, Frank is always stating that he protected the Trademark VESC in the good for the community and Benjamin Vedder. But as someone new to e-skate and VESC’S you will likely relate VESC more to Trampa then to Ben. I have the impression that this whole protecting thing is more to boost the brand Trampa then doing good for Benjamin or the VESC project.
Frank was the person who introduced the new 2019 VESCtool to the community and several people raised their concerns about the battery amp values suggested by the VESCtool wizard. His reply was a rant against all moderately powered boards and the failure of the builder.
I was hoping as the person who sees himself as the voice of the VESC project in this community that he would pass our concerns on to Benjamin. Instead of saying go and reach him yourself.\

@mmaner thank you for the clear and understandable walk through which was much needed.
I personally use Ackmaniac 's software for nearly two years now and love it.

[mmaner]

@mmaner thank you for the clear and understandable walk through which was much needed.

You are more than welcome. Happy to help.

[Meeep]

Here we have set the Motor Max to 50a as that is the ESC’s limit and motor amps should always be of a higher value than battery amps.

@mmaner Could you expound on this for me?

We have defined the Battery Current Max Regen at -12a because that is low-speed breaks

I was under the impression that Max Battery Regen is high speed brakes and Max Motor Regen is low speed brakes. Could you clarify?

Thanks for the write up, it will be invaluable if I get something other than a Unity!

[DAddYE]

Hi!

As promised I’ve updated the vesc tool, and the FW. Vedder/@trampa, seems eager to accept my PR!
I’ve built a macOS binary here: https://github.com/DAddYE/vesc_tool/releases/tag/1.14-beta
However please note that I haven’t tested it yet since I’m on UART.
Rember to update the firmware as well, so it can understand the new control type.

Here some screens:

If you test it, please let me know how it works.

Thanks!

Edit: yeah, I’ve to fix the description, and I’m looking for a better name

[mmaner]

That was very cool of you and I want you to know that I personally appreciate you putting in the time to do this.

I will test it this weekend and let you now the result.