I got my hands on the aluminum single PCB version that my friend is going to use on his eBike. Some good news, some areas for improvement.
The 75_100_v2 firmware will work better than the 75_300_R2 that it ships with
The stock firmware is limited to 72v, and has a bunch of hardware configs that don’t match the actual hardware (phase filters, phase shunts, etc). The custom firmware can go up to 120v, but not recommended to go over 96v.
Design issues
- Capacitors still not siliconed down
- Logic board soldered to the power board. Cannot be removed without desoldering about 24 pins.
- Thermal paste between the board and heatsink instead of a silicone pad makes disassembly a pain.
- Wire exits have no grommets. Twice I’ve seen phase wires split their insulation open where it meets the aluminum case on similar designs and short out the MCU.
Wire exits on the new version
Interesting design features
- Mosfets have some really nice specs compared to the older model. They are also surface mount rather than TO-220
** New - HUAYI HYG015N10NS1TA - HSOF-8, 100V, 380A, 1.2 mΩ
** V201/V202 - MDP10N027 - TO-220, 100v, 120A, 2.5 mΩ - All the components are on one side of the board. Probably as a cost saving measure, but cooling the board below the mosfets instead of on top should improve thermal performance quite a bit.
- Wiring for the UART/PWM/etc are included and easily removeable without disassembly, unlike the V1 and V2.
It comes with 75_300_R2 5.2 stock.
I ran the motor detection twice using an 80-80 160kv motor for a few firmware options. Interesting results. This motor normally detects at about 88A / 10 mΩ on most ESCs. The new version using the custom firmware detects the closest, and the 75_300 firmware is a bit off.
I ran an 80A thermal throttle test on the bench using “foc_openloop 80 1000”. With stock settings (85C), the VESC firmware starts reducing current at 77.5C.
REALLY impressive thermal performance. The 12AWG wires got hotter than the case. Even beats a Trampa VESC 6 with 60V direct fets by a large margin… and highlights just how poor the thermal performance of the old version is.
