Modifying prebuilt junk, in stages, to be less junk like.

[SternWake]

When I first bought my junk, knowing it was junk, I just needed to tow the kayak a mile there and back, and the 99$ mini 7s singke hub motor, kind of blew my mind even though it couldn’t do what i bought it for.

As a lifel long surfer and passive longboard skater, instead of having to narrow the turn radius further, or step off, or fall, just hit the throttle, and accellerate out of a turn, then read the road, and set up the next line to accellerate off the end of turn to either slow more, or scissor twist to help accelerate after and get to the next ‘section’ quicker, and with more speed, to lay rail harder, throw more buckets, make urethane hiss at its limits…

Lather
rinse
repeat un till heart rate is more than double resting aavergae and legs becoming unconnected jello shots, but the battery says it has 2 bars left.

FROTH.

As an above average, competent surfer, with 42+ years experience, Esk8 feels so damn right, and also , so damn wrong at the same time.

I think the best surfers would ‘totally dude!’ benefit from the accelleration and braking potential of esk8, mid turn, and i base this opinion on maybe working with ‘700 watts’ of hub motors, at the most, in my short time Esk8’ing.

When I go and just slam my battery and urethane hard, and come back rubber kneed, feeling weak, I am reminded of waves I rode in South Africa, Mozambique, Indonesia, Australia, and Fiji, where my legs gave up before the wave.

When I get to the next real wave, I know my quads and calves won’t collapse. Well made fins, at speed, wont slide, so imagine never being able to tailslide and slow, precisely when it would be beat to do so.

When Gopro footage came out of guys getting 30+ second videos of guys getting pitted in Donkey bay, Namibia, I was like, nooo!!!, Neophyte’s should never witness that!!!

And I couldnt stop watching.

Surfing has been ruined for me, by surfers.

Just too many, and many just far too entitled, and selfish, and so undeserved of the ocean’s spiritual energy

I think it would be good for esk8, to keep surfers ignorant of Esk8.

Surfers are the worst.

Im late to the party.

This could be the golden era, or it happened years ago, before the sheer masses of unlimited entitled cellphone addicted Asses, force legislation to kill one of few sensations of pure joy still available, which is still partially grey zone quazi legal, with the occasional hovering, whining Karen like asterix to kill the buzz.

I know when I was in Australia, for most of '99, Fosters, if when available was scorned by locals. I always liked the blue oil cans when state side, but…

We now have these green Foster’s oil cans at my local beer store, which I can get to in under 36 seconds.
I drank ttons of warm emu bitter, camped in NW WA, for 3 month visa stay, going to bintang land for a month, and returning, and rediscovering that tent site furthest from others.

Gonna stop typing now.

Not sure if in can stop staring at workbench though.

[SternWake]

I can’t help it, i have a 100 amp adjustable voltage 12vdc nominal power supply powering a boost converter to charge my Dmegc 10s 2p battery.

66.6 watts at 13.32v in
60.37 watts at 40.9v out.

I can ask this DC booster for 150 watts. It seems to stay cooler than one rated at 300 watts, upto 150 watts

[SternWake]

My 33usd amazon$ VX1 arrived.
It was supposed to be the vx1 pro version.

It says vesc6. I should likely open it and see battery mah, and potentiometer wire routing.

So F’d up having all the parts, and being too enebriated to progress responsibly.

Vesc still scares me.

[JesseM]

This is the scary bit… dude… Fosters… premium? WTAF

[SternWake]

Is Kirin Ichiban, at $ 2.18 for 25 fluid oz less disgusting?

Gotta be more reapectable than Busch Lite.

I drink quality beer in the winteriest months.
Im in flo Ri duh.
I drink cheap lite domestic crap.
Just in case I need to fit in

[JesseM]

Dont worry about me nam, im a level 10 beer nerd. I run a craft beer bar and my life when not on esk8 pretty much revolves around beer… that being said, i only drink one day a week… ive made a massive standpoint in the industry of supporting independent breweries. I live to educate people on the evils of mainstream breweries.

No offence intended, just a triggeered jab.

[SternWake]

I can truly enjoy a top quality craft beer.
But often, quenching my thirst, requires something less refined, especially when the overnight low temp does not fall much below 80f/26.7C.

8 IPA’s and I’m a mess, 8 domestics and i’m just starting to be somewhat marginally less comfortable in a crowd, yet still planning my escape route.

Never, before just now, imagined the time savings if i am just holding an Esk8.

[glyphiks]

@SternWake

emu bitter,

I knew I liked you.

Not gonna lie, my latest purchase has been partly spurred on by this thread.

I only had a limited amount of dollars to spend and as such I had to stoop to lowballing peeps on facebook marketplace, but these folks took the bait and sold me this yak and a bunch of accessories at a good price.

Gonna give it once over now and see if i can get the dog to sit in it then see how it floats!

[glyphiks]

[SternWake]

Thats awesome, and more proof dogs can smile.

Fiona only rides in the back when its on wheels, or if the bay has a strongwind and current opposing each other with short period choppy seas.

It certainly handles better with her in back.

But,
She loves it up front. If she’s in the back and sees a bird in front of us, my eardrum is in peril, and she will try and climb over me to get 8 feet closer to it.

We would be yakking right now, but I had a zero mph fall yesterday, and tweaked my shoulder.

Was wearing a heavy backpack, wheels in a crack in the pavers, feet not yet adjusted, remote in left hand, Fiona chariot in right, hit throttle, wheelie, fall backwards, tweak shoulder. Didn’t hurt at the time, more embarrassed, even though the only witness was Fiona.

Woke up in pain, and not just from too much cheap beer.

Not sure what to try and accomplish today.

The beautifully machined aluminum metroboard Vesc Housing/heatsink, might see some cut off wheels. I wanna get the FS6.6 mounted to my enclosure’s heatsink, but be able to swap it into the Linasquat in the future and easily return the Puaida ESC.

I could try and mount the metroboard housing to my heatsink, or its raised studs, or skip the Housing and adhere FS 6.6 to existing heatsink.

I Did a Fiona chariot tow session last night, riding pretty hard from 41.52v, down to 35.65v, and felt a lot of heat radiating out from the fiberglass under the ESC when we stopped, so with Florida summer coming, It likely needs to see airflow, and remain as watertight as possible.

[SternWake]

I could also just work on 10s1p battery today too.

It strikes me that 10s1p of P42a’s , at 151.2 wh could sag less than 10s2p of Dmegc 15amp 2.6ah cells at 187.2 watthours.

[glyphiks]

@SternWake

likely needs to see airflow

Can u just drop a heatsink through the fibreglass? That way you will have thermal mass and airflow without compromising watertightness.

@SternWake

She loves it up front

I tried to get Mudyi to go up the front and he just walked straight off the side he has quite blonde moments sometimes

[SternWake]

When Fiona sees a Cormorant, while.perched on her Sapele bow perch, she goes so overwhelmingly nuts, she often falls overboard.
I’m usually throwing down some horsepower to chase the cormorant, and there was the one time she went straight over the front, and I ran her over, hearing her lifejacket and head scraping the bottom of the hull.

She seemed unphased when she surfaced behind me, swimming hard in the direction of the now flying cormorant, but then being like ‘O fuck, I’M in the channel’ and 15 ’ away from my master.

When her previous owners sent her to clown college, the instructors bowed and said please teach us Sensei, we are not worthy.

My current copper heatsink is elevated on 4 brass posts, with a little less than a 10mm gap, above interior fiberglass, as i have more than enough height in my enclosure for the Puaida ESC

The plans was to fiberglass the gaps on sides and bottom of the copper heatsink, then drill holes through enclosure to allow passing airflow to assist heat extraction.

I was waffling on depending on epoxy to bond to copper, or use a gasket to seal copper to fiberglass.
The metroboard housing can fit to these 4 studs, with enough height in the enclosure, and its flat bottom would be far easier to work with than the copper heatsink the Puaida esc is mounted to.

When the board is inside the kayak hatch, there is a rope cleat directly above where the ESC is. If the seal on that rope cleat fails, the resultant drip will hit the heaTsink, so i must do all i can to ensure that this cannot occur.

I was hoping to avoid having to expose the heatsink, but I am pretty sure i got some thermal throttling one time on a warmer day, where i was practicing braking with Fiona chariot handle in my thigh, from full speed repeatedly.
One time i hit the throttle and the torque, she was not there, and the battery was still over 36v

[glyphiks]

I tend to often go for the most overkill solutions so that I can skip all the fucking around and finding out in between.

If i was experiencing thermal issues, I’d 100% just go straight to dropping it through the enclosure, taking whatever waterproofing measures I needed to to make it happen.

Sometimes fuckong around and finding out is half the fun tho!

[SternWake]

I also tend towards overkill.

Most of my electrical experience pre eSk8 was dealing with 12vdc nominal systems, and the finicky nature of Lead acid batteries when deeply cycled but not truly fully recharged as often as possible, whenever possible, causing premature sulfation, capacity loss, performance loss and a poor cycle per dollar ratio.

So extra connections and voltage drop on charging circuits were to be reduced, or eliminated, and it is not an easy mindset to break, even with 36vdc nominal lithium.

So my Dmegc 10s2p Battery has a sandwich of 0.1mm icopper, 0.1mm nickel plated steel series and parallel strips, 10awg, and an XT90s, and it probably would have had 8awg, had I had any 8awg silicone wire at that time, which I now do.

How’s this for overkill?

I wish I had a CNC, to cut this sink to the size of enclosure, and then put a nice gasketable flange around the perimeter. I do have a powerful plunge router i can run along a straight edge, but little high speed shards and dust of conductive aluminum spewing everywhere in my workshop needs to be considered.

My 7s ‘Aladdin’ ESC did seem to have more predictable consistent brakes, after improving the thermal transfer, and it has been worked pretty hard as the initial kayak tow vehicle guts. That esc is now even more dangerous to rider, as I’ve gotten used to less strong, but the linear brakes of the Puaida 10s ESC.

In my weaker moments, I think about ways to have filtered ventilation slots at opposite ends of encloaure, to allow airflow through enclosure, to cool the battery and ESC.

[SternWake]

Accomplished nothing the last two days of angry shoulder caused by skillissueitis, and little has been accomplished today, so far.

Trying to decide how to best position, and securely mount, the FS 6.6 to this elevated internal heatsink:

Also, where best to position the loopkey.

I wish to be able to easily return the Puaida ESC to this enclosure in the future, and migrate vesc to Linasquat.

I am making some MT60, to MR30 adapters with 16awg.

I discovered some compromised wire insulation, on my motor’s phase wires, where some alligator clip teeth had held them when the factory soldered the MR30’s.

While the Puaida might be approaching its upper amerage limits with my 30amp max battery, and would benefit from exterior airflow to the heatsink evidenced by the thermal throttling experienced once…

The FS 6.6 limited to 30 battery amps, or even 45 if i use the 10s1p p42a, would be a fraction of its capacity, and seemingly would not come close to overheating,
I think.

I am reluctant to ventilate the heatsink at this point

I can’t take any tools to the metroboard housing at this point either, it’s just too purdy.

[Pecos]

To fill the time of indecision i like to procrastinate by adding more projects to my list. Procrastinating via productivity i like to lie to myself. Why not take a bucket - cut a heat sink into the bottom and seal it. Fill it with water. Safety test the hydraulic head it can take without risk and also make a funny bucket.

I find rtv silicone (super black or something at the auto parts store i can’t remember exactly) to seal really well around my heat sink and haven’t had any ingress in my accidental seattle rain rides

[SternWake]

Here’s hoping that the 6.6, attached to my elevated copper heatsink, is enough thermal mass, for my low power hub motors

I assume I can see how hot it actually gets, once I get it connected to my phone.

I got a few new ideas to expose the copper heatsink to outside airflow and increase chances for achieving good ingress protection, but hope to delay that until it is time to return the Puaida, and migrate Vesc to the new future enclosure.

I took a hacksaw and repurposed the tiny aluminum heatsink from my failed Lingyi single drive esc, to make 4 plate washers to hold the 6.6 to the copper heatsink using the same vertical M3 studs that held the Puaida ESC to it.

The square aluminum washers press the FS’s heatsink to the copper.
I have not fully torqued the nuts at this point, but it is not moving.

Its a little too close to the connector pins but they can be trimmed and both sides fishpapered.

The one corner needed a bit of a funky shape to avert an obstacle.

I think I am going to make some small low profile fiberglass ‘leash loops’ to secure and organize wires and battery, to the enclosure interior and so nothing can move.

Should make it easier and faster to move enclosure and rear truck to the Linasquat which is so much more enjoyable to cruise and carve upon.

[SternWake]

Almost no progress to report.

The tweaked shoulder on Monday morning finally felt a bit better, and is around 90% today, 6 days later.

The midsize is disassembled.

I’ve barely ridden the diagonal mini, as its brakes and throttle are just so dangerous, now that I am used to the relative linear response of the Puaida esc and remote, and its max speed just feels so slow, and i have lost condlfidence in my skills after tweaking my shoulder last Friday.

All I managed to get done, was committing to loop key position, and attempted to be a human CNC with Dremel and carbide burr to countersink the panel mount XT90.

The Fsesc 6.6 mini Evwan sent me, came with 8awg and an XT60.

I decided to put an XT 90 on it, and my POS modified 100/140 weller soldering gun decided to have a bit of a tantrum, which i sorted, but then I found my GB liquid solder had thickened up.

I’d never tried tinning silicone wire with it still in the insulation, and all I managed was to get a solder blob on the end. No wicking into stranding under insulation.

I pressed on and cursed when my desire to get the 8awg stuffed deep into the sockets, not just on the half moon didn’t go so well.

A human within earshot woukd have fled the area, but Fiona came over and told me to walk away, and do a late night perimeter check with her, and I’ve not touched it in the few days since.

I do have new liquid flux ordered, new soldering tips, already arrived, and different style of helping hands and ceramic tweezers on the way.

[Evwan]

I desoldered mine by removing the esc heatsink, using a combination of a high surface area soldering iron tip + desoldering alloy + solder wick. Took like 10 minutes per esc.