NeoBox Testing Results V6 (serious)

I think i would, if i had the money for it.

Although i like how silent my belts can be (if they are ever silent lol )

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bruh tell us how much you’ve spent on belts so far, shipping included

give the new guys an idea how much they are saving vs jumping into gear drives from the get-go

also, i’m not sure if you’re doing your belts any favors in your quest to prevent them from squeaking

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Can’t tell you 100% right now.

but the broken ones are probably around 80-90€
I have some new belts coming for 30€

So defo 100€+ for belts. In roughly less than a year :skull_and_crossbones:

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You are definitely on the very tiny end of the bell curve.

I’ve broken zero belts recently and probably 5 in the last year, 4 of which was during testing of a new @torqueboards ESC.

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I probably could break several belts in a week if i really would ride like i want sometimes. I’m babying them most of the time.

My set is at about 210km so far and no issues as well… still only thing I have to report was me setting up HFI, re-doing detection a million times and having a DRV (something) with absolutely no info about the fault showing while I was doing that stuff in VESC tool… and no weird behavior from that popping into the log for a (presumably) single cycle.

The feeling of power at the top end is noticably improved compared to focboxes on the same setup, this is the one major noticable difference I can tell from the ESC swap. They have ran Acks 3.102 great for about half the time and the other half spent running various 5.0 test FW running solid too… I’m keeping 5.0 now, firmware updates and VESC tool wirelessly is huge and the phone app is great.

Metr works well on these ESCs, no issues there. Davega is still doing the occasional restart, black screen to white screen… not a huge deal since restarting the board fixes it for most of the ride anyway and this is reported on everything but neobox as well and it’s the same behavior I had with my focboxes.

I went ahead and voted recommend for now, seeing as the production batch is already in production… I’ll just keep adding miles and pushing these as time goes on and pop in with any additional faults or issues (if any) as necessary.

Can’t wait for these to go out to more and more people, and over the years rack up all the distance to hopefully come to a solid consensus of reliability as a community if that’s in the cards for these ESCs in the long run.

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I’m glad everything works and no one got hurt while testing it.

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Team,

I have had the NeoBox V6 installed for (20) Days and feel it’s time to roll up my thoughts and formally close out my testing. Please note that my mantra here is “good enough now is better than perfect tomorrow”. As always please exercise a healthy dose of skepticism in anything i write, say, and certainly do. caveat emptor.

tl;dr: I recommend the RideNEO NeoBox V6 ESC with cautious optimism as I did not experience any issues specific to these devices.

Shipping

DHL - no issues delivering to Hawaii (note this means international shipments go to mainland US before coming to this island state), in fact it was particularly good given the impacts on global supply chain.

Aesthetics

Beauty is always personal but hot dang these things sure are purdy, too bad most will be relegated to a life of quiet darkness inside an enclosure. @Dred has taken some sexy albeit tasteful images

Form

Devices as arrived (in mm) are 26x65x65. This puts the device a little proud of an 1850 or 21700 cell. @jeffwuneo has stated in the Design Thread Rideneo will be adjusting the full production NeoBox V6 sizing to a smaller form factor.
The test devices did not come with any gasket or other protection against water ingress, which RideNeo was upfront about and will be provided for full production units

NeoBox V6/P42a

Image showing scale of NeoBox V6 against 21700 Cell / NESE module / Apple Banana for scale

Connectors

  • XT-60 Battery Connectors on (12)AWG conductors : XT60 are fine for this application, but I changed to XT90s to accomodate my existing battery connectors. I believe Rideneo is migrating to the XT90s

  • (4)mm Bullet connectors on (12)AWG Phase leads: Again this size is adequate for the vast majority of applications. I changed mine to MR60 to match my drive train, personally i prefer bullets (don’t tell @b264 or @ducktaperules)

  • MicroUSB port: It’s fine, really it is, but USB-C would be preferred. RideNEO indicates in the Design Thread full production ESC will use USB-C

  • Canbus connector (4)cm: this was a nice thought and something others charge additional for however it is not long enough to reach both ports when two ESC are side by side. (6)cm cable i had on hand worked fine.

  • PPM pins were a tad long for my receiver connector but bending them to about 45deg solved fitment issues

Bent PPM Pins

image showing pins bent to accommodate PPM receiver

Testing

Both NeoBox arrived pre-installed with FW 3.62 and did not experience any issues connecting the latest VESC tool, Metr Module, or set up. Additionally I went through the process of flashing both NeoBox V6 with the most recent VESC tool 2.03 and FW 4.2 with out issue.

I used the devices in flat, hilly, wet, and dry terrain using different Motor and wheel combinations and did not witness any problems with the ESC during the approximately (350) miles in the past few weeks.

One item failed to accomplish was seeing how the NeoBox V6 would behave in high amperage scenarios. I was not able to generate a scenario where I was pulling (80)+ Motor Amps for more than a few seconds. My intent is to continue testing these ESC but they will live in a board that will likely not be pushed as hard as my test rig.

All in all if the production NeoBox V6 ESC are as good as the pre-production models i paid for (that’s worth noting, i paid for these devices with money i diligently hid from my better half) i can comfortably recommend the NeoBox V6 as a top tier ESC that is currently available and has not shown any issues during a few hundred miles and weeks of testing.

Clearly a few hundred miles over a few weeks done in my spare time is not enough to exhaustively test all aspects of every component on these devices. Time will tell over the coming years as thousands of miles add up (or don’t) if these devices will continue to perform as they have but we need to have a reasonable time frame to declare “good enough” on testing.

Test Harness

Rider: Dashingly handsome at (95)kg- hey my mom told me to eat veggies, no one said they couldn’t be on top of a pizza.
Wheels: 156mm (actual) pneumatic tires @65psi and/or TB110 78A
Battery: 12s4p p42 cells/NESE pack w/10AWG conductors, bypassed BMS
Firmware: VESC 4.2
Drive Train: 170kv Herringbone gear drive 13/43T and/or TBDD 75kv
Motor Set up: FOC, Sensored
Misc: Flipsky Antispark inline with Battery and ESC. Metr Module

ESC Configuration

neo_avx_motor_detect

avx_neo_batt_cutoff !

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Great writeup! Are you saying that these came shipped with 4mm bullets already attached? Bummer to hear about canbus being too short. Hopefully that is addressed for production. Can’t wait!

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We already order longer cable for production batch :slight_smile:

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correct, however now you have me doubting myself. i’ll update my post if i can validate this to be incorrect.

edit: i guess how they arrived for testing is not really relevant. what matters is what @jeffwuneo will ship on the full production items

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NeoBOX come with cable only no bullet.

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Thanks Jeff, IMO this is ideal. i modified my post

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You must mean vesc tool 2.03, with FW 4.2 I’m guessing?

Also, your ESC configuration is missing what battery current you were running them at :slight_smile:

Fantastic feedback!

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Agreed, @wandagoner good write-up!

ponders editing own post since you killed it but nah… I basically agree with everything you said… and key for me is good enough now rather than perfect later… Plenty of people have these on order (including more for myself… !! they alright) so might as well start some conclusions and bang up job brother.

Let’s keep riding!

To add, I had pushed up to 120 motor amps (configured, 111A recorded) per ESC on these but my motors couldn’t handle it, no faults or issues ESC wise. Anyone know a good safe limit for TB6380 motor amps (for the next build)?

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good catch, fixed type-o

i thought one of the images showed (120)A battery, which i believe is the max battery amps the unmodified VESC FW will allow - is it not showing on the post?

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Found it, my bad!

120A discharge 7.5A charge – lol
I would turn that to 60A, -20A, if I were you.

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truth! i thought of invoking Patton’s famous “A good plan, violently executed now,…” but lets face it what i do for testing doesnt even count as foreplay for @Arzamenable , so i cannot fathom what some would consider “violently executed”

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sorry, was just a misclick and I could not revert it

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@Skatardude10 @wandagoner very nice writeup guys, informative and a pleasure to read

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