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