Because they fail, that’s why. I don’t like when they fail.
In a bendy, ultra-high vibration environment like a skateboard, almost every seal fails eventually.
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So true but any form of vehicle or equipment that is exposed to the kind of abuse we put them throught should be build to handle it and be serviced regularly. Anything else is false safety.
I’m specifically referring to “building it to handle it”.
If water seeps in through a seal, the skate should still work. For a long time.
That’s all.
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I’ll do my best to enable reliability. There’s so much to balance between also designing for manufacturing, assembly. and cost. I know potting makes any electronic unserviceable, but it offers a lot of benefits during operation. What if I had a good warranty service for my fully-assembled product? If something is legit wrong then I’ll just swap your broke FOCer out for a good one with no penalty. Of course I wouldn’t do this unless I was super confident that the controller works well within the specified limits.
The alternative is the DIY kit where you set it up and whatever-proof it the way you want from the start.
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In a DIY kit, waterproofing will have to also be DIY.
On a commercially assembled one, you could have it conformal coated, but the solder connections would still need hand waterproofing.
It’s not standard on any ESC I know about to be waterproof. But being able to be waterproofed is a big bonus.
Not much would really prevent that, aside from two parallel PCBs.
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Conformal coating is ok but unless I spring for the expensive vapor deposited stuff then there won’t be 100% coverage. Particularly sharp corners or edges don’t coat well with typical conformal coating. And yes more coating would have to added after the hand soldering of the motor/DC cables. Otherwise, filling up the whole enclosure with potting is just easier.
Yes DIY kit means DIY whatever-proofing as well. Have it your way. That’s the point.
2 parallel PCBs is exactly what I’m working on unfortunately. Doing this helps a lot of other factors besides waterproofing… Give and take. Engineering is all about which pros and cons you want to deal with. You can never get rid of the cons. You can only just trade them out for different cons.
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Do whatever you think is best @shaman
@b264 will waterproof whatever esc he gets himself anyways.
Not everyone rides trough torrental rain like he does. (Majority of your customers probably won’t)
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There would be spacers for the the board-to-board screws. I’m just to lazy to model a simple cylinder 
So I legit didn’t know about the Evolve controllers when I thought this up and looks like this new take on my design has some similarities. This 2-board solution is easier to assemble by only needing headers and screws to connect the boards instead of weird soldering. This also standardizes the control board so it will be the same between the new generation of FOCers. The model is still crude and everything isn’t there, but let me know what you think.
Edit: Sure has come a long way from the original design…
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Great that it’s modular, makes it easier to replace a broken board, change to a different one and better with a little height than added length/width.
Only thing I would like is for the small connector board to not be on a short side. Possible to have it on the longer side of the board and make it half the height so connectors are on a single row?
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Having the connector board where it is enables the type of enclosure I’m looking to do. I haven’t talked much about this, but I’m looking at doing a custom extruded aluminum enclosure that maximizes heatsinking. Having the connector board on the long side messes up this type of enclosure. Previously I thought that wouldn’t be able to go through with a custom extrusion design due to high MOQs but I’ve since have been shaking hands with people that can help with that
Also, you’re still stuck with the same overall height of the controller no matter what side you put the connector board on. The height of this controller as you see it is about 14mm. It will be a wee bit less with the Little FOCer. I could also switch to shorter/smaller headers that could shave off another mm or two. Either way, I’m trying to make the whole thing with enclosure and all, specifically for the Little FOCer (best for esk8), to have a height of 20mm or less.
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nice stack! what’s the dimensions of this?
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113mm x 65mm x 14mm. What you see in the render only.
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I’m resurrecting this subject since I’m working on the enclosure design. Let’s assume the connectors/cables will come out the sides and not affect the overall height of the controller. This would mean that the overall height is simply the height of the enclosure. That being said, what’s the max height of the enclosure that would still accommodate your rig? The taller it can be, the better this enclosure will keep the controller cool. This question is for everyone.
25mm Max would be good so it would fit into a single stack enclosure.
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I’m liking this 25mm limit. It allows for longer and more effective heat sink fins on the enclosure.
To be fair. Since the voltage is higher, a double stack pack makes more sense. So 25mm or 35mm prob wouldn’t be that much of a big deal 
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Cool! I’ll keep that in mind just in case I need yet more height but I think 25mm will be sufficient to optimize the enclosure for heat sinking purposes. I’m really trying to make thermal management good for my controller especially since there won’t be much airflow in esk8 applications.
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2 Questions,
Is this 84v safe for 20s? or is it 84V like the regular vesc is 60v lul!
Will it have an onboard IMU?
I want to pair one of these with a gotway MSX motor and make a killer custom EUC.
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Yes I’m indeed designing it to be safe with 84V. That’s the real max operating voltage
As far as the IMU goes.
I’ve been informed that the recent VESC tool update has IMU support. I originally didn’t want to include the IMU to keep the price that much lower. I’m currently evaluating this and seeing just how much adding it affects costs. I have room for it in the design…
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