It makes sense what you write, no complaints.
This is a fantasy number. Flipsky have the same motor (from the same factory) and even they state 148A max. 200A is completely unrealistic, the winding insulation will melt away.
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I’m claiming 40hp for the clickbait, of course I will try to actually reach number at least once and report back with my findings
Vesc’s are in!
Has anyone tried to use the soft on/off switch built into the vesc 6? How reliable is it???
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@Gamer43 was going to do some tests but never got back with data I think
As I understood the don’t completely shutdown, it isn’t like most switches that actually cut power, it just disables things via software and goes into a low power state, so for long term storage I would definitely disconnect the battery
The good side is that there is no way for it to fail as most switches do
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Ah very interesting… I just don’t trust any soft switches anymore.
I may just ignore the soft switch and just go with my original plan of 2 x OSE 8.0mm Antispark loop keys, FWD and RWD.
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Just be careful with canbus, I don’t know how it is behaving on the VESC 6 with respect to devices being connected while one of them being unpowered, maybe do dual switches but wire them in parallel so everything gets powered at the same time
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It isn’t a switch in that sense, it is just the microcontroller going into deep sleep and disabling as much of the other components as possible. If the remaining power draw is as stated by trampa you could leave it like that forever basically, but there are some doubts.
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Thanks for the warning. In the past I have used split PPM and I think I will just do that again for this board.
What are your thoughts on Split ppm with FWD and RWD loop keys? Do you think that once Pair of Vesc’s can operate fine even if the other pair of vescs is powered on a few seconds prior?
Thanks for the explanation. Even with this in mind, there is just something reassuring about knowing that you have removed the physical connection which your board needs to power on. I think that for this board, that reassurance is something I need. I don’t want to break any legs.
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I would still use loopkeys as well. I don’t mind them and they are definite.
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It doesn’t disable the 5V rail, the DRV gate drive stage is disabled and the MCU goes into stop mode. It still draws a significant amount of power because the blue LED doesn’t turn off.
Properly designed MOSFET switches like mine will last longer than an ESC. (But they will become obsolete with properly designed ESC shutdown functions)
I may be mistaken and simply not been able to get the thing to actually turn off, I will double check.
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I’ve always used CAN, and Benjamin did some good explanations on why you shouldn’t do split ppm on VESC 6, in short they have less tolerance on the PPM input than the V4, but the CAN bus of the V6 uses a chip that tolerates a lot of voltage swing without problems
Someone needs to make a PPM splitter cable with a built-in ORing diode.
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@ gamer43, apparently some of the vesc6 mk3’s shipped with the mk2 firmware. Have you made sure the mk3 firmware is loaded? should show up as 60_mk3 in vesc tool.
@Chibatterysystems, CAN will work just fine as long as you switch +vbat. If you permanently connect -vbat on all the vescs there is no problem with using can. the problem appears when -vbatt is at a significantly different potential at different controllers. The vesc 6 uses can transceivers with a 58v transient voltage tolerance, so they should survive nearly anything.
use twisted pair when hooking up can and don’t connect gnd and 5v on the connectors. If you have more than 2 vescs on the CAN bus you will need to remove the CAN termination resistor on the pcb for the extras.
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I updated it with the most recent firmware using vesc tool 2.02.
LEDs do not turn off (not even the green one).
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Hmm okay I have to look into this then.
I am comfortable using CAN but that does change my plans with my on off situation. Maybe @Trampa can share an opinion?
Distilled question :
Can I wire all four Vesc’s with CAN while still having a loop key for the front pair of vescs and a separate loop key for the rear pair of vescs? Or would a parallel loop key be the best option? My concerns are if there would be a problem because one pair of vescs would power on before the other pair (As I would need to insert the 2 keys and there is no way I can power the two sets on at the same instance.
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This is the whole “this is why lowside switching is trash” thing. Put the loopkey on the positive wire and it will be fine.
Not sure if CAN will still work properly considering the termination resistance is going to be all wonky on a 4WD setup.
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power wise, as long as loop key is on +vbat, there is no problem.
software wise, i dont know if the vesc fw will detect esc’s coming online afterwards.
most likely it will be fine as long as the master esc is powered up last. the slave esc’s will just chill until they get a signal.
this is somewhere where experimentation is probably your freind.
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Slave VESC’s periodically ping the CANbus with their device ID, the master then forwards the control command to them. (Honestly, this is poor message structuring, but whatever.)
You could also use four receivers. 
Then switching on won’t be a problem and you don’t fry other VESCs if one dies (that can happen with CAN).
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Okay thank you. I appreciate both of your input @Gamer43 and @Teslafly
So I think to just be safe, I will go with parallel loop keys. I don’t think it would be wise to run just RWD if the board was tuned to run in 4WD anyway.
This just leaves the problem of the
Can someone explain this? So I would be safe with a Master -> Slave but the other 2 Slaves would need this Can Termination Resistor removed? Can someone show me which component that is?