thinking about going lipo

I just looked at the spintend, that’s the one I’m going to go with. Anybody have personal experience with that one?

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I used it on my 12S MTB build. Actually pretty similar to your setup, with two 14Ah LiPos and dual 6374s. No complaints with it, the remote’s pretty nice and everything was plug and play. Integrated Bluetooth is surprisingly useful, as I can now make changes to the VESC configuration without having to pop open the enclosure. It’s a little larger than some of the other ESCs out there thanks to the heat sink/enclosure, but not terribly so, especially if you cut off the tabs on the side.

Only thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to get reverse working without changing the input mode in setup, but it’s not a huge deal since the number of times I’ve actually needed it in the past two years have been exactly 0.

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Yeah I remember hearing that at some point now

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AS had been replaced with an XT90S connector, which isn’t too annoying. If you never unplug the battery you can just use the button to turn it on.

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I’ll have to figure out reverse. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to back up if you end up in the middle of the street when you have to slam on the brakes​:yum::joy:

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Anyone know current consumption with the unit off?

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Any of the escs use very very little power when totally idle I calculated it once and was like a week or something to drain a relatively small (185Wh pack). For the long long term you are saving cycles by disconnecting things but the stm32 processor power consumption is pretty minimal even if it’s maxing out which it usually isn’t.

Can hook up a multimeter inline to check just don’t pull the throttle think I checked off bench power supply amp draw too at the time.

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I know the processor uses very little power in sleep mode, but some antispark circuits use so much power they can drain a decent pack in a few weeks.

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Ah for like 5 min there was trying to figure out how xt-90S could drain power once fully plugged in then realized you mean more complicated antispark circuits or soft/kick start systems

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:joy::joy::joy::joy:

Y’all are awesome and extremely helpful! I finally went with 2 6s 13000mah 30c lipos, a smart BMS and the Spintend. Now I’m like a little Kid on Christmas waiting for that morning to come so I can tear open my packages. Lipos come in Monday and Spintend later in the week hopefully :drooling_face::grinning:

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Nice. Start a build thread and we can all help you set it up. Which lipos did you go with in the end?

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I went with the Ononics. They seemed to be a decent price and was recommended.

I’ll start the build thread after I’ve received everything.

What BMs did you go with? Where did you find the lipos?

I’ve been thinking about using Headway’s lifepo4 cells. The 38120 HP cells from batteryhookup.com They have them new for like $15. They are 8ah Lifepo4 cells that will do 200amps of continuous current, and are rated for well over 1,000 cycles. A 12s2p pack would be an interesting starting point at 16ah’s. It would have very little voltage sag, but it would be kind of costly. It’s also solderless. With these cells, you get a high current pack that will last much longer than lipo.

The Lipos I got from ampow.com and the BMS I finally went with was a Daly 12s smart BMS.

Lifepo4s have around half the energy density as Li-Ion batteries however, which is primarily the reason they’re not that commonly used. A Lifepo pack would need to be both larger and heavier to match the range of a Li-Ion pack, which isn’t desirable in the limited space you have on a board.

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Did you make sure its for li-ion/lipo and not lifepo4.

True but if all you want is a 6 mile commuter, you cant beat lifepo4 or lipos. li-ions won’t have the discharge. ask @b264 I think he has like 3 lifepo4 boards. lol

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