Recently, Benjamin Vedder did an awesome move by creating a Development branch of the VESC FW and VESC Tool repos.
This allows to propose new features for testers before releasing it as “safe”.
For coders, it allows to see the process as any little changes are published. Followers may understand the ongoing work.
Please, update only if you know what you’re doing.
Firmwares in Beta stage may contain bugs.
Test it while keeping in mind that it can behave strangely.
So, gentlmen, wear helmet/gears, and ride not closed to your limits.
The more testing, the less trouble when people will update their VESC with the stable version.
So, what’s new ?
Well, a lot is coming :
Unity support (enjoy HFI !)
FOC improvement
Plenty of other bugfixes and performance improvements
Support for future Stormcore and communication with future devices
Sure thing mate, I’ve been testing VESC FW 5.0 on my Unity and so far so good!
Expect the first FW upgrade to take a couple of hours, it did for me at least, but after that it takes seconds. Benjamin / Jeff do updates a lot / as they do Dev builds.
VESC Tool was easy enough to learn, especially if you follow the video Jeff posted about HFI setup.
Default HFI settings worked on my dual 6374 192kV SK3’s, but doing it custom gave me lower Voltage values which is a good thing according to Jeff.
The latest FW is supposed to talk to Stormcore app, but hasn’t for me, most likely due to my metr Pro Unity module that replaced the stock BLE module.
An update to metr Pro to support FW 5.0 is incoming, but you have to ask for it to get on the beta list.
In operation it’s been super stable so far, although I follow the advice mostly of not giving it full stick all the time and padding up.
I had one HFI hiccup once where it activated for a split second while I was doing 10km/h, which resulted in a little twitch like a micro braking event, but then that never happened again.
HFI fucking rocks, as smooth as anything, although I think if you have sensors acceleration out of the blocks will likely be quicker.
See video below of me taking it easy with HFI the first time.
@Deodand is it possible to add the hybrid feature for unity or stormcore to be able to switch from FOC to BLDC at a certain eRPM? Would be cool to have smooth start and cruise but bump to BLDC for that bit of extra top speed.
BLDC is not supported on dual controllers still. If you try to set it it will simply switch back to FOC. I think if more top speed is needed future support for MTPA control and field weakening would be the path, but really I think simply changing motor or gearing is the correct path rather than using a less efficient commutation.
Hope so! I am not an expert, just got some experience with one of my boards, and indeed detection solved the situation after uploading FW again. But not sure about your issue, it is just sounded the same way when it happened to me…nothing serious, walk of shame too because I did not have an android phone with me at the time…
does it make that sound if you turn the motor by hand?