White Midnight - A project of spare parts?

I impulse purchased this fritted deck from @abusfullofnuns here a few months ago.

Great decision, this deck is awesome. I definitely wanted to turn it into a full build, Hence this thread! My first non-meme “proper” build in awhile.


Part sourcing
A great excuse to use some spare parts I’ve accumulated

ESC

Bought a broken spintend 75v/100A esc from @Benja here like a year and a half ago.

I tried replacing the TJA1051 CAN chips, but unfortunately that didn’t fix it.

Battery/Enclosure

@TZDKB generously gifted me this battery and enclosure a year or two ago. IIRC it’s 16s liion pouch cells, built into a perfect 3D printed enclosure.

Trucks

Duality, of course :face_with_tongue:

These were the trucks that I used for experimental projects Super Duality and I had an IDEA.

With their time doing experiments done, White Midnight is their planned home.

Motors

Reacher SKP 6455, Inherited from Nothing Fancy and I had an IDEA


Enclosure Mounting

The enclosure was printed for the Warren deck, which has a flat bottom.
This new deck…isn’t flat.

Borrowing a 3D scanner, I scanned the bottom of the deck

And CAD’d adaptors that conform to the deck

Printed with TPU, and they fit like puzzle pieces

Deck Inserts

For White Midnight, I wanted to mount the enclosure with something more proper then wood screws. Decided to put brass inserts into the deck.

Can always use an excuse to buy a new tool

8 batches of 5 minute epoxy later, inserts are in.

And promptly hidden by lightly hot gluing the adaptors to the deck.
Don’t need to be accurate if you print with TPU :grin:

All the bolts fit! Dope. The trucks look great on here

My original plan was to drop-through mount Dualities (cutting out a slot in the deck).
I might not need to though!! Feels fantastic as-is (pending track experimentation, of course).

ESC and BMS

The BMS sits in this extra compartment in the enclosure. From the wiring, it seems like this board originally had a rear-mounted ESC box… but I think I can squeeze the vesc in there too (and avoid a rear-mount box :grin:).

It’s tight though, so the BMS and Vesc need some trimming.
The BMS tabs are made of chinesium, so came off with just a pair of wire snips (did ruin them though… oopes)

VESC tabs also came off with a Dremel

It fits, very cozy!

To passthrough the rear phase/sensor wires, I cut a hole and printed an insert


With everything done, it was time for power-up and configuration.

Vesc not-a-setup
I’m able to connect and do motor detection, but the motors don’t spin like they’re supposed to :frowning:
Playing with the settings yielded no results, unfortunately. Going to keep playing with it, but might just need to purchase a D100s.

That’s where the board’s at right now. All the core features are done, just need a working vesc. Updates to come

17 Likes

Well, this is embarrassing.

It’s a 18s pack.

So the 75V vesc was never going to work. Only reason it didn’t blow up when I plugged it in was because the battery charge was so low.:woozy_face:

D100s inbound.

3 Likes

PHEW

I noticed your 3dp enclosure was printed in such an orientation that layer adhesion plays a critical role in supporting the weight of the pack. I’m curious about which material was used for it. Thanks

Very nice. What’s your plan for this build, as in commuting, just for fun or testing something?

While I know they might not have a great reputation for not burning, the Kaly XLR used those VESCs on 18S. Or at least I’m pretty sure they used the same FDBL0150N80 (80v) mosfets and the rest of the VESC is good for more voltage since the J version only changes to 100V mosfets for 18S or even 20S iirc. It might have a max voltage limit set in the VESC tool.

Oh cool that’s where it went.

If you can’t fix it would you let me buy it cheap?

1 Like

I got it with the battery, so I’m not sure. Would be a better question for @TZDKB, but I’m not sure he’d know.

If I had to guess from how it felt to cut, it’s PETG. The black “gasket” is TPU.

I’ve found PETG works really well for enclosures like this. It’s what I used for the second version of Tynee Curse’s enclosure, which is still going strong.

1 Like

Mostly for fun! It’s going to be similar (but different) to Nothing Fancy. Another chill board that I can lend to friends (and that also feels good on track)

Verrrry interesting. I popped the hood off to verify for myself, and you’re totally right.

Still, <5v of headroom… little tight for me I think.

I was skimming the forum and found these series of posts, suggesting even 16s might be risking it? Curious your take.

1 Like

I’ve heard PETG has the 2nd best layer adhesion after TPU

Yea 18S is a bit tight for 80V. I know lots of Kalys did it without trouble but they did have rheostatic braking as well as / instead of regen. I think higher Kv, low iR battery, short thick wires, extra capacitors would all help. Only charging to 4.1v is a good idea for longevity anyway. Maybe you could use TVS diodes but that’s above what I know about enough to recommend.

If it seems pointless, mosfets do work most efficiently closer to max voltage like 80V FDBL0150N80 have both a bit lower resistance and gate charge than 100V HYG015N10NS1TA used in D100S. That and other design differences should make it run cooler than D100S.

Edit: some interesting info from the Bioboards one. It implies over 16S is a risk but not impossible, that 220A rating has me interested in playing around with more battery amps. Reckon I can?


2 Likes

If I’m spending money on a new D100s, what’s a little more for proper motors.

So instead of 6455’s, White Midnight is getting some 173kv 6485s (from @Mobiusray)

Tied up the wires into shape

Added overbraid

Mounted, ready to go. Just still waiting on the D100s from MakerX

Starting with some 18T pinions (78T spur). Should give the board a top speed >50mph :grin:

11 Likes

Decided to lower the motor mounts a few degrees

Also added a spare handle I had sitting around

4 Likes

D100s arrived today! It’s finally ridable.

Started tracing out a hole pattern to drill bolt holes in the enclosure…

Before realizing it’d be way easier to just use VHB (and it’d look cleaner) :rofl:


Having no idea the quality of the battery, I opted for conservative settings

Then got the enclosure mounted!

Any excuse to by a new tools (Long metric Hex Bits)

Smooth build so far… but wouldn’t be a build by me if I didn’t cut a few corners.

The switch is held on with a zip tie, and the charge port is just taped.
I’ll fix it (eventually)


For the finishing touch, I broke out a favorite tool… A fat tip sharpie


Buttoned up and ready to go. :tada:
Excited to race on track tomorrow

6 Likes

Charging it up now with my Roger charger at 6A
Checking the Bluetooth BMS, it’s charging at 6.8A.

Yay! Free energy lol

2 Likes

Strongly suggest you set “Slow ABS Current Limit” to “true.” Ask @hoytkid if you dont believe me :grin:

1 Like

Yea I highly reccomend slow abs lol🤣

1 Like

Ohh brother talk about a guy who loves to have their power button not mounted :rofl:wasn’t nothing fancy just like this I’m having ptsd lol​:joy::joy:

on a serious not thoe are you planning on mounting it on the deck?

Appreciate the suggestion.
After Nothing Fancy’s first ESC blew up, MakerX said they think slow abs is what caused it to fail. ever since then, I’ve kept it off on all my boards.

I’ve found that if I’m hitting abs_max, there’s usually something wrong with the motor configuration/calibration/detection. slow abs off/on is the difference between still having an ESC and a fireball.

I’m fortunate enough to usually be using more modern vesc designs, which trend to be more reliable, so maybe that’s another difference?

2 Likes

lol it’s so easy to skimp out on! TBD where I plan on actually mounting it.

And yup, Nothing Fancy still has a hot glued power button. Really should get around to fixing them both lol

Just make sure fault stop time is lowered from the stock 500ms to something more reasonable (I usually have it in the 60-80ms range), and I agree, have slow abs OFF if you don’t want to blow ESCs. I’ve also had that same talk with makerx when I blew my first one :smile:

Yup, 100%. I set mine to 50ms on my boards, and have considered going lower.

Interestingly, found a bug in the vesc 6.07 esk8 setup wizard(at least for the d100s). When you override the stop time in the wizard, it sets it on the master esc, but not the slave. The slave gets set to the default 500ms.

Triggering abs_overcurrent like this would effectively be a one-sided cutout… Talk about a recipe for road rash!

1 Like

Had this type of crash before. Pretty violent cause it whipped you sideway haaaard…

1 Like