So I really love this silicone repair tape, has no adhesive on it, it just sorta grips to itself. This is great when I need to tape something up to prevent electrical shorts, but I don’t want it to have gummy residue left behind when I remove it. Genius right?
I use this stuff all the time on my motor leads, to keep them connected to the ESC and to keep out grit. About a month ago I did some rewiring in my enclosure and in my haste to get on my board and ride, I taped all three of the motor connections together instead of wrapping each on individually.
We guess what happened? About 2 weeks later, I noticed that VESC was overheating on short rides. That had never happened before, but I chalked it up to some longish downhill rides and the rising outdoor temps. At this point, I had forgotten all about the DUMBEST TAPE JOB MANKIND HAS EVER KNOWN.
I go for another ride, it’s mostly OK but overheats once. I start to wonder if there is a problem with my battery or if VESC needs more cooling in the summer weather. Those FETS were getting really hot to the touch which is not good.
On the third ride I start to have a lot of strange problems. Weird motor noise, brakes are more aggressive than usual. Some shit is going down…
I put the board on the bench and connect VESC to BLDC tool. I do a tests and review the realtime data. two revs of the remote and BOOM - DRV8302 fault. GAH!
I start tinkering around and uncover the motor connections (which are covered in tech wrap so I didn’t notice immediately.) Oh mother eff! The middle motor cable came loose (because no tape was holding it in place and it came into contact with the tiny lip of the other connector (which was also exposed because I wrapped all three with one piece of tape, LIKE A MORON!) Their intermittent contact caused the fault.
So now I have a dead VESC.
When I finally checked the motor connections, two of them were fused together! Look at the burn mark on the bullet connector:
Lesson learned: Tape up your motor connectors individually. Check all physical connections before you test on the bench. Do not win the Darwin award!
Silver lining: I ordered a new VESC from @chaka and I know it will rock!
Once that’s up and running, I’ve got a new DRV8302 chip on the way from Mouser and it’s time to see if I can manage to remove and surface-mount a chip by hand.