FOCBOX Unity Dual Motor!

Well it is a dual vesc 6

Yes, once the Unity is released firmware should have a stable release and repository. Very excited for that to happen.

posts in theis thread

@Deodand perfect!

@moon Yes this is one PCB that contains “2 ESC based on VESC6 ©”. therefore 2 µController for 2 Motors

The Unity is one PCB with one µC (Brain) that has the perepherie to controll 2 Motors! completely different apprach.

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Oh sorry I didnt know

next post in the thread :rofl:

gotta agree with @chaka on this one. Enertion has never paid shit to bv as far as I know. Had the audacity to tell him to participate in their referral program if he wants to make a buk on their sales. Nobody knows the terms of their offer to work for them so you should not really put weight on his decline.

This is also too funny coming from Jason…

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whilst i appreciate that the discussion about releasing source code for forked projects is relevant, i dont think it belongs here. there are enough other threads for that.

Instead lets get hyped about the Unity. Tell me @onloop @barajabali @Deodand when will we be able to buy these dual ESC’s? are they based on vesc 4.2 or vesc 6 tech?

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I would say the hardware is somewhere between the two but more in line with the current focbox (beefed up/refined 4.12) as it is a low side dual shunt layout, not three phase shunts like the vesc 6. We save some budget on the BOM by not having 2 MCUs, but if you use phase shunts you cant use the integrated low-side shunt amplifiers in the drv8301/3, that budget you save would then imediatley be spent on 6 shunt amplifiers. It is my opinion that the cost/performance tradeoff for this design choice isn’t worth it. I think one of the factors that made the VESC 6 so expensive is extreme 0.1% improvement to performance regardless of cost of the componentry. We instead designed with a focus on performance per dollar, and I think we have been succesful in that regard. The ride still feels super smooth and silent, and we are pushing about %30 more continuous amps during thermal throttling compared to the current focbox. Theres also some unique benefits to driving both motors from a single MCU, the motors are synchronized in such a way that they can kind of “share” the bulk capacitance, since they are driven off the same mcu clock it is possible to offset their peak current draw during pwm cycles.

The biggest changes with this design are that you’re going to save some cash, while getting a motor driver with an easy and much faster installation/calibration, higher performance, integrated switch that wont fail on you, and a really clean and unified phone/computer app that is going to make monitoring/tweaking the ride simple and elegant (if I do my job right :slight_smile: still working to get this just right)

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That’s really good to hear. If one of the DRV8302 chips falls over, will the system know to shut down a motor and keep functional brakes on the other motor? Assuming the MCU isn’t powered by the DRV chip – which is a whole 'nother thing…

It uses the DRV8301 and DRV8303. both have SPI communication (same as vesc6). The buck converter inside the DRV8301 is literally a different circuit inside the integrated circuit. DRV8303 is the same has the 01 except with no buck converter.

Yes if one motor is faulting for some reason, the mcu will continue to drive the non-faulting one.

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That’s good to hear that was actually one of my concerns about having one unit drive 2 motors. Thank you.

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If you already have a working setup buying extra stuff won’t save you anything

Saves you money for the second one, because when you get home with an esk8 that has a dead battery, nothing is as good as a fully-charged one sitting there waiting for you.

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Fair enough

Buying stuff you don’t need is the opposite of saving money :slight_smile: but it sure is fun sometimes.

Some people use these instead of cars. “need” would be appropriate there. :wink:

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@JohnnyMeduse

… It took less than 3 month for the Focbox to go from prototypes to production

They also say the world was made in 7 days and some say they will deliver ‘instant’ Focbox Unity Dual when in reality they deliver every 140 days!

What you said is true but the UI is same as desktop and clicking those tiny buttons on mobile is next to impossible. So not really useful unless someone designs a new UI for Android.

It can be pretty useful if someone only has an Android device and no other computer.