That is a possibility… I will research his firmware more this summer and try it out.
So where can I download the VESC software for windows?
@Cole935 I got mine off Enertion but I’m sure there are many others, the Enertion software may only work specifically for the Enertion VESC but idk haha I’m a bit of a noob http://www.enertionboards.com/new-focbox-speed-controller/focbox-bldc-tool-win/
Im new to the forum, this is my first post and im pumped to learn about my new VESC coming in the mail! QUESTION: Will my motor have more power/torque if I program VESC to allow my 12S volts to flow 44.4v for big muscle, and limit the amps to 50A? Or would it be the same if I used my required 8S with 29.6v and limit to 50A?
Hi @thetechtrader! Welcome to the forum! You are about to learn a lot more than you expected if you spend some time here! The more you read the easier your first build will be!
That being said: You will not “program” the VESC for Voltage. The VESC controls current being delivered to the motor and does not change voltage. So what voltage you use is %100 based on the battery. Changing the voltage on a board changes the top speed it can go at… if you had a 6S board that could do 10 mph and you changed the battery to a 12S it would then go roughly 20 mph. The torque would not change in this situation.
HOWEVER more voltage in “real world” almost always means more torque, and this is because of gear ratios. When selecting your motor you will notice a spec called kv. This is essentially the gear ratio inside the motor and when going from 6S to 12S, or any other voltage you will likely have to change the kv of the motor. This is because VESC usears are limited to 60,000 erpm. And as a result you will change the top speed and torque output of the board.
@lox897 @laurnts @treenutter @Michaelinvegas @lowGuido @barajabali
Can one of you guys update the original post of this thread to the code that’s below (I’m assuming if you click edit on this, you be able to see the code (text with formatting), and not just the text. I would do it my self, but I can’t edit this topic anymore since Jason demoted me from Regular to Member last year. After the line below please!
Many new users may find the VESC confusing or not understand what they are doing. I will attempt to break this barrier down, and congregate all the VESC information across this forum here.
Background Information
First off, you need to understand the VESC is a speed controller, which is sorta like the brain of your electric skateboard. It’s the middle man, between your input through a controller (also know as transmitter/reciever system) and your motors.
You should understand some basic terms too. I will give you an analogy so you can try to visualize it.
Voltage - Think of it like how big a muscle is Amps - Think of it as how much energy you can send to that muscle
- You can have huge muscles, so moving something with that muscle takes less energy than someone who has smaller muscles (i.e. high voltage, low amps) (a good example of this is running at 10s and only 15 amps per motor)
OR
- You can have small muscles, which means to do the same as the big muscles, you need more energy. (low voltage, high amps) (a good example is 6s and 120 amps per motor)
Now that you have some background about voltage and amps, lets get to the VESC.
About the VESC
This speed controller has the ability to do many things a normal RC speed controller can not. One of those is limiting the amount of amps that come from your battery to your motors. An easy way to burn up a motor is by sending it more amps than it can handle for too long (often while riding up a hill). This means you should never burn up a motor with a vesc (unless you set this limit too high). There’s also many other protections that can be set through limits, such as the max temperature you want the vesc to get to (so you can’t burn up the speed controller), min and max input voltage (so you can’t pull the voltage of your battery under a safe limit, which would brick your battery), and max regenerative break amps (protects battery from having too many amps sent back in to it). So you can protect your entire electronic system from making some of the most common user mistakes by setting these limits correctly.
Variations of VESCs
They’re are many different VESC’s on the market, and none of which are equal. Few actually use vedders BOM to the tee anymore, creating their own mods to increase stability. So buying a VESC 4.12 from one vendor is not the same VESC 4.12 of another vendor.
On top of that, some vendors, like Ollin Board Co (i.e. @chaka) offer direct FETs, which are thiner and deal with heat a little better.
Enertion took it’s own route with the VESC-X (now named the FOCBOX, keep reading for more info), which seems to be based on the VESC 5 design. Again, direct FETs are used, and the max amp rating is much higher.
The VESC 5 was scapped for the VESC 6, which is not yet released, though prototypes exist showing it’s increased max continuous amps and increased FOC stability.
The VESC 4.12 can do 27 amps continuous before going nuclear. The VESC 6 can do 50 amps continuous before going nuclear.
The VESC-X is unknown at this time, though it’s claimed to have a higher amp rating than the VESC 4.12.
The VESC 6 may be a good option for really powerful single drive or dual drive boards, but is an over kill for most. At this point, it looks to be better suited for electric bikes than electric skateboards, especially given the projected price tag.
Difference between VESC-X (i.e. FOCBOX) and VESC 4.12 (or lower VESC versions)
The VESC-X runs on a different tool than other VESCs. As a result, you should download those from enertions site.
- For windows, Click Here.
- For Mac, Click Here.
Recent changes to the VESC
Vedder recently, with the help of Trampa, trademarked the VESC. This means only Trampa can sell the VESC under the name VESC anymore. Thus, companies are being forced to changed the name of their VESC based speed controllers.
- The VESC-X is now named the FOCBOX
- For Esk8.de, the VESC 4.12 is now called the ESK8 Controller
- For Torqueboards, i.e, diyelectric, the VESC 4.12 is called the Torque ESC
Downloading BLDC tool
Now, the first thing you should understand is when you get your vesc, you need to find the correct BLDC tool. There are mac/linux/windows versions, but you need the bldc tool with the same firmware as the one pre installed on your vesc. If you are unsure which firmware your vesc came pre installed with, ask the person you bought it from, or download any version, and when you attempt to connect your vesc to the bldc tool, you will get an error which will tell you which version of firmware you have. For instructions on connecting your vesc, read below.
You can update or downgrade the firmware to match the version of bldc tool you have, but this should be a last option solution if you really can’t find the right tool. You can fry the drv chip on your vesc by doing a bad firmware update, which is very easy to mess up, and would make your vesc an expensive paper weight.
- To download the BLDC too for Mac or Windowsl, Please wait. There is no link at this time.
- To download the BLDC tool for Ubuntu, Click Here and follow the instructions in the README file.
- For information about upgrading firmware, Click Here.
Now that you have the correct BLDC tool, you can connect your VESC to your usb type b cable to your vesc, and the other end to your computer. Now is a good time to talk about powering the VESC for configuration. Both Vedder (who is the guy that engineered this speed controller) and onloop (a prominent seller of the vesc) recommend using a lab rated regulated power supply to power the VESC during configuration. I use one I bought on amazon for around $45 USD. This however, may not be necessary. Chaka, another prominent seller of the VESC, suggests you only need to do this when powering up for the first time, and his have been powered before shipping, thus with his, this is not necessary. You can read more about Chaka’s Low power recommendations Here. It’s most important to use a regulated power supply if the VESC has never been powered up before. This is not an issue for those buying VESCs from any of the prominent VESC sellers like Torque Borads, Enertion, Axle, Esk8.de, or Chaka.
Connecting through BLDC tool
Now that you have it powered and physically connected, its time to make the software connection through the BLDC tool. Select the right port (not the bluetooth one). You should have only 2 options, the bluetooth and another. Click connect. And in the bottom right corner, you should see a green status with your current firmware version. This is the time that you will see an error message if the firmware on your vesc and the version of BLDC tool you have do not match. You can solve this mismatch by downloading an older version of BLDC (the one that matches your firmware version), or flashing the firmware (first option is much safer), as linked above.
Configuring your VESC
Now, onto the configuring itself. Here is an article explaining what you need to modify to get your vesc running.
To see how you make these change, Jaccobly has done a fabulous video found Here.
For more specific segments
- Here’s how to setup the receiver and brakes
- Here’s more info about setting up the Regenative breaks
- Here’s how to setup the Nyko Kama wii remote
- Here’s how to setup dual motors through the canbus port
- Here’s an explanation about the difference between Duty Cycle and Current Control
- Here’s an explanation of how to do motor detection
- Here’s information about limiting the voltage of your battery
Side Note
Please note, if you are configuring on a lab rate Regulated power supply, you will have issues controlling the motor after configuring the receiver and doing motor detection. Your motor will nudge a tad bit, if at all, and stop immediately. This is because the power supply is not giving the vesc enough amps. To get around this, when you think your settings are all good, test it using your battery.
Conclusion
Now that you have reach this point, you should now have working settings and allow you to run your motor through your controller. In theory, this can be your ending point, there is however, one last feature of the vesc that separates the vesc from other speed controllers, and this is a mode called FOC, or Field Orientated Control.
Instead of running in BLDC mode, you can run in FOC mode. For more information about what FOC mode is, Read This!
For a comparision of BLDC and FOC, Read This!
To configure FOC mode, Vedder himself has put together a youtube video, which is linked from This Thread.
Watt Control Mode
A member of the community @Ackmaniac modified both the BLDC-tool and the VESC firmware to add a mode called watt control. Basically, instead of adjust amps like control mode does, it controls watts, which takes into consideration voltage. As a result, you can decrease the negative impact on performance of sag.
To read more about it and downloads, read his thread Here.
PROBLEMS?!?
Now, you should hopefully have a working and correctly configured electrical system. If you don’t, read this article. A lot of useful debugging information is there.
If anything in this guide seems misleading or inaccurate, or you feel points are missing, please post so below. This is th information I have gathered from my experience of using the VESC. I’m am not an electrical engineer, nor have I taken General Physics II with applied calculus, which focuses mostly on the physics behind electricity. So I have not the best person to ask technical questions to.
Thank you for reading and I hope this will help!
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I’m trying to create as much info as possible as the market is getting crazier. I’m far from down with this thread. Just for now, I’m done, lol. Next up, I want to tackle remotes and remote technology.
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I’ll defer to the other guys that are prob on a computer at some point during the day to fix it as you requested
Took me a while but I did it on my phone lol. Tell me if anything needs to be changed and will fix it
The text I made has links and styling. Is there a way for you to get the code + text, not just the text?
Will do on laptop tomorrow.
Nice write up dude! Found something:
it´s “Axle” not “Axel” and “Esk8” at the moment, “Elkick” is currently off the forum (both are Esk8.de)
ahh, thanks, I’ll fix thse two things!
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Yes the more I read on this site the more I learn in many different areas… AMAZING!
Base on my above questions, and your reply, here is my next question which may or may not have the same answer you just gave me, but gotta ask to learn 
Would my setup have more torque, and/OR draw less current if I used: 12S, limited eRPM to a max rotation and limit VEST amps to 50A
- VS -
10S, limited eRPM to same max rotation, and limited VESC to 50A
Im sure they are newbie questions but once I wrap my head around the fundamentals I will NEVER ask again
Ok, that more or less has me understanding the relationships between volts, amps, kv, greatly appreciated
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The higher voltage is also going to be more efficient since higher amperage is what causes power loss through anything with resistance (everything) and power delivered to the motor is a product of the amperage and voltage. That said I setup a 12S at first but was too much for me personally so stepped it down to 10S when my batteries started showing some wear and made a better case to protect the lipos I’m using. Personally use the board for transportation to local shops and the grocery store and stuff so I’m not looking for a speed demon ride just something safe and fun to get around without a car.
In general do lower KV motors like 170kv use up more battery power/life/run time vs day 500kv?
@thetechtrader In general… yes. I can go more into depth but just realized we are completely hijacking this thread. It needs to stay specifially for New VESC users. These are more battery and motor related questions. If you would make a new thread or find one that matches your questions and tag me ill be happy to post more there.
sorted. 10
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