Yeah no one does that. All the current ESCs just have heatsinks.
well there might be a few people do it
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A cheap PC heatsink
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Seems like the benefits of airflow would be obvious. Someone has taken the time to prove that in the thread I linked. Application was an ebike though.
No doubt that airflow would be better and the box you mentioned or recommended would be easy to mount exposed. I think for people who want to use it on a mtb the airflow is not the problem. Buuut a lot of guys here store there esc inside if the enclosure. I think for this it would be great if we ( maybe @moon ) can design a heatsink which could be mount in a cut out of the enclosure.
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I see what you’re talking about after googling eskate enclosures. Sure seems like the cut out idea would the way to make a heatsink work with the controller. I’m surprised eskate manufacturers/DIYers haven’t adopted a more modular approach with the controller and battery being in separate enclosures.
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They did. It’s mostly for flexible decks to leave free space in the middle. Although everyone is trying to have the smallest and slimmest enclosure with the biggest battery possible. That’s why the typical layout. I think the cut out with heat sink will work just fine.
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Got it. Even though I’m designing this controller I need info like this to understand the eskate application. Thanks everyone for educating me on how this will most likely be mounted on a board. 
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It very much depends on the board.
For example on my e-mtb I have the battery box in the middle and on both deck ends a case for my vescs
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“exposed to airflow” often means “exposed to saltwater spray” so keep that in mind. Saltwater tends to eat everything it touches that’s made of metal.
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How about making it water and air tight, with heatsinks exposed to air flow? At least thats what people do with with heatsinks for their controllers, not all people, but they do it.
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I didn’t consider that, but a coat of clear spray lacquer on something like that Hammond enclosure should help with corrosion. Something similar could be done to exposed heatsink fins. Maybe even anodizing them could help with corrosion.
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Vsupply = 50.4V,
I Motor = 46A continuous
So I did a test at 50.4V with the motor under load. I picked up spikes of 61.6V under these conditions. Note that I could not use low-induction/low-noise measurement techniques as I did before for this test. I estimate at least 3V are attributed to the non-ideal measurement. Secondly, this is with the bad layout of my prototype. The tester’s edition and beyond will have much better layout and probably lower spikes. I will test the newer version of the Cheap FOCer under the same conditions so a side-by-side comparison can be made.
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Water tight never works. Water always gets in eventually. The secret is making it water-resistant like you said but also making it waterproof so once water gets in, it still works.
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I see. Things like IP65 or better enclosure and conformal coating to the assembled PCB should help fight corrosion and moisture…for a while at least. Nothing will last forever though.
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Hey guys here’s an update on the project. The beta testers are finishing up their payments for their test controllers. Once that happens, I’ll order the materials of the controllers and have them shipped to @Martinsp.
@Martinsp has volunteered to be the assembler of the test controllers. He’ll be shipping the controllers to the test volunteers once they are done.
In the mean time, I will be preparing the documentation i.e schematics, gerbers and BOM for my GitHub repository. Once uploaded, it will be dubbed open source and available to all.
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BOM and PCBs have been ordered and/or shipped already! Wish us luck in everything making it to @Martinsp without any troubles.
So this is my first time coordinating anything like this. I’ve done my best to account for expenses but there may be some surprise costs such as taxes, duties, or whatever other not-fun expenses that make it hard to send other humans some stuff. I’d like to offer you guys the option to pitch in any amount of help you wish to offer. Any amount will help me, the test volunteers, and Martin out in making sure this project follows through
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Hey guys! Project update
@Martinsp now has most of the materials needed. The assembly process will begin this week and we will hopefully have the beta controllers in the mail to the beta testers soon. Stay tuned and wish us luck!
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Awesome, hope we get lots of photos of these prototypes.
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keep it up
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Hey guys Martin is working through the assembly process. Here some pics of a board with some of the SMD components placed.
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