Cheap FOCer! (VESC compatible 4.12 redesign)

Thank you @moon!

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To do both is totally fine. Even to only sell is totally fine. Only difference is that people who support the project mostly only like to support open community projects.

Maybe a really nice and cheap idea would be to sell the boards with the Chip, DRV and maybe USB connector presoldered and preprogrammed (small parts that are hard to solder but easy to do with a reflow oven) and all other parts are added as a kit that can be soldered then by everybody themself. This way it’s a nice little project and you safe a lot of time when you don’t need to place all the small components yourself.

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I like the DIY kit idea! Cuts out most of the cost of assembly. I could even sell just the bare boards to more “advanced” DIYers since those tend to cost the most in low quantity.

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I don’t have the tools and the skills to assemble one by my own. I would be very happy if you sell some pre assembled :relieved:

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if you finally have a 2 layer board they will be 50 cent each plus a bit shipping if you buy at JLCPCB.com even at low quantity.

Just make wide tracks that are not covered by silk so that they can be reinforced with more solder manually.

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When u do get it all figured out maybe make a website or something so we can get info better than trying to read long threads digging.

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How hard is it to make the mostfets externally mounted? Leave holes where wires to them go so the ESC can be in a nice hard case and the hottest elements can be in an external heat sink on the bottom of the board in a nice easy row?

I feel that would be good for some DIY cooling solutions

This is exactly what I’ve already done for my prototype I’m currently testing!

Sure! I’ll also consolidate a lot of the information on my controller in the github repository.

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One still has to buy 10 at a time that will total out to $17ish USD. Yes the cost per board is really cheap but you still gotta pay for all 10 and that’s not very useful for someone that just wants to build a single controller. I could provide individual boards for much less than $17 USD for those that just want to build one or two.

yeah I totally went with the manual track beefing technique. Check out my thread on the endless sphere. It’s got pics of my assembled board!

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That’s the best of all the options :slight_smile:

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The plan is to already thermally couple the mosfet heatsink to the aluminum hammond enclosure from the inside. This will have very good heatsinking while maintaining a sealed enclosure.

Yes I agree, if you sell the board with MCU and DRV and USB presoldered it will be an instant success story. And with bootloader already on the MCU

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Dont forget the last part :sweat_smile:

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@shaman just a noob question. Probably being already covered but you clearly know what you are doing. What limit a vesc to the 12s or the 69V limit? Is it the DRV only or something else too? Because I do not se the point where everyone use the same DRV limited to 60V if thst is the bottle enck of the whole pcb. Is it due to the price of the higher voltage ones? Thx and sorry for the off topic… :grin:

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The DIY kit sounds awesome! I have always wanted to assemble an ESC by myself. :smiley:

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image image image image

pics from es

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Yes the 60V limit is due to the DRV8302 indeed. Its max operating voltage as stated by the datasheet is 60V. The DRV8301 used in the VESC 6 has the same limitation. The rest of the control circuitry in the VESC operates off of the 5V or 3.3V votlage rails. Until recently, this was the best TI could do for a “high” voltage motor driver. Now there is the new DRV8353 which can go up to 100V. That’s the one I’m using for the high voltage VESC design.

Note that one can design out the DRV entirely and just use individual gate drivers for every set of 2 MOSFETs. A few designers are doing that right now for really high powered VESC based motor controllers.

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Thanks, got it! Just to know, which is the price different between let’s say DRV8302 to DRV8353? Because you BOM is really low, maybe is possible with the double to make a 100V one. I am not trying to change your plans, it’s just out of curiosity.

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The price difference is about $0.50 USD in the 1000 unit price. It won’t cause the BOM to double in price by any means. Also don’t forget that anyone can about 5 free sample of most ICs from TI simply by making an account on TI.com. From a DIY perspective, that keeps the BOM cheap!

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