@nw-esk8 totally understand this reaction, but I’d like to offer a few counter-points and reasons everyone should be excited. Keep in mind value wise there are a couple things you aren’t considering like the included anti-spark switch which would run you at least $20-$30 US plus shipping and the trouble of wiring (not to mention our switch won’t fail on you and is under warranty). Additionally the unit comes with an integrated internal bluetooth module which would be something else you’d have to order third party and another added cost of $15-30 plus shipping. This included bluetooth module is an NR52, so it will be faster and more responsive than the standard HM10 modules most people sell.
I think the final and biggest thing everyone should be excited about is that Enertion has made the leap into fully custom open-source vesc-based firmware to accompany their hardware. Part of what this price is reflecting is supporting me so I can focus on additional firmware features after launch. Most other companies are just taking Vedder’s firmware, and uploading it to their hardware. While there’s nothing wrong with this, it does mean there is generally a divide between the people coding firmware and the people making the hardware. This lack of understanding can lead to issues in hardware design or missed opportunities for awesome new features. For instance, one feature not listed above is the Unity hardware has a populated 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyro. Currently we have been too focused on getting to production to develop the extra features here, but I’ve got some exciting plans on how to use this additional incoming data.
In developing the Unity, I had to gain a deep understanding of how the Vesc firmware is put together. Re-configuring the hardware timers and ADC timings of the MCU to accurately control two motors synchronously wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. This combined with @Blasto’s experiences with the original FOCBOX means we have a good breadth of understanding of how the hardware and firmware of vesc-based designs can be improved.
Every aspect of the unity has been agonized over for an absurd amount of time. When you complain about the XT60 connector you should know it’s something we’ve already thought about in depth, here’s a video of an XT60 handling 180 amps for 10 seconds:
This connector will easily support 80 amps continuously while only getting slightly warm. The stated 160 amps rating for the Unity is 160 total motor amps continuous and we don’t recommend using over 100 battery amps or your unity. For an eskate, 100 amps at 40V is 4 kW! This should be plenty of power for the majority of people.
Anyways we can’t make everyone happy obviously, but I do hope everyone can believe we didn’t just slap a bunch of components together and a price tag and say “here ya go!”. This thing is our baby and I’m super excited for everyone to get their hands on them and experience the improvements! Please keep the feedback coming though, love to hear everyone’s thoughts!
Is there such a thing as safe shutdown? So instead of just shutting down, unity would just disable acceleration apply .5A braking and slowly come to a stop? I don’t like the idea of any ESC shutting down on me for any reason whatsoever.
As long as the reason for shutdown is non-critical than this is totally feasible. For instance the Vedders firmware already continues to allow braking even after your battery dies and it no longer allows acceleration. Many of the soft faults are this way, stopping acceleration current but allowing braking current. Unfortunatley some failure modes mean the motor controller is unable to continue working correctly so only option is shutdown.
Definitely an idea we have been toying with. The silicone case seals up the whole thing pretty nicely but I always love a little extra protection. Stay tuned!
Support has told me the Unity will be CE certified for the EU, can this be confirmed.
Also in my opinion the base price is not an issue, it is the low ball tactic of throwing on between 40-50AUD for “shipping” for each unit.
To screw with it even more the shipping difference between USA and EU is a double scam.
One unit shipped to the US and to Germany are both $51AUD.
Change that number to 21 units and the shipping to the US becomes $490AUD but the shipping for EU becomes $800AUD!
I’m going to start flagging anyone who complains about shipping prices. You all sound like a bunch of crying babies.
Have any of you bothered to get a quote on express shipping from China latley? It’s fucking expensive and always increasing.
If we lower shipping prices you get slow shit shipping with shit tracking, consignments can take 45 days to arrive when using cheaper shipping. Then everyone will be bitching about how slow and shit the shipping is.
Have you tried 4PX? It’s pretty cheap and super fast, plus they use multiple delivery services and in the end I received package ~5kg for like 40$ in less than 10 days last courier was DPD…
it came from belgium 
