Yeah I reckon you’d be spot on there. I knew I shouldn’t be going out too with things not properly secured but I just couldn’t help myself!! And I was literally gonna go up the road and turn around but one thing led to another… 
Ha…now I’m paying the price!! 
That would create a ground loop having a third wire as gnd… never tried tbh
If it’s any consolation, this would have happened w any vesc.
Talk to @JohnnyMeduse for repair
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Ok - cheers @Blasto
@JohnnyMeduse does this sound like something you’d be able to fix?
Appreciate all the help guys - I feel like such a dick!
The wizard who already is mentioned in this thread. Second option is to buy the parts yourself and solder them.
Lol, I’d love to say I’d give this a go but with my track record of things going bang I might leave this to a pro 
plus - I can hardly see half the chips on the board!
…out of morbid curiosity which chip is the U401? Scanned the boards but I’m guessing it’s not labelled as such?
The guy that is circled
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Aha…interesting. He’s actually one of the bigger dudes there. Are these chips easy to source?
Yes fairly easy, the hard part is removing and installing the new one properly
Part number SN65HVD232DR
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Thanks buddy - I’ll look into it for sure - what’s the worst that could happen?!!
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Is the ground you are talking about one of the CAN wires or something else? I’m sorry for the stupid question, but this seems like something I could screw up. Thanks Blasto.
Yes the CAN bus connector has 4 pins, 5V, CAN H, CAN L and gnd. But we are only using CAN H and CAN L at the moment.
I haven’t tried connecting the gnd wire also, so i don’t recommend doing it at the moment before it is properly tested
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So I’m really toying with the idea of trying to unsolder/solder these chips myself. @JohnnyMeduse offers a fair price for repairing VESCs but the postage to the US and back is a killer so I want to at least explore the idea. After all - this is a DIY forum! 
I’ve had a look for the chips and I can find stacks of VP232 (keyword searching: SN65HVD232DR) but the chips themselves all seem to have different numbers/characters on the chip. Can anyone tell me what the ‘62M’ AHEC on the chip refers to? Do I need to match this or just ensure the ‘M’ is within a similar range?
This is the closest I can find here at 66M
Or this which has a more apt description: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2pcs-SN65HVD232DR-Texas-Instruments-CAN-Interface-IC-3-3-V-CAN-TRANSCEIVER-/262440960393?hash=item3d1ab34189:g:n64AAOSwVcFXOoC6
Or is all of this a red herring and will any SN65HVD232DR or VP232 work?
Thank you
Dan
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Thank you to all the guys who contributed on this thread - I’ve managed to remove the fried can bus chips and the FOCBOXs have sprung back to life!! Gonna use a split ppm cable now rather than can bus so I’ll be back on the road!! Still not sure if vescs are right for my build but I’ll secure them properly this time and do some proper testing.
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tat is sick brohan, good job on the mcguyver!
As far as I can tell SN65HVD232 CAN bus chip isn’t an isolated version meaning it needs the same ground reference between the VESCs (even trough in theory a differential transmission protocol should handle that). The thing I’m not sure about is what happens once a ground shift occurs (e.g. due to higher current draw on one VESC) If it still fries something on the board.
if i understand something i heard recently correctly… and somebody please correct me if i’m wrong…
yeah you can fry it that way.
if somebody else would like to confirm that it would make me happy.
Oh no! I just did the same thing with my Esk8 with FOCBOXs…
Looks like I’ll be doing some repair work. Shouldn’t be too hard, since I’m pretty good with soldering, and have a nice small chisel tip to use for the pins.
Argh, can’t believe after getting my first dual working that I fried both of my new boards! Looks like I’m going with split ppm from now on… CANBUS serves me no benefits.
Ah crap - sorry to hear that welcome to the castrated CAN bus chip club!!
Yeah I have fairly rubbish soldering skills and no chisle tip and still managed an ok job so you should be fine!! That said I butchered the chips by chopping the legs off first (as they were dead anyway) and then tidied up the pcb after.
Good luck!
Thanks,
The board needs an overhaul anyways. It’s my 8 wheel setup, which needs a new deck so the motors don’t rub. Guess this will keep me off of it so I can actually focus on building it right!
That said, I do wish there was a warning on the device that says not to plug in canbus if only one ESC is plugged in…
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Just finished soldering on the new CANBUS chips. Big success! The FBs are back in action!
It wasn’t a terrifically difficult job, but I do recommend using as small an iron tip as possible, and using a magnifying glass. Even better if you have a set of binocular magnifiers.
Cheers!
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