As Pimouse pointed it out, Benjamin will do a KiCad project, very similar to VESC 6. If you need the Gerbers, KiCad will spit them out for you after you have tuned your piece of hardware to your needs.
As Benjamin described, It is well worth learning KiCad, making your own layouts from the schematics that are public.
A lot of people have done that already and in future we will see more different hardware, rather than boring copy paste projects. It is not easy to find a good compromise between stipulating Innovation and being 100% OS on the hardware side. OS hardware is problematic, since a 100% copy paste product will end in cheap and likely poor quality products, unhappy customers, unnecessary electronic waste and negative effects on the Project Brand itself.
If you donāt understand the Hardware, how can you control the quality? If you understand it, you can design your own PCB with ease anyway.
If someone wants to make hardware, he should put some effort into it and offset it from the competition, offering a set of USPs, or versions that are more specific for a certain application. If you simply copy a design and try to push sales, battling for the lowest price, quality will ultimately suffer. Quality is also in the field of project support, customer support, warranty, product availability, meeting standards etc. A lot of discount vendors donāt offer any of those services/requirements to get the price down to a minimum.
All of this is the reason why Benjamin did a write up, posted on the VESC-Project.com website.
It is not easy to find the best balance between being OS and stipulating innovation and product variety.
FOCBOXs are slow on production, and trampaās VESC6 is vastly overpriced. I just ordered from @stewii considering his units have been good so far, using the exact same components as trampa with better pricing
Lol so this Topic is between ppl who have issues and those who want the secret plans to the lair.
Iām kidding.
wait maybe not so much, ā¦ ā¦ .
Offers on the table. Iām all for using less resources so Iām going to go the repair route. But the generosity is noted @trampa.
If @ThermalM16 is serious I might actually consider what heās offering. @JohnnyMeduse
I mean think about the logistics we can learn from this. We can make this a team effort. I can ship them off at the same time at a time we agree on and see how long it takes to reach each of you. And then we can do a sync unboxing, with a not a rush but more like a genuine competitus between you two.
@Trampa, I really wanna like the vesc 6 but at its top-tier price, it needs to have a top-tier manual. This why there are vigilantes looking for batmanās cave. When I buy a pc motherboard for the same price it comes with a thick manual of all itās chips, the explanation for their purposes, the voltages allowed, the logic pathways, the temperature data sheet, and then my favorite, an explanation of the particular apps the motherboard allows for. If people truly knew how to compile for your āmoboā there wouldnāt be so much exclamation for the reference design. Also. i think its kinda funny vedder isnāt on these forums. is he an introvert? lol
come on. a nice thick manual. like quality. ya know? then i think your vescs will āflyā off the shelves. (theyāre on shelves right?)
You actually read those?! I donāt know about you but I wouldnāt want to buy a $300 vesc just because it comes with the manually that explains the nitty gritty.
I second @WrinklyWink about documentation.
VESC 6 is meant to be used in a wider scope of application than only e-skate.
But today, if you want to integrate the VESC into your application, you have to reverse-engineer the firmware source code.
For instance, there is NOTHING about the UART protocol !
Even the VESC 4.12 was more detailed ( http://vedder.se/2015/10/communicating-with-the-vesc-using-uart/ ).
I even discovered while reading the source code that the number of red led flashes tells you exactly which fault has been triggered.
This is so useful and it could have helped a lot of guys instead of telling them ādonāt power off, connect vesc/bldc tool and type faults in terminalāā¦
IMO, B. Vedder doesnāt need to come on this forum wasting his time to read complains against one or the other.
Vedder has to focus on his project, not about all the mess surrounding it (Trademark stuff, FOCBOX, derivative discussion, lie or not lieā¦).
We definitely miss him on the vesc-project.com forum to answer questions about real contributions.
There is also @esk8ās own modified VESC that is supposed to be more robust than a Focbox. Itās sad to see these not being more frequently considered - they seem to be well made and have only good reviews so far
The VESC-Project is an OS-Platform, and the amount of work is tremendous.
Before the Project started there was no controller like that available at all.
It is a given Horse! Documentation is coming together bit by bit and it is pretty much an endless job to do. Remember that Benjamin is doing all this in his time off, after work!
If funding will get to level, where it generates enough to fund his life, that is a different game then.
The VESC is also no product that is made by the millions, unlike mother boards and graphic etc. cards.
Before sending the devices, we opened up a forum and made some sticky threads containing very useful information about what not to do, and how to upgrade the FW and upload missing bootloders etc. We sent every customer a mail (together with the login) to be sure that the most critical information is passed over and the customer is informed about issues with Clone ST-Links, HM-10 modules and the like.
Benjamin added a lot of information into VESC-Tool itself. There is a ? behind nearly every setting you can change. That is a big fat manual inside the software itself.
The VESC is an advanced piece of hardware and the VESC-Tool an advanced piece of OS-software. You can use it on all levels of personal experience. You can configure it manually all by yourself, or simply use the wizards.
A striped down mobile version will be available in future. Tuning your VESC will become very easy and user friendly. You will even be able to upload the latest firmware through your mobile phone/tablet.
I know that it is frustrating to deal with a damaged device. Since we know what caused the issue (SWD 3.3 V injection), I am sure that it can be fixed with ease.
This is why I got you in touch with the DRV-Wizard and put together a list with the electronic parts numbers etc. You could also sell the VESCs cheap to someone with electronic experience, someone who can fix them and use our 50% discount code to get some new ones. Plenty of options on the tableā¦
A lot of people with e-bikes and e-boards have their cars standing around a lot more time of the day. I hope that the VESC-Project helps to improve the situation a tiny little bit.
Paper is still one of the biggest forest killers. We use to much paper! I recently bought a mixer and it came with 1KG of manuals in 16 languages. Ridiculous! All you need is a shot code with a link to an online documentation.
WWF stuff are off topic.
What about documentation ? I mean real documentation, not forum thread or email.
PDF files and websites exist, no need to cut treeā¦
So we, DIY guys, all do !
Iāll write a UART protocol article, but where to submit it ? Forum ?
Which one ? Vedder.se ? Vesc-project.com ? Both are active.
Iāll be glad to contribute, but I canāt since I donāt have any answer on the forums since 3 weeks to a VESC Tool bug report.
The point is that contribute to VESC Project seems to be complicatedā¦
I think Benjamin will gladly give you access to the documentation pages, so that you can drop it there and edit it there . Benjamin was travelling for two weeks and got the quite iāll last week. Thatās lifeā¦
Writ it up, and we we will find a nice spot to put it and you will be able to access it.
Frank, itās not about ME.
Itās about finding a sustainable way for the whole project to gain more contribution, manage and integrate them.
Several pull requests are still waiting for approval.
People who did them spent time off as well to contribute.
