I guess you are paying for @evoheyax 's time
So first off, this chip is not the hc 5, it is the adafruit chip. Cost to me buying in bulk is $15.75 per chip plu about a buck per plug, so almost $17. I charge $34 with shipping the us. You will pay $23 from adafruit with shipping, so $11 more for the chip already soldered to a plug, heatshrinked, and ready to go. You also have my service and I have to pay for the app to go into the store. For $11, you donāt have to compile the app, solder, and you have customer service.
Whatās the difference between the two? Why didnāt you go with the cheaper Bluetooth module?
The HC 05 to my understanding encapsulates data differently for transmission through bluetooth. This means you canāt use an HC 05 with this particular app. I donāt have an HC 05 sitting around to confirm this though, so if anyone who has one and wants to try it out, I would love to see your results.
Besides this, thereās some other differences.
Adafruit manufacturers in New York in the US, while the HC 05 is unclear (and likely china). Adafruit uses a 32 bit processor, while itās unclear what the HC 05 uses. Adagruit runs on bluetooth 4 Low Energy, while again, no documentation states what version of bluetooth it uses (likely not 4 LE)
Now, this likely wonāt mean much of a difference for our application. But this particular app runs with the adafruit perfectly. I have purchased 16 chips so far, and everyone has worked flawlessly without issues. The code is written in objective-c, which is a language I do know (I donāt know swift nor have the time to learn another language right now (already learning 2 new ones to put me up to 13 in total now), so modifying it and re-uses the base structure to make a new app wonāt be too hard.
I would love to try this app with my HC 05, but I donāt have iOS or compiled version for Android. It does work with VSC Monitor app.
I will order an HC 05 to mess with
Unfortunately, itās not that simple. you canāt connect to this chip directly without going through software that can instantiate the connection. I tried today just to confirm this. It may be possible to write software to make the connection first, which allows the entire system to access it there in after including BLDC. But itās not a pairable chip. Going to search for it using any device with bluetooth (phone, desktop, laptop, tablet), will yield no results.
This all is really a beta program. Everyone whos ordered is helping the community determine what is really the best bluetooth system we can do. And everyone who orders ultimately gets an end to end system that is as simple as download, plug and play. It canāt get any easier for the end user, and you will be able to use it to learn more about your electrical system, and make improvements if you can interrupt the data. That being said, itās possible the HC 05 or another chip will be better.
A lot really comes down to the software thatās written behind these chips, because everything we could ever dream is possible with both of these chips. Itās a lack of software that limits them more than anything.
All new orders have been shipped as of today!
International orders will take 1-3 weeks depending on customs. The postal workers said itās usually closer to 2 weeks. Unfortuantly, shipping costs of shipping out side the US is at least $13.50 USD, with out tracking. Tracking is another $13.95, so $27.50 for cheapest shipping plus tracking. I hope to arrange some way in the near future to make sales, especially inside Europe, quicker and cheaper shipping wise.
To my United States customers, some of you will be getting them tomorrow, Tuesday. If you have any questions, donāt hesitate to ask. And remember to reboot your vesc after you change from ppm to ppm+uart, or you will get frustrated (this is the mistake I first made with this chip. Make sure it really shuts down. I unplugged it and plugged it back in before it completely powered off, and it didnāt really restart)
Due to the yellow coloring of the heatshrink, you should see a red slow blinking light when it turns on. When you connect via the app, a solid green light will come on (itās really blue, but blue+yellow heatshrink creates green ) next to the red light. If you run into any problems, donāt hesitate to ask for help. I hope itās smooth and easy for everyone!
Just An update. Iāve finally found time to start developing the app more. My idea is first to start with a screen like this:
This app screen displays everything properly, including speed based on the vescs rpm. This is my heads up display. If you want to do a particular test, this will tell you exactly whatās happening in your vesc in live time, all on one screen. Itās also saving data in the background which is written to a file and stored to generate graphs.
One of the improvements Iāve made here is that the mosfet temp is an average temp between the 6 mosfets. Each mosfet has itās own temperature sensor, so I now average them together instead of just picking one which may be less accurate.
My idea is this will be the main screen. There will be options to go to other screens also. One of the other screens will be to view the graphs. And hopefully in the future, a screen to allow you to change settings in your vesc (this one, I canāt make any promises on, but I will do my best to make it happen).
So the changes are coming. I will be doing some more changes and I would like to do a settings page too so you non-US guys can enjoy the data in the metric system
id like everything graphed and overlaid! Iām sure iāve told you
thereās really only one temp sensor on the vesc. theres 6 outputs but supposedly itās all for the future and they all receive from one. how they end up slightly different temps for the readout I dont know
Are you sure? I find is weird that you say thereās only one when the vesc sends 7 (6 mosfet + 1 board) different temperature readings. Checking the values, the mosfet temps are all slightly different by .1 or .2. Not a huge difference, but they are not the same, and I donāt see how itās physically possible to read different temps from 1 temp sensorā¦
All the temp readings will be implemented in VESC V6 properly, so it makes sense to already count on that also on V4 instead of rewriting that stuff later.
so i read. maybe thereās two sensors then, one for the board and the others for the fets. as elkick says it was intended for later. maybe now with v6 thereās a sensor for each
hmā¦ interesting. Sounds like V6 is really something different. Anyways, Iām working on a settings screen and graph screen.
For those using heatsinks like me, the temps shouldnāt be very different anyways since the heatsink spreads the heat out.
Either way, my code is ready for V6 then
There was a discussion about this going on some time ago: http://vedder.se/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=164
And please implement that metric switchingā¦!
haha, right now, thatās the main reason for the settings screen.
From the link you posted @elkick "The code is prepared for more sensors. One for the PCB (CPU? DRV8302?), one for each mosfet, and one for the motor. "
I wounder how the vesc will get motor temp data, though for @hummies motors (and smaller motors in general), this would be amazing. Especially if you can limit the motor temp in the vesc settings like you can the mosfet temp.
In this code, I found a list of what data is available:
// all the values in bldcMeasure: // // float temp_mos1; // float temp_mos2; // float temp_mos3; // float temp_mos4; // float temp_mos5; // float temp_mos6; // float temp_pcb; // float avgMotorCurrent; // float avgInputCurrent; // float dutyCycleNow; // long rpm; // float inpVoltage; // float ampHours; // float ampHoursCharged; // float wattHours; // float wattHoursCharged; // long tachometer; // long tachometerAbs; // mc_fault_code fault_code;
Iām trying to find documentation on the mc_fault_code object. Itās weird, cause I search for this, and canāt find any whereās that itās declared as a struct. Searching apple documentation, this is not a native objective c struct. But xcode tells me itās returning an unsigned intā¦ I wish I could find out more about it so I could give the user more info than Fault Code: 5 for example.
i imagine the motor temp and the vesc fet temps would be similar or parallel each other. otherwise hooking up another wire, maybe the temp sensor in the motor would be easy to install.
even one sensor for the 6 fets i imagine is probably good and they all parallel each other as well
It does seem like if you read that thread completely that there is only one temp sensor on the board between the uart port and the first fet. I just find it weird that my numbers are not exactly the same.
@evoheyax Got in up and running with no problems
2 questions: How do you switch which graph is showing? (default is ERPM) And Iād like amps
How do you download the recorded data? (Where is it stored?)
Thanks!
one question though. if one uses 2 motor setup with one vesc being slave. Connection to bluetooth should be to the main one. but how will the app get the info from both vescs ?
and when are the new orders going to be dispatched ?
So my understanding before was that the data is shared via canbus, which it is. But I believe the data thatās sent is actually for one vesc and not 2 (based on the values I have been seeing). But if you are doing a dual drive with 2 of the same motors and same settings, you can safely assume the other vesc is seeing very close to the same data. i.e one vesc is pulling 20 battery amps, the other should be seeing very close to 20 amps also. Iām researching and trying to figure out if thereās a way to connect multiple of these BT chips to 1 iphone. App development is going, so it shouldnāt be too much longer before I determine if itās physically possible or not.