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Successor to 1-3kw programmable infineon clone controllers?

Well, with zeropress, we can collaborate on the same article ^_^
I'm a pretty good writer if i put max effort into it, i can take scattered notes and convert it into something nice.

VESC is a deep topic so i think there should be a for dummies and advanced version!
 
Very good thread. I was looking at the sprinted dual controller and led back here.. can’t tell if it is exciting or my head hurts. ;)
 
G8trwood said:
Very good thread. I was looking at the sprinted dual controller and led back here.. can’t tell if it is exciting or my head hurts. ;)
Click to expand...

Glad you enjoyed!

Just a ping on this.

The flipsky is finally wired up; the brake lever wires had to be lengthened because they were comically short. The wiring itself is as cheap as i thought, part of the brake lever had to be machined off to fit the bike, and one of the wires fell out from a connector because it was not crimped well. I decided to solder the wire back on instead of crimping it.

Immediately i'd say the build quality is cheap on the exterior and the resulting mess of wires is not as big of an improvement over the VESC than i expected. This could be massively improved.

The throttle and brake lever seem pretty decent in quality. I believe this brake lever might be analog ( 3 wires ).

Visual comparison of all controllers:

controllers 2.jpg

Flipsky on the right

controllers.jpg

Here's the ebrake lever cable shortness problem originally, it need another ~2 feet.

controllers 3.jpg

it's been too hot to ride lately, we should have a short break from the heat later in the week and i will give this a tune and ride and report back.
 
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I decided to fit the hall sensors on my questionable Grin All Axle to see how this controller handles a screwed up set of halls.

The hall pin sensor extension cable seems to be wired with different colors and positions; I repinned it with the tiniest flat screwdriver so the halls at least lined up.

Nice to see that the white pin is a temperature sensor that happens to take a 10K NTC ( same as in both of my hub motors ).
However in the manual there seems to be no settings for when the temperature cutoff happens... i take it it's preset to something rational?

20240715_125817.jpg

With the 2 ft. brake cable extension, the controller finally has enough room to sit on the battery!

20240715_211957.jpg

As you can see, i made a JST 2.0 PH to 'white head' ( as some chinese vendors call it ) adapter since none is available for this unit.

Sadly, the amount of soldering and repinning is more intense than the VESC; i wouldn't call this more newbie friendly than the Spintend.

Ride impressions? sorry, still crazy hot out here.. may hit the tarmac very early tomorrow morning though.
 
Bad news! i could not get it going!
  1. The controller doesn't work with the newest version of the flipsky tool, i had to revert to 1.2
  2. I can't get into firmware update mode, it doesn't initiate when told to by the software.
  3. Turning to one of the 3-speed settings makes the blue light on the controller ( indicates it's on ) go off, sometimes this results in it shutting off and disconnecting from the software.
  4. There is no response or voltage increase/decrease from moving the throttle, however moving the 3 speed switch changes the throttle's voltage from 0.1v to 0.5v, but moving the throttle doesn't move the voltage at all.
  5. The brake lever works and is analog.
  6. Look at this wiring on the harness that connects to the ADC port. Frankly, this is ridiculous, there's no color coordination, it makes me wonder if my harness was wired wrong from the factory.
20240716_154647.jpg

I can't find any documentation on the ADC breakout cable that connects the throttle.

Also.. the programming interface likes to hide it's complexity, there's more, and it approaches VESC levels of programming complexity that involves a ton of manual referencing. What seemed like an advantage isn't so much of one!

This is basically a worse VESC so far.

I'd have to contact tech support for this, which i may follow through with later, but honestly, i'm not feeling good about this controller at all.

I can't call it without a ride test but i think the Spintend VESC is going to be the winner of this showdown!
 
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Consider a $40-100 three-mode controller. No programming or configuring and it changed my life for the better.
 
Controllers for dummies! Or, cough cough, us old white beards ;)

A solid recommendation on a simpler 3 mode
 
Just read through this after a search...so the consensus is the Flipsky still needs some development? I'm a long time lurker...but I'm getting into this VESC stuff more and more. I'd love to see a VESC wiki or VESC for beginners...anything really.
 
VESC seems like the future of DIY ebikes, though plagued by the lack of PAS and also cheap controllers that like to blow up.
That being said I got a Flipsky 75100 pro v2 Alu, and it's okay. I like the app and bluetooth. Need to just add features to it so it can be a real phaserunner competitor of sorts. I dislike the flimsy little cables and plugs on the flipsky for sure. We definitely need to make a good wiki for the things for ebike use.. The tuning tips were golden. I just wish tuning up the sensorless with geared motor was easier as it's a little weird. The KT seem great for cheap and basic. But cheap and advanced is even better, if you can make the thing work reliably.
 
I saw Benjamin Vedder posted a video about a nice display and I instantly thought of this thread, I remember displays for ebikes not really existing in a easy for the first timer for VESC being a thing that also were made for ebikes in the past, looks pretty good
 
Bengy22 said:
I remember displays for ebikes not really existing in a easy for the first timer for VESC
Click to expand...
Hm, why can't they just implement an existing common display, like Luna Cycle has done it for their Bafang replacement VESCs?!

Now Benjamin took a commercial China display and replaced the inner parts. :rolleyes:
Who needs all that additional information for biking, if you just want to switch assist levels, lights and show speed and battery level? Any 15€ display is able to do that.
 
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stancecoke said:
Hm, why can't they just implement an existing common display, like Luna Cycle has done it for their Bafang replacement VESCs?!

Now Benjamin took a commercial China display and replaced the inner parts. :rolleyes:
Who needs all that additional information for biking, if you just want to switch assist levels, lights and show speed and battery level? Any 15€ display is able to do that.
Click to expand...
Main reasons:
1. Canbus - uart is not stable on vesc, at least on my boards
2. Reuse existing code of vesc-express, which only works on esp32c3 right now. This allows you to send commands / change config of the vesc on-the-fly via the display.
3. Licensing issues and compatibility: to use commercially availabe peripherals, you'd need a deal with the manufacturer, and they will not agree to release their com protocols under a FOSS license.

For the rest, I agree with you: minimalistic solutions have their advantages, but I don't like the en06 - buttons are too small for my fingers, especially in the cold.

EDIT: 120€ without taxes and shipping is quite the price for a display...
 
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qwerkus said:
Licensing issues and compatibility
Click to expand...
No one cares. Especially for private use. Luna Cycle sells the UART and the CAN version with Bafang protocol commercially. I don't believe, that they are paying any licence fee to Bafang for using the protocol ;)

qwerkus said:
This allows you to send commands / change config of the vesc on-the-fly via the display.
Click to expand...
This will make it illegal to use on public roads, at least in Europe ;)
 
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stancecoke said:
No one cares. Especially for private use. Luna Cycle sells the UART and the CAN version with Bafang protocol commercially. I don't believe, that they are paying any licence fee to Bafang for using the protocol ;)


This will make it illegal to use on public roads, at least in Europe ;)
Click to expand...
Commands do NOT necessary mean hacking the top speed... One request that has been floating around was to offer the possibility to switch between different motor configurations, which does have its perks when testing new stuff, or changing profile when riding in the mountains.
 
qwerkus said:
Commands do NOT necessary mean hacking the top speed...
Click to expand...
:ROFLMAO: Sorry, but can't believe, that there will be a VESC or display firmware version, that will not allow to make illegal settings. Then this VESC display will be completely uninteresting for most users immediately ;)
 
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Honestly, just give me a cuter CA V2 and i'm happy.
I can tune over USB.

Would be nice to have 5 speed settings, but not a dealbreaker.

Until then i just use a CA V2 standalone 😅
 
neptronix said:
Honestly, just give me a cuter CA V2 and i'm happy.
Click to expand...
Sorry but a CA is a useless device also. I'm with @Chalo in this case. Simple Kuntengs are available in a wide power range, are dead cheap and are easy to set up for any beginner by the display. They drive almost any BLDC motor.
They can't do real FOC, but most users doesn't care 🤷‍♂️

I personally prefer "better" controllers, but the mainstream is happy with the cheapest stuff. ;)
 
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I wouldn't say useless, but certainly aged and pricey - though considering the vesc-lab stuff, not that expensive in the end... My main issues with CA are design, bulkiness, cable clutter, lack of canbus and mainly proprietary firmware. But to be fair, if you can live with the retro 80s flair, in the end the grin ecosphere just works, and sometimes better than vesc. Progressive Regen on my ca + phaserunner is much smoother than on my spintend, and the pas works better despite my best efforts at lispbm. Overall I think it's better optimized vor large DD hubs, while the vesc firmware shines with rc motors.
 
qwerkus said:
My main issues with CA are design, bulkiness, cable clutter
Click to expand...
Grin offers the Superharness meanwhile, that's much smarter and allows standard displays. I wish the VESC community would go this way also. The Luna hwconfig contains everything for UART and for CAN already. Why not make it available for all hardware and make it choosable in the VESC tool? Sure, you can adapt it yourself for your hardware, like I did it for the Flipsky75100, but not many users will take the effort.

Superharness - Grin Products - Our Products

The Superharness is a special smart cable we produce that hooks up to the Main9 plug of our V6 Phaserunner or Baserunner motor controllers support 3rd party ebike displays and various modes of proportional regen.
ebikes.ca ebikes.ca
 
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stancecoke said:
Grin offers the Superharness meanwhile, that's much smarter and allows standard displays. I wish the VESC community would go this way also. The Luna hwconfig contains everything for UART and for CAN already. Why not make it available for all hardware and make it choosable in the VESC tool? Sure, you can adapt it yourself for your hardware, like I did it for the Flipsky75100, but not many users will take the effort.

Superharness - Grin Products - Our Products

The Superharness is a special smart cable we produce that hooks up to the Main9 plug of our V6 Phaserunner or Baserunner motor controllers support 3rd party ebike displays and various modes of proportional regen.
ebikes.ca ebikes.ca
Click to expand...
www.vesclabs.com

VESC Rmcore - VESC Labs

The VESC Rmcore is an CAN-connected or wireless IO expander for connecting peripherals such as throttles, brake switches, buttons, lights, and indicators.
www.vesclabs.com www.vesclabs.com
Way more flexible than the superharness, but not waterproof. You can upload any script for any display and send the canbus control commands to the controller. It's basically a headless CA. It kind of reminds me of the good old forums pre controller on the german bb...
 
qwerkus said:
Way more flexible than the superharness,
Click to expand...
Why spend money for additional hardware, struggle with additional wires, the need to place this unnecessary hardware somewhere on the bike, while the controller itself can handle all of this functions itself already?! I simply can't understand this philosophy 🤷‍♂️
Who needs a super flexibility, if basic functions for an eBike use are only available for freaks like you and me?
 
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