Download STLs: thangs.com/designer/leonchangpersonal Ubox 80v Momentary firmware (the first one): github.com/JohnSpintend/Ubox_FW/tree/main/FW%206.2/UBOX_SINGLE_80 Helpful parts for pint/GT conversions: avaspark.com/shop/ M20 cable gland I used: www.floatboxx.com/product/10039957/m20-cable-gland Any M20 cable gland will work: www.amazon.com/Fielect-Waterproof-Adjustable-Joints-Connector/dp/B07Z9C9Q5X/ref=sr_1_10?crid=G4VU9PH5LW1P&keywords=m20%2Bcable%2Bgland&qid=1705421575&sprefix=m20%2Bcable%2Bgland%2Caps%2C56&sr=8-10&th=1 GX16 3 pin (charge port): www.amazon.com/dp/B07L9VGKTM?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Comment if you need me to link to any other part
Lol, “I’ve been waiting for this board to break, so I can Vesc it.” I love it! Great video Leon! I so appreciated the close up shots to see the detailed work you’re doing, as well as your commentary; walking us through your process was great to watch! 👏🏾
Nicely done. I hope in the future you’ll consider one of my GT ME4T packs for that build. And that was a well played “super easy, barely an inconvenience.” 👏
AYYYY you’re the first to catch that super easy barely an inconvenience! Your GT me4t pack is for sure in my wishlist, I heard that pack is very well padded given the extra space in the GT box
The explanation, camera work and editing are excellent. I think you're paving the way for DIY VESC builds. The completeness and attention to detail are what sets your videos apart. Was fun to watch the build!
Okay, I'm only 40 seconds in but if you want your torque wrench to last, because the spring mechanism has a "finite" amount of uses, try to not use them to loosen bolts. I cringe a little every time I see it done, but it might not be that big of a deal haha.
Thanks for the tip! Is it also damaging if I loosen on the lowest torque setting? I’ll probably keep using this one for loosen because it doesn’t even reach the OEM torque spec haha, so just using it as a normal wrench at this point, but plan on babying my next torque wrench a lot more
Please don’t use a torque wrench to break bolts or nuts. It messes up the calibration of the wrench. Just get a cheap wrench from harbor freight. They have life time warranty’s for most there tools.
I love the long form! As a newbie to the movement, I have a lot of questions and the details really help out. My question is this: I want to get in and start riding. Should I buy a FM and wait for it to break? Or can I DIY a whole board relatively quick with off the shelf parts?
don't be discouraged! It's not supposed to be as smooth as what is shown in this video. Halfway through my build the motor just refused to get a clean calibration, and had to factory reset the firmware 5 times to finally get it to work. Was then stuck on waterproofing for a week because I couldn't figure out where it's leaking, before realizing I just need to tighten the cable gland further. LED module is still not working correctly despite checking all the connections. Actually the funniest story is a while back on another build, I was stuck on troubleshooting motor calibration for a month, checking wiring over and over again. What ended up fixing it is just to blow compressed air on the connectors because cat hair somehow was interfering with the wiring... I tried to show as much of the troubleshooting as possible in these videos but in the end they still need to flow nicely, and it's very anticlimatic to dedicate 5 minutes of runtime to in the end reveal a stupid little error I made that is totally avoidable in the first place. Just remember you probably are just missing a single setting or a wire that's a little bit sketchy, and it's very normal to run into these issues :)
Love the long form video! Fantastic to see the nitty gritty of all the tinkering involved with VESCing, Really helps people get their head around what they are getting into before making the jump. Explaining the backstory behind every component is also helpful for people who might not be as experienced. Got an specs on the performance difference other than how it "feels"?
yess i try to make it digestible for people with no prior knowledge, which is me only a year ago. performance wise it's what you'd expect from a P42A 18s2p pack with 150A controller, which is a lot more low end torque than any FM board because of the bypassed connector and vesc being able to dump a lot more amps, and top end is dependent on field weakening, rider weight, etc.. but should be able to keep up with a GTS.
good luck! 12AWG for phase wires (that's thicker than the cable in the original harness but 12awg is what everyone uses for discharge), data cables are 30awg i think, using the cables that came with JST GH 1.25 kit
I think I’m at 90ish during detection. If your detection values are that high then you might wanna check your wiring. I had crazy value once even though everything is wired correctly, what ended up fixing was blowing compressed air around the connectors, so it might be something really basic like that
It you need to wiggle the wires for it to work at all, imagine what happens next time you hit a bump… my motor connector has been acting up for the past 2k km showing signs of it slowly deteriorating until it finally blew. besides, the stock connector is not even rated for the amperage the stock controller outputs, let alone a vesc that can output double the amps
picklebms 18s drop in kit $120 + ubox80 $150, so $300 ish. depending on if you want any add-ons like lights, remote, etc that's $200ish more. alternatively, the floatwheel kit will also work but i'm not sure how much that's gonna be
i had a pretty easy time popping the stator out by pushing against a wooden block on the other side, but had a hell of a time taking off the hub plate cover. i'm guessing sand/salt/debris got stuck inbetween the axle and bearing, had to clamp it pretty hard. would be a good idea to clean the axle with a Q tip before taking off the stator
Super detailed! I'm not sure if I'm capable of this complexity... The only thing you missed modding was shaving the lip off the bang bumper and tapping the frame and bumper so you don't have to slide it on anymore lol. Great Job!
Another cool video! Curious to know what the deal is the replacement charge ports. Is there a technical reason that 18s, 19s, and 20s boards would have a different number of charge port pins? Or is it just so you cant accidentally plug in the wrong charger?
Thanks! I’ve been really liking the GX connectors. The female end (charger end) is made out of plastic, instead of metal for the XLR, which makes it far less likely that the plug itself will act as a bridge to short the two pins (I blew an XLR because of this). Also, GX connectors are $1/set and readily available on amazon, vs the specific model of XLR male plugs that are only sold via makerspev. As for the number of pins, I believe it’s mostly just so you can’t accidentally plug in the wrong charger. However I think the 2 pin is kinda dangerous because if someone got into the habit of twisting the charger until it goes in (i am guilty of doing that on pint chargers), if you twist it and it lines up in the opposite direction, you’re dangerously close to reverse polarity shorting. I‘d rather it not be used anywhere, but at least 19s packs are the rarest.
I did my pint back in November and I found out that I’ll probably never go back to future motion software. Planning on doing a XR this summer, but waiting for all the cool stuff that has been teased recently. Also waiting for the money lol.
Thanks! Still in winter now so haven’t hit thermal limits yet. From what I’m feeling so far the temps are pretty good, especially after stripping away paint
This is wild. Thank you for justifying my having loaded my GT's motor cable with dielectric grease, because I could not do what you just did in this video lmao. Hopefully the dielectric grease will help me avoid the same fate, at least until the VESCing process becomes more plug and play.
good idea on the dielectric grease, didn't even think about that! GT motor cable design is flawed from the beginning but at least tony was able to reverse engineer it, just needs to last half a year more until tony finishes the drop in kit!
@@leonchang7596 I'm sure subconsciously you didn't think of it because you wanted to VESC anyway :P Yea I'm looking forward to having a drop-in kit as an option for me. You are a badass building your own.
I prefer the long videos , Coming from a mechanic background I appreciate your meticulous work on all your electrical work and verifying everything as you go. Glad I found your channel, also just got the mte hub for my GT. Hope its nice.
I much rather have full length and better detail. I truly think all RU-vid videos if it's any type of educational should be. RU-vid made a mistake in my opinion making RU-vidrs dial back the length compared to a few years ago. Great video 👏 thanks for helping the people in the community to understand VESC builds.
Thank you so much for this valuable resource. Really really appreciate it. I can't wait to build my own VESC though it will be based on the XR platform. I've got two XR's that are perfect, but have blown BMS's. Since I can't buy the FM BMS's I'm just going to have to build a new board, and use those for parts. It infuriates me that something so valuable is useless because of a simple part. Your remarks about doing the same thing over and over reminds me of my career as a sound engineer. Even the biggest sound boards are just a whole bunch of stereo's. . . As for the form of the video, details matter. Your freezing a frame and labeling it is super useful. Not only with pinouts but in how an assembly looks after you've made it. PS. what hot glue gun is that????
thank you for your kind words, it means a lot! The goal of this channel is to not only make DIY and repair information more accessible, but to make it appealing and enjoyable too! The previous 2 videos are all about vescing an XR, hope you'll find those helpful :) With a VESC controller, you can either rewire the XR battery pack with a breakout board (like what i did in this video), and connect it with any 3rd party BMS; or wait a little bit for picklebms's 15s drop in BMS to be ready and plug and play everything in the rear box. Links here: pickleworks.ca/products/15s-picklebms zbattery.solutions/products/stock-pack-breakout-board On the controller side, if you don't wanna go all out on custom boxes (this video goes into detail): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yKqVTMpzuVQ.html you can also reuse the stock XR box: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qIPj5jP04jA.html the hot glue gun is from hoto, their tools are super user friendly, usbc rechargable too! www.amazon.com/HOTO-Cordless-Heating-Rechargeable-Smart-Power-off/dp/B09MR82F8M/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1CLVGP6Y580ZW&keywords=hoto+glue+gun&qid=1705973672&sprefix=hoto+glue+gun%2Caps%2C61&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1
@@leonchang7596 oh yeah, I watched that and saved it already. I'm pretty sure that's when I subscribed. I do 1wheel service here in my hometown of GNV, I'm 69, have over 6K miles, but stopped counting miles some time last year, so prolly a bit more. One day, when I grow up big, I hope to have a repair business(not for dough, can't make no money doing that). I love to solder and make and ride. Keep on rollin'. . .
Are the voltages on the Ubox a maximum voltage then in the vesc software you set voltage limits for your battery? I see avaspark has brackets for the 100v. This would give me options later when I wanted to upgrade my batter or build a split pack. I have a gt with a bad esc and FM told me my enduro could have caused the issue and would have to be swapped out before I sent it back or they would do it. So I started looking at other options and there’s so much info but no consecutive info until this video. Thanks!
yesss try to make it as comprehensive as possible. ubox 80v just increased its rating to 20s 150A. It's just called 80v. I think the 100v is worth it if you wanna do a 22s split pack, but otherwise the 80v is low key really awesome. The max voltage is a setting in vesctool but the firmware that the ESCs ship with do not allow you to go beyond what it's designed to do, but they also do publish no limit firmware where after you update the firmware, you can set any value to whatever you want. For the ubox 80v, it's in the same link as the momentary button firmware in the pinned comment, it's the second file labeled no_limit Not sure how swapping to an enduro could've caused any ESC damage tho...
Leon, when you say 20s 150A. The 20s is the cells in the battery, but what is the 150a? I’ve seen other numbers that follow the cells and pairs, like p42a. What do they mean?
good question! In this case 150A describes how much current the controller can deliver to the motor, which is a big factor for low end torque. When someone says 20s2p, in this case p stands for parallel, so that’s 20 cell groups wired positive to negative (series), and within each cell group, 2 cells are wired positive to positive and negative to negative (parallel). Cells in parallel contribute to how much amperage the battery can deliver to the controller, as well as the range of the pack. P42a, even though it uses the letter P and A, confusingly enough, that’s just the name of the battery cell. So this build uses Molicel (manufacturer) P42A (cell name), in 18s (cells in series), 2p (cells in parallel) configuration, wired to a controller that can deliver 150 amps to the motor.
