300A VESC in the works, feature suggestions wanted

[TechAUmNu]

Its running at 12v due to the better availability of dc-dc converters at that voltage. Although since the 12v supply is off board I could change it to 15v or higher if needs be.

[Rapidrory]

Ah ok 12v will be plenty. I usually use an adjustable dc-dc converter so I can tune the drive voltage once I've got it running.

[TechAUmNu]

First quote for the laser cut copper came back at £75 per set from daysteel.co.uk. Still waiting to hear back from other companies.

At that price I would be better to cnc cut them myself.

Have also asked for a quote from KCut since copper is much easier to waterjet.

[Pinski1]

I've used Lasermaster quite reasonably in the past.

[overkill]

For prototyping at least, why not bend some really heavy duty copper wire to shape? Its cheap 'n easy to get started with.

[TechAUmNu]

I do have some copper wire already but I would rather test with something close to the final design. Since the heatsink contacts the copper it needs to be flat.

I sent a quote to lasermaster but they are still to get back to me.

[emisnug]

Graham over at GSD Tech should be able to help you with most things we've used him for a lot of our custom parts with great success - graham@gsdtechnologies.co.uk

[TechAUmNu]

Graham over at GSD Tech should be able to help you with most things we've used him for a lot of our custom parts with great success - graham@gsdtechnologies.co.uk

Thanks, I sent him a message and he got back to me on it.


In other news, the 10 prototype pcbs have finished being manufactured and are on the way to me.
unnamed.jpg

[typhoon_driver]

I recently found a local outfit to me to be very reasonable water cutting pricing wise, www.poseidonengineering.com

Their minimum invoice value is £40

[TechAUmNu]

First batch of components have been ordered! Should arrive some time next week. Has enough of the expensive parts to do 2 boards for prototyping and enough passives to last a lifetime. (Total of 33356 components lol)
mouser order.png
Got some 0.3mm solder and a couple of programmable bench power supplies. To make my life easier.

Also got some of these nice big thermal pads
http://eu.mouser.com/search/ProductD...67-PL-2-1-1016

Will be contacting lasermaster on monday to tell them to go ahead with the copper bus bars.


As of now the BOM is basically complete and comes to £180 per board for 100 boards. Including power and logic boards (Not including assembly), heatsink and thermal pad and lasercut copper bus bars.

[TechAUmNu]

Just put in the order for the first version of logic boards. Got 40 of them for £12 including shipping!?

Its a mess at the moment as I was lazy and used the auto router for it. Which actually did a surprisingly good job!
Also its a digital board running at low speed so it doesn't matter too much anyway.
2017-08-03 23_52_03-Fusion GerberView.png

All the components have now arrived so just a case of waiting for the power boards to arrive then I can start testing them.

[emisnug]

That's a crazy good price! Can't wait to see it all up and running

[TechAUmNu]

Spent most of today redoing the layout to make better use of the internal layers. Now there is a minimum of 2 layers for each main current path. All layers also have full copper planes to aid with heat soak and dissipation. I am thinking the board fab is going to hate me for the number of vias on each board though!

The v1 power boards have now made it to the UK and should arrive imminently! So excited!
40x v1 logic boards are now being produced. So in the mean time I will be using the logic from one of the VESCs I blew up to test out the power board.

Here are some screens of each of the layers. They still need some touch-up.
Red - Top
Light blue - Internal 1
Light green - Internal 2
Blue - Bottom

2017-08-04 23_46_21-CircuitMaker (1.3) - 300a vesc.CMPcbDoc _ - 300A VESC.PrjPcb Euan Mutch is s.jpg2017-08-04 23_46_31-CircuitMaker (1.3) - 300a vesc.CMPcbDoc _ - 300A VESC.PrjPcb Euan Mutch is s.png2017-08-04 23_46_42-CircuitMaker (1.3) - 300a vesc.CMPcbDoc _ - 300A VESC.PrjPcb Euan Mutch is s.png2017-08-04 23_43_43-CircuitMaker (1.3) - 300a vesc.CMPcbDoc _ - 300A VESC.PrjPcb Euan Mutch is s.png

In other news I got a new oscilloscope and thermal camera to help with testing the boards and have turned my garage into an electronics lab lol.

[overkill]

That sure is a lot of vias!

[Roboteernat]

Be interesting to see the price as it's the bias that add the cost to the pcbs, looks good though!