Hi, I disagree PA66 GF is best in class. I do agree it is suitable.
For best in class consider PEEK material with similar GF component. PA66 maybe 250C, but PEEK easily 400C. Food for thought. Real Engineering plastics.
Iāll put them up on my build thread when Iāve done the board. The prop is a bit too close to my balls for my liking on my current board so Iām going to build a new one.
prop is a bit too close to my balls for my liking
Hahaha, I thought it looked brilliant and was having all kinds of ideas until you posted that!
Honestly, this material is new to me. But really interesting, thanks for sharing it.
However, one of the big issue I see is the price, 2 to 3 times easily compared to PA66.
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Hi, you are correct. Now you know why they choose PA66/30GF. It is suitable and cheap.
For real expensive parts, consider PolyIMIDE (not AMIDE) blend with PEEK. Most of the plastics at this level are obfuscated by marketing names (for example, Kydex). Although Kydex is not this PAI/PEEK blend
How did you attach the motor to the mast here? Everyone else has the tip of the motor mount in front of the mast, but this looks great.
It has a couple of carbon fiber pins that insert from the side. Covered by the paint. Itās a bit of a variation to the standard FR motor mount.
@michon I canāt wait to see more of this build, please tell us as much as you can. Iāve been dreaming about this exact type of setup for quite some time. I felt like a tiny little battery with a few minutes of total runtime would do the trick since it would only take 10 seconds of thrust at a time to grab a wave.
I did more dissection of the Lift battery over the weekend. I had to go back and edit a post above about the temp sensors. There are actually 8 total because there are 4 per cable. They seem a bit arbitrary in placement, but I guess they have decent enough coverage to detect some overheating cells the way they are spread out.
I will post some more pictures and also some ideas for cutting it open without damaging anything if I were to do it a second time. The new dremel cutoff wheels I ordered like @Jezza recommended worked worse than the ones I was using. They generated too much heatā¦ just melted the plastic and gummed up like the other toothed blades/wheels I tried when they got deeper than 1/4 inch. Even at the lowest speed possible.
If you are cutting at the seams which I recommend the best way seems to be higher speed with a disintegrating cutting wheel to make a perfect line around the perimeter, then a slower speed, very powerful oscillating tool with course teeth.
They have really gone the extra mile with quality.
- All of the bolts holding larger power connections together are using Nordlock washers
- This case is really, really well sealed and tough
I would be shocked if any of the battery failures are due to water ingress. It is surprising there are so many stories of them failing early online. I will test the contactor soon to see if our suspicions were correct about it being the culprit on this one.
I have been messaging with another board member who I am going to send all of the BMS related parts to. At some point he can maybe he find the time to sniff the CAN bus and hopefully figure out whatever custom handshaking and protocol adaptations Lift has created between the BMS and ESC connection. This may one day lead to a result where people can use custom battery packs with their Lift boards. It would be great to allow customization for things like weight weenie packs for waves, or large range packs for exploring, or just not having to pay $2k more than you want to for a replacement. I am hopeful that my new smart BMS board will be here soon and then I will wire it in and seal things back up without the contactor inside!
This other member and I are going to team up and model the main power connector too. It will allow me to reuse the existing connector on the pack and also share it with people who want to build their own custom packs in the future without changing the wiring pigtail to the ESC on their board.
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Thatās terrible! I know the best way to cut plastic that melts is normally with a router base and a single flute up-cut bit. But it might prove tricky on a battery case thats not a flat surface.
have you found the failure. Was the relais damaged?
I traveled for the holidays and unfortunately left it behind. I will let you know when I get back to it and can test the relay!
After reading all of this and being in need of two Lift batteries is the conclusion that I need to go direct with Lift to buy two batteries? Lithos Energy direct ?
I have a Lift battery that was given to me as the original owner said Lift sent them a new battery because the charger couldnāt detect the battery pack. Their same charger works on the new battery Lift sent them.
The contact leads show 5V currently (I believe positive on the left, negative on the right?). Obviously not the 14S 58V itās suppose to be. If I hookup a 14S charger, any idea what might happen!? 
Super curious if I can restore this thing back to life.
Hi.
Score. Itās probably just a bad BMS.
The cells might be low, but they can probably be recovered. Iād say open it up. Remove the BMS. Balance charge the cells. If it all checks out then modify the pack for no BMS like my battery builds. Voltage alarm during use and externally balanced during charging. You can just add a charging wire to the center cell and this will allow you to charge the single 14s14p battery as two 7s14p batteries with a iChargerX8.
Good luck!
Yes, the BMS/controller combo is quite proprietary at this point and replacing the cells is not an easy task.
Right on.
@tylerclark Please feel free to contact me directly and I will be happy to walk you through it. You can also go the bluetooth BMS route like me and use it for for charging/monitoring/balancing and bypass it for discharging.
I have a lift efoil battery that wont charge and needs repair. Im located in south florida USA. In need of someone that has some knowledge on how to be able to fix these batteries.
Thank You
Alex M