Hi all, first post here. Found this forum after searching for “vesc winch” online, and this seems to be the place with multiple such builds 
About 2 years ago I needed a project to work on during the cold winter months. Passion for snowboarding + the fact that Latvia is a vert flat country with many fields and forests lead me to exploring propulsion methods alternative to the good old downhill.
As others, I too found reWinch and Motowinch, but wasn’t too interested in their pricing, and I still needed a project to build.
So V0.1 of a hub motor plywood box winch was born.
- MXUS 3K V3 Turbo (16:4) hub motor - really nice runner, haven’t had any issues with it so far
- Kelly KLS7212S - this has worked well for me so far, however there is an issue that I want to address (more on that later)
- 20s4p custom battery pack with Samsung 21700 40T cells & BMS - through some friends I found a guy working on eBikes, eScooters and such, who built me this solid pack
- 3mm dyneema rope
- ESP32<-ESP NOW->ESP32 (DAC output) remote throttle - this has seen multiple iterations. Of course I wanted a “rider remote” installed on the handle at the end of the rope. I first tried using scooter throttle, but later switched to a momentary switch, long-pressing which would send a pre-configured “speed curve” to the receiver end.
The plywood design was just a PoC, it worked, and was successfully torn apart by my heavier friend using an experimental faster acceleration curve 
Fast forward last winter it was clear that the design could work, but needed certain improvements to more reliable. I didn’t want to get into welding, or any other type of complex frame building. So I figured I’d give 20x20 extruded aluminum + water jet cut aluminum sides a go. Around the same time I upgraded to BambuLab printer and designed a new rider remote.
Last winter didn’t see much snow at all here, so we only started testing it this summer - wakeskate on the river and in the sea.
The current state is:
- Surface/shallow water start works perfectly, and tows riders at different speed levels very confidently.
- 3D printed remote didn’t have any water ingress protection, and I temporarily re-fitted it into some PVC piping (grey cylinder on the last photo)
- I’m not entirely happy with the motor controller. It performs, but I lack more precise control of the throttle speed/current. ESP32 onboard DAC means that I’m half-guessing the 0-3V output that I’m producing from the 0-255 values. Due to this I’ve ordered a ubox 100V/100A VESC which I’m going to test as soon as it arrives.
- Lack of end of rope detection also meant that when either the button, or the DAC output have gotten “stuck”, end of the rope carabiner/handle were sent into the winch at full speed. Scary! I’ve now received a couple of induction metal detection coils which I was hoping to give a go to along with some metal parts installed on/into the rope. But tbh I’m hoping to receive the VESC soon and implement something better, like a hub motor revolution counter which would track the current rope spooling state.
I’ll post progress and developments here, and will be happy to hear from fellow winch builders
