DIY repair efoil by women's hands)

Build, Repair & Mod
1

Hello again, everyone.

So, I bought this eFoil from Alibaba (I strongly advise against repeating this purchase — it worked twice for about 15–20 minutes each time, then simply shut down in the ocean with a full battery and never came back to life).

During my interactions with Alibaba, I came to understand the essence of Jack Ma’s success: the site says returns are available, but in reality — they’re not. Apparently, China is a magical place where you can say whatever you want, write whatever you want, break promises, and still enjoy life while deceiving millions.

Now, to the technical part — as far as I can tell, my eFoil consists of the following components:

  1. Main body
    Inside the body:
    1.1. Battery

  2. Wing assembly
    Inside the wing:
    2.1. ESC (Electronic Speed Controller)
    2.2. Motor
    2.3. Propeller

my:

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Propulsion, in turn, consists of the engine and the ESC.

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Why does it cost as much as a car? No idea… But anyway

Possible reasons why it won’t run:

  1. Battery
  2. Motor
  3. ESC (Electronic Speed Controller)
  4. Physical damage

What I’ve done:

  1. Checked the battery — everything’s fine
  2. Motor — I don’t know how to test it
  3. ESC — I don’t know how to test it
  4. Physical damage — ruled out, nothing visible

Symptoms:

  1. Even when it was still working, the remote showed this error:

    photo_2025-01-12_23-33-59
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    This error is accompanied by a beep and controller vibration, and it repeats every few minutes (2–4 minutes).

  2. The remote didn’t show the charge level of the main battery (the one inside the board, not the remote’s battery):

    photo_2025-01-26_13-41-02
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But it still worked! Exactly twice, for 20 minutes each.
Now it doesn’t move at all.

  1. Sometimes, while riding, the battery level indicator would suddenly start working — but not always:
    photo_2025-01-26_13-49-06
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Since it became clear that no one’s going to honor the warranty, I started taking it apart myself:

I disassembled the entire board and unscrewed everything I could — found nothing inside except the battery:

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Then I opened up the wing, and found two components: the motor and the ESC.

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this is esc:

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(no make, no model, nothing. no elements can be unscrewed)

Honestly — the ESC smells a bit strange, like something burnt… But anyway — how can I test which part is broken: the motor or the ESC?

I need to make a decision and fix this already.

I didn’t find any exposed wires to test with a multimeter… Do I have to cut them? Is there no other way to check?

video - https://youtu.be/ZGQVL719jaE

2

In the video the remote shows a ping value that is good meaning it is connected to the esc. But RP means ppm not uart. The voltage display in ppm mode only works if its wired in a certain way.

I would take it home and clean all that sand out of the seal as you dont want a leak!

Then with a voltmeter measure the battery voltage. Need too start at the beginning.

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3

thanks for the advice. i took a multimeter and measured the voltage on the battery. everything is fine there. i cleaned out the sand.

what to do next?

are you by any chance from south florida?

4

what is RP what is PPM ?

5

Sorry no a really long way in the great white north :wink:

SInce we have no clue about the esc not much troubleshooting we can there. The remote looks like a standard flipsky vx3 and I think its working.

See if they will send you a new esc and remote to try.

If not then the esc dimensions to replace would need to be carefully researched. But flipsky products are well known by lots of us on the forum.

WIth a phone does a bluetooth device appear from the esc?

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6

On a flipsky remote there are 2 options for throttle.

PPM display RP

UART display RU

There is quite a lot of stuff to figure out if you are just starting and not planning on a DIY board :frowning:

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7

is the speed controller the remote?

i tried to connect another remote. i bought a brand new one. it didn’t change anything.

on what phone? it’s a regular remote control, the same as FLIPSKY, yes, and I bought it as a replacement, I thought it would work with it. and what does the phone have to do with it? what needs to be connected to the phone? how? turn on bluetooth on the phone and then look for what? ESC? or remote?

8

The esc can be programmed either by a usb cable or a BT connection to a phone running roper software.

Depends on the esc. You really need to get the supplier to help or send it back.

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9

sorry proper software. flipsky esc are called vesc and use vesctool

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10

I’ve been trying to send it back for six months. It doesn’t work with China. There’s no such option. I need to fix it somehow.

I want to understand what’s going on.

What’s broken? What should I check?

11

esc i think is either partially dead or programming lost. Probably dead as it looks too small and no good cooling.

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12

Most likely the Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) is gone. The smell and the on and off battery voltage indicate this.

Chances are that it’s an off the shelf speed controller and can be replaced. Try do a reverse image search for it. Will need to be able to solder etc to do this. See if the company you bought it from can send you a new speed controller and receiver pre wired, this will make it simpler.

Also join the LAFC WhatsApp group. There is an electric sub group that I’m sure could help out.

2 Likes
13

@Girl_miami sorry for all the trouble this thing has caused you. Another thing you could do to find someone local to South Florida is try and find someone who builds esk8 stuff (electric skateboards). The components are almost the same as efoils and there is a lot of overlap. someone who builds esk8 would have the skill set to replace the esc. Finding the appropriate esc would still be tricky.
Could also try reaching out to Tanner at RipCurrentRepairs.com. He’s in the Charlotte area though. He aims to repair GetFoil boards but could possibly help. I imagine this would require shipping parts to him

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15

Okay, but how do you know for sure if it’s an ESC or a motor is gone?

16

They won’t send it. I insisted on a refund, they refused and offered a partial refund, I refused, because according to alibaba’s rules, a refund had to be made, they just wrote the same thing every day and killed the time for the guarantee.

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Its mean “no”? Nayhe need some special app?

18

I’ve really been trying to do this for months - it’s useless. There’s a better chance that the wall will understand me if I talk to it than this Chinese supplier.

19

I’m a beginner here, and found ChatGpt to be very helpful, for the short number of questions you can ask it per day, it isn’t perfect, but for you it is easier than waiting for responses from your posts.

It will take some time to know exactly what to ask, but you can get a quick understanding of how efoils work, signs of problems and how to fix them.

Then you can ask specific questions or clarify answers here.

Just a few things regarding your problems. If it has Bluetooth, it won’t appear as a Bluetooth device for connection. An app is required to find it. VESC Tool can do that, or the manufacturer has their own app.

The easiest way to fix this is to replace the electronics yourself, which is the ESC, remote transmitter and Bluetooth unit. That way you can set it up and access everything to find any problems.

The expensive parts are the board, battery, and mast setup, which you keep. The electronics are cheap, but challenging for new people to join and configure, but can be done.

Also as suggested there should be efoil dealers near you who can do some or all of the repairs.

China is China, you aren’t getting any help from the seller. Accept and move on.

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20

Motors don’t usually fail after a couple of sessions.

Since you are sometimes getting telemetry data (battery voltage) points to the speed controller. A drop of water inside would cause the issues you are having.

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21

Both maytech and freerchobby sell this speed controller.

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