Dual 80100 Winch build

[maxime_ecn]

Hello guys

It’s been a really long time I didn’t post on this forum. I started an efoil build a long time ago and got discouraged and never finished it (might work on it again soon).

Months ago I tried wakeboarding in a wakepark and really liked it. So I decided to build my own winch.

Here is the beast:

A few things I like about the winch:

• I will get less trouble using the winch on the lake. In Switzerland efoil is forbidden on lakes…
• It was much easier to build, no need to do as much waterproofing as an efoil
• you can use it for many activities, you are not limited to water
• Really fun with friends and beginner friendly
• I can use my efoil battery to power this winch

I made 3 different versions:
1st version was a fail, I used only one 80100 motor that I re-used from an old project. It was not powerful enough to pull me out of the water (I’m 90kg)
2nd version was inspired by the winch from Rewinch (using dual motors and gears)
3rd version is an updated version with belts instead of gears.

Here are the pictures of the build:

1st step was to build my battery. It’s a 12s12p using Samsung 35e batteries

3d printed case :

Spotwelding the battery :

Then I started to build the chassis that holds the motors. Everything is 3d printed and really strong :

Using the CNC to flatten the top print surface :

Assembling the motors :

The electronic box :

Fitting the electronics:

After that I manufactured the 2 side plates. I used some wood as it was really cheap and easy to work with (I don’t really care about the extra weight):

After that I started to work on the gearing system.

I needed 4 identical gears, so I decided to 3d print one, make a mold and use a really hard aluminum charged resin to reproduced them:

Using the lathe to flatten the gears :

Final assembly with the geared spool :

Next I went to the lake to make some test. I quickly realize that the gears were a bad idea, it was crazy noisy !! This is a detail that I didn’t think about while building it and I can’t understand why rewinch is using this system…

So I decided to make a 3rd version, and replaced the gear system with 2 belts.

Resin 3d printing:

Somehow this belt system didn’t require huge modifications and now it’s really silent

I’m really happy with the build. It has crazy power and can pull me 300m at 32km/h. The battery is a bit overkill, I think my body will be too tired before the battery dies…

The only remaining problem now is the remote sensitivity and the crazy amount of power I’m dealing with. @foilinghopeful had the same problem with his winch from what I read.

Until today I was using a GT2B remote with Current control mode and a 4.0s ramping. (My girlfriend is operating the winch). You have to be really careful when you want to tension the rope before the first pull. I have problem with my shoulder and almost dislocated it the first time we tried the winch, that’s how much power it has…

So I’m calling all the VESC specialist for advices. I think current control is not the good way to go on a winch. The problem is that the winch requires really low current to start turning fast when there is no tension on the rope. So you have to apply really low pressure on the throttle… maybe its better on duty cycle mode or PID speed control mode? I read somewhere that using those mode on a dual setup with motors mechanically linked on the same shaft will blow up my vesc or motors, is that true ?

This is the remote from rewinch :

Rewinch Rider Remote 2.0 - Basic Features & Operation

From this video I think they are controlling their Esc on speed mode, am I right ?

Next step for my build :

• Better VESC configuration for smooth operation (please help)
• I received a flipsky VX1 yesterday, it has 3 modes influencing the acceleration, I will try this option in current control on the lowest mode to see if it’s better on the rope tensioning before starting to pull
• I’m also building a long-range control with a Frsky R9m to control the winch myself in the water from very far away.

Any recommendations to ameliorate my system and configurate my Vesc are welcome

Thanks for reading me

[Larsb]

This’ll pull some force
current control is probably not the best for a winch, minimal throttle input speeds up the spool and gears with any slack and then you get a hard jerk when it bottoms out, just as you describe. I would try speed/duty cycle control instead. With this you should be able to sneak up the tension to remove slack but when slack is removed you’ll have a less sensitive control than with current control. I guess the rope anyway acts as a spring in the system so that overall duty cycle control is better for the winch.

[maxime_ecn]

Thanks for your answer. No risk to blow up my esc on those 2 modes when my 2 motors are mechanically linked ? I don’t want to blow up everything

Somehow I can’t feel any elasticity in the rope. This dynamea cord is crazy stiff, it’s not acting like a spring

[Larsb]

I can’t answer you on this from a practical perspective, does it happen on dual motor eskates? It seems you are running some kind of vesc and this has current control so if your VESC parameters are OK then there should be a very low risk with whatever (FOC/BLDC/duty) control you choose.

Duty cycle control on non-current limiting esc:s on the other hand… this is a risk since the ESC can actually act as a short circuit if you pull throttle to the max at low speed, creating very high currents that can pop the ESC.

[maxime_ecn]

I’m using a dual FSESC6.9 from flipsky (based on Vesc6.6)

I’m asking this question because it’s a bit different from eskate. Eskate have independent wheels, my build has 2 belts going on the same axle, so I’m wondering if this change something in the way the Vesc is handling things… I have too little knowledge in vesc to understand what happens exactly

[Larsb]

I would set ABS_MAX current limit to max 200A and make sure that the ABS_MAX_CURRENT=slow is not ticked in VESC tool, then do some trials. This way you have current protection within hardware limits.

[foilinghopeful]

First, allow me congratulate you on an amazing looking build!

@maxime_ecn

1st version was a fail, I used only one 80100 motor that I re-used from an old project. It was not powerful enough to pull me out of the water (I’m 90kg)

Are you doing a deep water start? The 6384 manages to pull us just fine 80-90kg guys on a 50L board before we get on foil. Not sure if your 80100 specs or gear ratio was to blame. Regardless, you have a beast now.

@maxime_ecn

The only remaining problem now is the remote sensitivity and the crazy amount of power I’m dealing with. @foilinghopeful had the same problem with his winch from what I read.

Oh yea, this has been an issue. There are more details in my post, but let me summarize where we are now:

1. I would recommend a waterproof remote (VX2) so you can control it yourself. When we started, we would have someone else handle the remote. However, once you get better, it gets a lot easier to control the winch yourself.
2. The high/medium/low setting on the VX2 only puts a cap on max current. You can see the graphs in my build. If you want it to pull you with enough power, it will still feel like it will rip your arm off. I guess you can switch to low to pull the rope in, then quickly switch back to high to go, but that isn’t the approach we took because it doesn’t limit the speed of the spool with no resistance and that ends up whipping the rope around.
3. You can use ‘reverse’ to real the rope in. This again, is not ideal as it can get confusing, is a bit cumbersome, and can result in tangles. On the vesc, you can set a lowish max duty cycle for reverse. On the remote, you can swap forward/reverse. The process looks like: 1. swap to backward controls, 2. hit reverse on remote to tension the rope, 3. swap back to normal controls, 4. hit forward on the remote for max power and speed.
4. I’m not sure why (bug, firmware version, vesc, ??), but duty cycle mode does not work with my vesc. If it did, this would clearly be the solution I would go for as it would also smoothly handle the stair-step reduction in resistance when you take off.
5. The solution we ended up with was just to:
   A. Set max the duty cycle at a max speed we all felt comfortable with. This prevents you from accelerating to a significantly higher speed once you get on foil due to lower drag. You can always speed up, by angling away from the winch. This also has the benefit of increasing distance traveled. Optionally lower the max current, if your winch is waaay too powerful. We didn’t need to do that.
   B. Set a ramping time that works for you depending on the power of your winch. It didn’t work exactly as expected as it ramped to some max current that seemed to not be associated with any of the max currents I had set. This just takes some playing around with.
   C. Make the throttle curve very ‘curvy’. After playing with it a bit, we got it to the point where about a 25% or so would nicely pull the rope in. You could stand in place holding the handle with the rope tight for 200m. Then 50%-75% or so was enough to move you forward on a board at moderate pace, if you needed that as an intermediate step. But, we just go to 100% once ready and let the ramping time and max duty cycle take us.
6. If you feel like playing with the software, it would be a nice feature to just make the reverse trigger pull in the rope without all the forward/reverse swapping in 3.

Anyway, enjoy!

[maxime_ecn]

@foilinghopeful

First, allow me congratulate you on an amazing looking build!

Are you doing a deep water start? The 6384 manages to pull us just fine 80-90kg guys on a 50L board before we get on foil. Not sure if your 80100 specs or gear ratio was to blame. Regardless, you have a beast now.

Thanks for you very complete answer

Yes I’m doing deep water start, it’s really power demanding for the winch (and my arms haha)

It’s in my plan to use a waterproof control, I believe you when you say it’s easier, deep water start are very difficult when you have no control on power. I didn’t manage to get on my feet yet with my wakesurf board, only on my knees.

I will go to the lake this evening try some of your advices, and try to run my vesc in speed control mode. What would be amazing would be to develop the same control than rewinch with an arduino, that’s a good winter project

On this instagram post you can see the winch in action :

electric winch = @maxime_ecn

[Jezza]

Absolutely awesome build!

I have a Rewinch mechanical kit which I used custom motors and esc. I could deep water start with 2x 6374 motors (back when I weighed 90kg).

But I want to build a belt driven winch because its quieter.
The other option is a hub motor like motowinch.

[tbarty]

Such a cool build! And so compact too!

I’ve been working on an 80100 winch too recently and have run into a lot of the same problems. We tried towing a paddle board but even then it didn’t feel like enough power.

I don’t think I have my VESC settings right though so there’s some tuning to do there. We’ve only managed one test but I think I need to invest in the bluetooth module to grab some live data and tweak from there.

I’d be very interested to know what gear ratio you’re running?
I’m not convinced I’ve got it right. I’m running 17 teeth on the motor, 128 teeth on the spool, and the center diameter of the spool is 150mm

[maxime_ecn]

@Jezza

Absolutely awesome build!

I have a Rewinch mechanical kit which I used custom motors and esc. I could deep water start with 2x 6374 motors (back when I weighed 90kg).

But I want to build a belt driven winch because its quieter.
The other option is a hub motor like motowinch.

Thanks Jezza ! Yep it’s definitely quieter. I also like that I can easily change the gearing ratio if I want.

@tbarty

I’d be very interested to know what gear ratio you’re running?
I’m not convinced I’ve got it right. I’m running 17 teeth on the motor, 128 teeth on the spool, and the center diameter of the spool is 150mm

I’m running a 15 to 88 ratio and 155mm spool diameter. Motors are 130kv.

I dimensionned the gearing to have at least 200kg pulling force (which I think is needed for deep water start) and a good top speed to have fun in wakeboard.

And good news @foilinghopeful I did some test this evening. Running the VESC in speed control is the way to go… I put a 6 seconds ramping time.
When I put the flipsky remote on the lowest speed I have better control to make it turn really slow until the rope is tensionned. Once it’s tensionned we switch to high speed on the remote and pull full throttle. You dont even need to think much, the ramping time of 6 seconds takes care of gradually increase speed and my arms are not ripped off. Only problem is that when you don’t touch the remote, the VESC understand that he has to keep the speed at zero… that means when you are walking to unwind the spool the winch is actually giving power to brake… it doesn’t let you unroll my gf had to disconnect the winch when I was walking. Probably I still need to change some settings in vesc tool (like choose the no reverse mode

Thanks to everybody for your advices

Now I just need to add a belt tensioning system. It was working like a charm first time and after 1 week sitting in my garage the belt got a bit loose and is now jumping when i ask too much power from the winch.

[Strongarm]

Really cool build.

I’m not sure about the two motors mechanically linked. I think it should be ok, no different than a skateboard going perfectly straight, all the time.

If you run them from the same speed controller then you have to have them perfectly synced, but even then you may be asking for trouble. I read somewhere to do this you apply a low DC current to one phase to lock the rotor in position while you mechanically fix them. I’m gonna try this way for another project.

[MRUEM]

Outstanding build! Congratulations!
Why didnt you choose standard parts for the belt drive? Do you think the resin print will be strong enough?

I also want to build a winch, but i am not good in CAD.
Would you share your files? Would be great. Thank you
Matthias

[maxime_ecn]

Thanks, I choose to print it because it’s much cheaper and also I didn’t want to wait for 2 weeks to arrive from China we will see how it holds, I can still change for aluminium standard part if it fails.

I can share the files but I need to update my 3d first.

I received my Frsky r9m for long range control of the winch:

This thing takes the 2.4ghz remote in entry and boost the signal to send it on 900Mhz signal up to 10km away in open field.
Need to build a waterproof case that I will strap on my arm (or board let’s see)

[maxime_ecn]

@Jezza do you know exactly which ESC rewinch are using ?

I’m still trying to find the good setting on my VESC but what I’m looking to do doesn’t exist I think.

The problem is that in Duty cycle or Speed control mode the VESC control the speed relatively to your throttle input. When your throttle is zero the speed should be zero, so when I want to walk to unroll my cord, I’m giving a forced speed to my motors and the VESC send some current to the motors to brake them and try to bring them back to zero speed. It means I can’t unroll my winch when the battery is connected to the Vesc… Also note that this brake is occurring in both direction of the spool.

So what I tried is to put motor current max brake to zero, so the VESC is not allowed to send current to brake. Somehow this works but only in one direction of the spool. Unluckily for me, it’s not the unroll direction… the VESC still brakes when I walk to unroll.

I don’t know if it’s clear it’s not easy to explain in English for me.

I don’t know what to, looks like the VESC is not the best controller to use with a winch

[Larsb]

I’m pretty sure you can solve this in settings but need a look in the program to remember where.

Have you considered using control with reverse and setting the max reverse speed really low?

[rttn]

I had a project where I controlled a unicycle motor wheel. Since I didn’t have access to the software, I simply tilted the unicycle controller board with a gyro using a servo.

[Jezza]

So from my perspective you want the following behaviour:

• Ramp to start so that you have a gentle take up the slack and then proper power
• When you release the handle and throttle you want the spool to stop almost immediately (this means you need an automatic brake)
• Then when you walk the line out you want as little resistance as possible (no braking)

I would have thought that the VESC would be easy to set up like this, but I havent tried yet. I ran mine with 2x ARC200 but had issues with stopping the spool and snapped 600kg dyneema.

Maybe rewinch use PID control…

I might get a chance to play around in a few weeks time with my winch again.

[maxime_ecn]

@Larsb

Have you considered using control with reverse and setting the max reverse speed really low?

I will try this to see if it’s a viable solution

@Jezza

So from my perspective you want the following behaviour:

• Ramp to start so that you have a gentle take up the slack and then proper power
• When you release the handle and throttle you want the spool to stop almost immediately (this means you need an automatic brake)
• Then when you walk the line out you want as little resistance as possible (no braking)

My dream would be:

+5% to +100% throttle : normal duty cycle or Speed control behavior. So has you said : long ramping time + automatic braking

-5% to +5% throttle : braking

-100% to -5% throttle : freewheel (no brake)

Anyway to program inputs like this on the VESC ?

[Jezza]

PID control might do it. But it’s harder to set up.