Foil Drive Assist, DIY

Did you ever find anything for a high current 3 pole connector? I too am just about to start a new board build and would love to have the motor-to-esc connection running though a hole in the board rather than directing it under and over the board.

There have been some clever custom solutions here with individual bullet connectors, etc. but they seem to add up to a significant diameter. Would love to keep the hole through the board as small as possible.

Also: It seems like the original foil assist had motor cables combine into a single 3 conductor cable near the motor. This cable seems like it’d be around 14AWG. Or at least much less than the large motor lead wires. How is this possible without overheating? Is this whey some seem to be getting away with MT60’s? The math doesn’t add up :wink: But curious how others are handling dropping down to a single cable between esc and motor.

For science, I tried the combination of wing foiling and an efoil assist and found it really difficult to balance the large force of pulling/balancing myself with the wing combined with the fine trigger dexterity on the trigger. There was also extra weight from the assist system which I didn’t like when wing foiling and so I had more fun doing one then the other than combining them both together.

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Awesome to hear but sad that it didn’t feel good. Would love to know more about your setup: Board size/volume, wind strength you were out in and what your assist system is roughly.

Maybe the parawing will be answer (when Gong develop low cost version)

Born Kites WaveStar or FoilStar

image

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Weight: 140lbs / 63.5029kg
Board size: 5’
Volume: 95L
Gong link to board/foil kit GONG - Pack Wing Inflatable HIPE First X-Over Easy – GONG Galaxy
[Click Size Guide for details]
Foil Assist details: Light Foil Assist Project - Cocoa Beach, FL

Conditions: Intracoastal, 17mph winds light chop on water, ~4"
Talent factor: Good enough to wing in each direction, just learning how to jibe, can efoil without putting the board down for 5 miles.

I suspect that something like this shortened up would work the same as the marketed parawing, it looks like the parawing just has a deeper chord, but I bet there’s a trainer out there with similar specs.

Cost is ~$200 vs $900,

vs

Or am I missing something there?

It needs to be a single skin kite. The brm is massively overpriced for what it is but the only single skin kite that I’m aware of that goes up to 5m2 that could be modified to fly on the short lines is the fly surfer peak. This is still quite expensive, especially if you are then modifying it.

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hq kites kick 180 1.2m2 for when it is nuking, with custom bridle it works well, but untested in water yet.
older petter lynn uniq tr ? unavailable as of today.

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I have been thinking about an addon program in the remote/receiver to be activated on demand. It’s purpose is to ease the multitasking of managing wing and throttle at the same time…
Here some options:

  1. When program activated, pressing any amount of throttle will trigger a preset throttle percent.
  2. When program activated, pressing throttle once will trigger run for a preset amount of seconds and preset throttle percent untill timer is over or it cancelled by pressing throttle or no reception as usual.

My left arm on front of the board, right arm holding the remote and picking up the wing, then holding it in the air in the neutral position. So here the problem of managing trigger and wing presents itself.
If picking wing using the left hand, right hand will manage the remote and lean on the board front. Again, hard to do these two actions with one hand.

Maybe there is a solution to control trigger with some other body organ… Like a mouth

It will be cool to develop fully automatic get up solution - it will sense the speed, height and adjust throttle till on foil.
Or semi automatic - it will rump up the speed in fixed levels till motor out of the water - maybe it can be sensed by sudden rise of motor speed or fall of current.

Pressure sensor remote:
'Remote control GLOVE

Pushing trigger with tongue:
'Remote control GLOVE - #22 by lishine

Foil drive with the wing experience:
'Winging with Foil Drive Assist | Foil Drive Blog – Foil Drive Pty Ltd

I like the idea of using another trigger source other than your hands.

It seems to me that the most likely time for someone to fall is on getting up to speed from zero. Without having direct control over the blades I’d be concerned about accidentally falling on the prop.

Maybe a high motor mast mount + prop guard would make that safe enough to try and get some further learning?

Has anyone been successful using a 6354 120kv outrunner with a foil assist project on 12s? Looks like it might be at the bottom end of what we need power wise, fits the standard FD prop hubs, and is about half the weight of a 6384 motor. I have seen it mentioned a few times on the forum as an option but have not see one in use.

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I guess it’ll be too small, the stator will be really short with the dead length needed for clearance, covers, end windings and such.

Checking here:

Stator is 25mm long for a 6354 in the link vs 45 for a 6374 (in the link) so it’s 56% of the torque capability. Maybe with a light rider, higher kV / higher current and a low pitch prop?

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The maytech 6374 is considered as the bottom end of what is foilable, I don’t recall the stator length but pretty sure it is more than 25mm.

74 vs 84, 10mm less so 45mm stator.

Nope, this is why the Maytech is especially badly considered for a reason :wink: Ali 6384 vs maytech 6374



Yeah, i remember now, I think same measurements are higher up in the thread :smile:

But i wonder what can be achieved with a 6354, 200A phase current, 200kV and a 3” pitch prop. Something for @s9tim to test?

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I’m in the process of putting it together. I may be mad but I’m wanting to try it for a very specific need. I’ve got a few set ups now with the Ali 6384 and saite 6384 but I want to build the lightest set up I can to just give me the slightest edge on my DW board in DW conditions. I’ll be using a 12s1p pack with p50 cells. This has already been built and works very well with a standard 6384. The weight of the pack alone is so much nicer for pumping on tiny lumps and chop. I have a 7ft 8” DW board that I built a while ago that comes in at 6kg. I currently use an external box with it but to reduce weight, I will put the components inside and use a screw down hatch. I’m keen to at least try the 6354 in this build. I am sure that the 6354 will have considerably less power but it might just be enough for my needs. I have it already and it is so much lighter. It looks tiny though! I can swap back to a 6384 or 6374 if needed. I’ll report back in a few weeks once it is all put together.

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With good bumps and a paddle, I think it could work, even if a flat water start proves to be impossible.

What is the KV? torque = phase amps x KT where KT= 1/KV (needs kv in rad/sec)
On 12 S you need the lowest KV you can get, or a smaller prop than what we are used to run on bigger motors, as you may not be able to generate enough torque without stupid high phase amps, or reach magnetic saturation before that.

My effective range = number of starts with the maytech VS the ali 6384 is about 30% less. so what you loose in motor weight you kind of have to increase in battery weigh or sacrifice the range.

IMO it is due to three things, first the motor needs higher phase amps because the KV is 150 VS 120 for the ali, then second is because it is making less torque, each start takes longer and uses more energy as it does not have the torque to lift the board up before the foil fully engages.

Third; the smaller motor does not allow me to fully discharge the battery, because of the higher amp draw causing LVC power reduction much earlier.

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This one is 120kv. On AliExpress there is a variety from 120kv all the way up to 250kv. I’ll have my paddle (which will be doing a lot of the work) and I use the axis 1300 png foil which is about as big as they get. It cost £30. It’s worth a try at least.

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