Usually order direct from prototi now,
For the blades, the one I originally posted works well, due to high pitch it removes bubbles quickly.
I used the FD inspired carbon forged blades, but a friend sent me this new prop to try @thunderfoil so im’ testing that now. All 3 work, can’t really be bothered to do very scientific testing, too many variables.
What is nice with the original high pitch prop is that it works well in semi-submerged mode, but upwind in chop you reach power limits for this use case
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I have built the main unit using flysky 74100 vesc and maytech receiver, does anyone know if the standard maytech antenna which is about 200mm does the job ok or should I get an extended antenna? standard foildrive gen 2 works fine with the board I intend to use, thanks in advance
pic for reference
also does aliexpress have the latches that you use o hold the battery in place?
What unit is that? I dont recognize the design.
Latches I got of Amazon, but they do not last good in salt water
Designed mine around those Amazon latches too but unfortunately they don’t actually seem to be stainless steel 
No turning back now.
The housing is based off your design just changed to suit the components i had including a foildrive motor and cable, will try it as printed in petg to validate the design, happy to share if anyone wants it
Got my parts from Craft Cloud yesterday. I have a problem with my lid and unfortunately, it came warped. My 3D-printed PETG prototype lid also doesn’t fit the housing. So even the housing did not turn out to be precise as needed. Those industrial aluminum 3D printers are less accurate than our FDM printers, even though the specs on Craft Cloud look very promising…
I’ll probably end up printing a PETG lid with more tolerance to fit the aluminum housing. I’d advise anyone trying a similar design to rethink it if you’re going to have both parts printed in aluminum.
I would go with a warranty request for such issue, it was not an issue with the housing I got printed. Could it be just a laser cut sheet?
Yes I could go with a laser cut sheet. I would need to print some material to go around the tongue to lift the deeper area:
In my design I have added enough tolerance between the housing and lid. Also I did test it multiple times in PETG. Alu prints probably need way more tolerance.
The XT90 hole also is not very precise. But that is not an issue:
Edit:
Plan A: I have filed a warranty issue and asked for a reprint.
Plan B: Laser cut alu sheet
Plan C: PETG Lid.
Printing an adapter for the laser cut alu sheet was successful:
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Do you guys have experience with shipping methods on pcbway?
The laser cut sheet costs around 15€ anodized, but the shipping cost varies between 10€ (carriers I have never heard of) and 30€ (DHL, Fedex). Those no name carriers also have very long shipping times. So effectively landing between 25€ and 45€ plus payment fees and duties…
Ordering it from a german manufacturer would cost 60€… So there is almost no benefit ordering it from china when I have to go with DHL or Fedex.
Pretty expensive… The 3D printed lid was in the same price range with shipping cost included. Shipping was 8€ with Fedex 
Did you test your unit yet?
I’m in carnon near Montpelier for the long weekend, hope to get some surf. Only took the 4’2 and assist rather than the supfoil due to travelling by train.
I did not have time to prepare a second battery so I have a single p45 12s1p pack. I get around 45 min of surf foil use, without paddling at all, but slowly motoring at 20% throttle to reposition.
Unfortunately I damaged by board handling it to get in/out of the airbnb, bummed about that as I really like this takoon board. Left solarez at home 
and its first of may so I will have to ride it like that.
Had some good waves this morning, now wind has risen, hopefully wind dies tonight and leaves clean waves, now there is 50cm but very messy
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Unfortunately I have not finished the build yet. I was busy with my job the last two weeks.
A few updates:
- I got my money back for the lid. But not due to the warping, which is excluded from warranty claims. Luckily I have found a few deviations from tolerances so Prototi accepted my claim.
- I have soldered the connectors to the VESC and was able to do a first electronics test with the motor attached and a 3S Lipo.
- Today I milled the 3D printed lid with a Dremel and I was able to make it fit. Took me a lot of time… I would not recommend designing the lid the way I did because this design should be CNC milled. Just use a laser cut alu sheet instead.
- I got an email yesterday from NKON that my RS50 cells are on the way. They arrive next week.
Last week I found a promising Vesc that would fit this project. It is a new Vesc directly from Vesc Labs:
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I have spot welded my first battery prototype today with 0.1mm nickel and 0.15mm copper sandwich. It kind of works with my kWeld and 3S Lipo as power source but it takes a loooong time due to the lipo heating up quickly.
@Bzhwindtalker which spot welder did you use? I am thinking of ordering the same copper nickel strips as you did. But I have read on the product page that the cups are nickel plated copper. So I am wondering if the welding will go easier with my welder compared to the sandwich construction.
I have 0.15mm nickel plated copper here and I was not able to weld it.
I use these with Kweld: WELLGO 3PCS Copper-Nickel Alloy 21700 Copper-Nickel Stripe 18650 Cell Copper Busbar 1P 2P 3P 4P 0.3mm 200A 0.8M Free Combination
https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eu5Cm10
They weld @25 Joule with Kweld.
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Thank you!
I am running 150J for that sandwich 
I have to make a break after each strip and recharge after every two strips lol
With those strips and 25J I will be done in no time
I know, I also did my own sandwich from 0.1mm cu and 0.1mm nickel, if I remeber right it was arounf 100J, I had to let the probes cool down after every couple of welds.
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I never had good experience with kweld, and at some point I had a custom kweld with 3s10p 30q pack unit with machined probes runing on a cnc welding 16s10p packs.
I have now a supercap welder, not sure about the exact reference. On the cnc we had an ac welder with rewound welder transformer.
My take is that pure DC welds such as kweld are asymmetric, but AC or smarter welders can pulse both ways and get more even welds.
The copper/nickel plate I used seems to be a nickel part with copper coating ultrasonic welded to copper sheet. Welds beautifully.
Now we oredered custom sheets for 13s13p tabless 21700 packs 
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End of 3 days in Mediterranean, conditions were sub optimal with a lot of wind and very short periods.
Got 3 sessions, had some issues on second session where I tried the smallest pump stab I have, and that was too much for clean pop up in waves.
Todays session was fully messy and bigger sea chop. Still got a few waves. Had some issues with leash, need to improve this.
Assist worked well, some issues with my antenna not placed correctly, I did not have tape to redo it clean, and forgot to bring silicon grease and wd40 so I had some electric corrosion issue on the balance leads of the pack.
A faster charger or second pack would be great for better conditions, but I’m already gazed out on 45 min sessions.
Trying to film with the 360 cam is also in many ways detrimental to safety and riding focus, so I need to either ride without or find a better stash/mount for it rather than just shoved in the front zip of the wetsuit.
I did not have the right board, but some guys were having a very good time up/dw with parawings 
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Got some progress in.
Yesterday I have spot welded the cells and soldered the balancer cables to the pogo pin.
Today I have placed and glued the balancer wires. Than created the bus bar for the negative connector by folding a 30mm x 0.2mm copper strip and soldering it to the xt90 with short wire bend to 90 degrees. Did the same for the positive connector with the nickle plated copper.
Next up will be isolating the bar and spot welding it to the battery. Than soldering the balancer cables.
