Hey all,
Been on the forum for a long time but I can now finally post my build since I am riding it several times a week now! Professionally I work in design and manufacturing of fiberglass wake boats. Outside of that, I got hooked on foiling a couple summers ago surfing the wake of our engineering fleet of boats. Several months ago I finally bought my second foil set with an Axis 1150 pumping setup. This freed up my old setup to become my efoil mk-2.0. The parts list is as follows:
-Flipsky 65161 120Kv Motor
-Flipsky 75200 VESC
-Flipsky FX3 Remote
-Liquidforce Flite 120 Setup
-2x 6S Lipo batteries in parallel (@12S)
-Homemade board (I think its about 50L but I actually have no idea).
Some notes about the components:
-The liquid force foil set was less of a choice and more of a convenience instead of buying a new setup. However, there were a lot of things about the setup that actually work great. The mast is hollow for the most part and fits the 8awg wires perfectly through it. The wing is small at only 1200 cm^2 and a short span, but it has really good lift at low speed and is stable all the way up to 18 Mph. (I haven’t gone any faster than that yet).
-The motor and speed controller are a perfect pair so far. Im hardly the first to use this combination, but its a reason its the gold standard on the forum.
-My diy board is great, I love it…BUT for its dimensions I made it wayyyy to heavy. Its a big board but I added a thick plastic stringer & the electronics box is heavy as well. Its not too heavy to lift off but its probably double the wieght it needs to be. This will be the part that I rework first. The lid that I used for the electronics box works really well. Its a bilge inspection cover for a boat but it does a great job at keeping water out.
Short video of me riding after work at the boat plant from yesterday. I’m still working on getting that telemetry tracking info that you all share, but I’m taking off at about 60 amps and flying at 20-28 amps https://youtube.com/shorts/4deDHysjhGQ?feature=share
nice work @JohnBam! Kudos for making your own board. How are you cooling the VESC? I don’t see a water cooling hose in the mast photo. I like keeping my VX3 connected in UART mode to keep an eye on the VESC temp with the remote to make sure I don’t cook it.
You might also try switching to a Fliteboard prop, it’s inexpensive and not too hard to modify for the 65161 motors (I’d actually recommend ordering from electricsurf.com, they’re in Austin TX not too far from you, Fliteboard seems to have high shipping charges when you order directly)
Thanks you @S_Roger ! Right now I just have the vesc passively cooled. I did not buy the water cooling enclosure version of the 75200. I do the same as you, using UART to keep an eye on the temperature. Right now its not a huge concern for me because by the time my battery setup is depleted, im only up to about 75C. That is still hot but not enough for me to raise huge concerns yet. My plan in the future is to either create a watercooling setup through the mast, or to integrate a larger heat sink as I increase battery capacity.
I will definitely be checking out the link you sent. I have a 3D printed version of the fliteboard prop but I doubt itll be strong enough to sustain (havent tested it yet). When I do get to testing other props, I will have to make sure that I get the telemetry log working properly. Right now I can’t get the bluetooth module to connect to the VESC-tool app.
You can improve the passive cooling with an aluminum box around the vesc, just having more metal to absorb the heat. I think this build by @jkoljo is doing just that:
Another thing you can try is filling the box with CorrosionX and having the esc submerged in the stuff. This would also offer some protection from water intrusion.
This might be a wiring issue. There is TX and RX and two versions of Flipsky Bluetooth module. You might have a similar cable in your kit that came from Flipsky or you may have to just flip those two wires on your cable.
Which waterproof hatch did you use? After my initial ‘bolt on’ build worked great on my large wing foil board, i’ve begun planning a smaller board build, but see mixed results on hatches being waterproof.
Also i dont know which boat manufacturer you are at, but visited MC back after high school in 1997 before wake boats were really a thing (I’m a slalom guy at heart). That was a dream job for sure!! Enjoy it!
@Kian I agree and have seen many others with hatch problems.
@JohnBam My uncle has a 2000 23lsv that still runs and looks perfect! Malibu seems to spend the time building and sourcing parts that are top notch. Id be curious if you could pull a number off that hatch? Id love to try it out. I also imagine your deck is quite rigid. They seem to fail if they flex too much. (I bet that deck foam makes riding more comfortable )
@agua4fun I will take a peek under the hood for some part information for you. Glad to hear you have good experiences with Malibu. I love taking out boats from our engineering fleet for after-work foil sessions. @Kian I replaced the stock gasket that it comes with for one that is slightly thicker to get a better seal and it has worked. I have to smack the lid to get it to seat properly.
Nice work! Where in east tn? Im in the chattanooga area. I built my own wingfoil board and foil. Learning to wingfoil. Planning an EFoil board build soon.
@JohnBam I’m in the planning stages of a build using the LF Flite 120 foil. I’ve been wakefoiling with it, so I’d like to stick with this foil out of convenience. Did you print the mast mounts and are you willing to share the files? I’ll be working on some CAD this weekend to modify another mount to fit the LF mast.
)