my name is Michael and i am coming from the swabian alb in south germany.
I started around one year ago with foiling. Main goal was to build an efoil but also to kitefoil and maybe pumpfoil. We realized pretty early that its not so easy to foil. So we trained a lot on a wakewinch.
As we have not so many deep water around here i decided some uncommon design goals:
Equipment multiusable for other Foilsports as much as possible.
Equipment easy to transport
Mechanical outputpower should be under 3 HP (~2,2kw) → i dont need a labeling in Germany
able to drive slow and turn tight.
easy to build
My main Hobby is Paragliding so spring and summer is kind of blocked.
So i usually foil in autumn and winter.
Slowely my setup starts to work. So i decided to give something back to this awesome community who saved me a lot of time and money. And share my build with you:
The Engine is a 6384 with addons from this Thread: https://foil.zone/t/direct-drive-outrunner-with-direct-water-cooling Thx to @PowerGlider for this genius ideas.
Planned Addons there are the Igus glass bearings and at the end i gonna try a friction bearing from Igus. I dont know how much power it gonna cost me but at least i would like to try.
As a Board i use the small 47l Gong Hipe Inflateble.
The Motor is mounted to the Mast of my pretty big foil: https://de.aliexpress.com/item/33050235014.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dBx7B9w
(I would not buy it again. Because its not as cheap as the cheap big Gong foils. And Gong would be way easyer and cheaper to get spare parts. So if anyone knows what foil it clones. Pls give me a hint)
The cables of the motor are going trough the mast but exit it directly under the mounting plate. Then the cabeling hangs freely around the board and enter a watertight box on the nose of the board. The watertight box contains a 120A YEP Marine ESC, a maytech reciever, a 36V → 5V DCDC Converter and my 10S4P 36V 11Ah Liion Battery (Currently: screwdriver packs).
As a Prop i use the 156 0.38 1.08 15 from @V_S. Having the right parameters for the prop was a real keypoint in my current build. It gave me more power, higher efficency and much longer runtimes. Thx Volker!
This Setup runs actually around 20min with one Battery pack. With an speed of 13-25km/h and a consumtion of around 60-70Wh/km.
Currently i am working on a folding prop version with the wing specs of @V_S printed in PETG. The first prototype works promising but i have a more folding and more robust version thats gonna tested as fast as possible. If that one works i gonna share the .stl files here.
add Watercooling to my ESC (it already smells bad after 2-3 36V 11Ah battery packs )
did anyone has a working design of a back pressure based external watercooling?
My current Plan is to just add a Waterchannel to my already existing Screholes in the front:
whats your Ideas could that work? I already read that some of you tried this. But didnt mentioned what long term expirience they have with this.
Replace YEP ESC by VESC6
I already monitor my Powerconsumption with a analog Logger and i never used more than 2,6kw peak from the battery. So with a conservative 85% efficency of ESC, cabels and motor. I am already faar under the 2,2 KW meachnical outputpower (3PS) but i would like to have a second safety system so i gonna programm the max Power in the VESC. Its also way more convinient to logg all dates within the ESC that to drag arount a analogue datalogger .
extend Battery to 36V 30Ah by two of this 36V 15Ah Packs: https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4001079770253.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dH6GyN7
As mentioned above i need max 2,6KW from the Battery (just in Peaks). Continuesly around 1,5-2KW
So Battery just needs to deliver 72A peak and max 60A continually. So the build in cells in this packs could deliver 45W continually for each pack. But the BMS limits it to 30A continually.
So i belive 2 in Paralell could work. Especialy i dont belive that i need the 2,6KW to liftoff. So i could just limit the complete System to 2KW from the Battery.
And jeah i know how reliable Chinese Batterypacks are . Just got these for 100$ each, so i want to give it a try.
I found out that my current problem is more about a shortcut between to power chords .
But the ESC needs defenetly cooling for Summer. But to keep the overall concept as easy as possible. I am actually Planning to add a passive Cooling Plate on top of the Box similar to @sat_be s Build: Daniels (un)geared inflatable (slowly built) - #72 by sat_be
I think this could be enough cooling for my < 2,2KW mechanical Output power.
I made some progress on the folding prop thematic. I have now a working version that gives me ~60-70W/km at ~15-18 km/h foiling with the 6384 120Kv at 10S. And almost no drag when folded. Unfolding works almost perfect. But maybe i gonna need there some slight improvments. Also the durability is under investigation.
Its also pretty hard to balance the transfere from powered drive to glide without falling in the water ^^
I started also to make some simulations and optimize everything to low pressure and low turbulences:
There where some interesting findings in the Video:
I consume ~3kw from the battery with the camera underwater → so i defently need a Software limitation of the max current.
The unfolding is not perfect.
Folding works amazing
I have some Kavitation on the Proptips. But this seems to be quite normal compared to other Propvideos. But would be nice if some of you could make some own/post theyr Videos.
As promised here are the .STL files of my current Folding Prop design: KlapppropV4 BaseV3
I printed it with PETG and very thick outer layer. You need 35mm M4 Screws and M4 Nuts.
Very important: the Prop must unfold fold just my gravity when changing its orientation. So sand it as long as it runs freely! If opening goes even a little bit hard. Its not working properly in the water and gonna have a short life. Hard openings goes massively on lifetime!
In future i probably gonna make the angle of the folding props maybe a bit bigger. So drag is higher but it opens much better. This here is a try how far back it could fold…
It’s getting annoying.
Nobody wants your advice, we get along very well without it.
As always, there is no evidence that you can do anything but empty promises.
First, reveal a few facts about what you can do?
You promised me a 200% Eta profit without even having any data
Hey, I want that prop too, it creates thrust while also acting as a generator. The holy grail of perpetual motion has been found!
jokes aside, I see that you ran some simulations. How much drag are you getting from that configuration? I mean, how much does the drag increase compared to the clean (non-powerpod) configuration. I ask because I recall someone mentioning that the drag was important and gliding, even with the folded prop folder, was significant, was severily affected when the motor is touching the water.
I was wondering if a puller prop could provide a lower drag. I know it’s been discussed before, but could not find anyone experimenting with it. My point is, compared to the size of the wings, the motor pod is not a big fuselage, so if it was possible to keep the flow attached, the drag should not be that high…
@pablo_foil i think i could simulate the drag coefficient between the motor gondel and the normal mast.
But that would be alot of work. And it does not make sens for my build at all. I gonna have it because its an efoil…
So my only goal is to make it as efficient as possible.
Today i tested my FESC 6 for the first time. Its amazing it feels completly different than my YEP120A.
It starts the engine even with very low rpm. It feels like i have much more power in lower rpm. But it feels a bit slower. But there i have to check what my logs saying.
But it gets way to hot. So i urgently need some cooling concept. So i gonna plan to add a big aluminium passiv cooler to the top of my box. Lets see if this is enough. At least it limits its own heat. Thats so lovely
Surprisingly with the VESC the transfere between Efoiling to gliding and back is just easy. It works absolutely fluently. So it looks like i am on a good way with the folding prop. The current one has now around 2-3h of ridingtime. Lets see how much longer it holds. But since now no bad signs.
As i said i made some more simulations about the perfect folding angle. This time very thin simulationmesh. So every picture here took me 6h of simulation time:
This Is a 10° more out version of the V4 Folding Prop at 20km/h
So my conclution is: i already have the perfect angle for less Turbulences and good opening.
Going more outside woul make the flow worse. Maybe 1° more to the inside would be a try but before that i would like to know the current lifetime.
So i try now how long it last. And then optimize it for a long Lifetime.
Its snowing here so i thought this would be a nice time to start my cooling similar to @sat_be s Build: Daniels (un)geared inflatable (slowly built) - #72 by sat_be
This solution is much more easy because a water tube could disconnect when the radius is getting to small. The Summer gonna show if the aircooling is enogh .
So i bought the biggest cooler i could find, around 30010020 and cut it down to 20010020.
After that I trimmed ~8 - 10 mm flat plane around.
Then I made a hole of the size of the cooling fins in the box.
The direction of the fins is going to be in the direction of surf. This should lead to a maximum air cooling.
Made some Isolation with some rubber from a bike tube. And placed all the components and made some nice cabeling. The placement of the components is pretty nice. If water comes in they stay dry a long time. But the batterys gonna melt .
The edges of the heatsink are really sharp. If i fall i directly fall over it. So i Made some PETG protection frame around it. There will come an aditional one for the screw of the VESC.
yes it did worked really nice at the time, never had a temp-cut and i was running 8S at a constant 120A (280a pics) on a 200A esc, it really depends on the esc or vesc and how long you ride close to its capacity (you can always check the thermal pad on the fets inside) , for me you should be fined
all data are on the post “slow build from france”
Thats great news thx for your experience
I should be far away of the ESC Limits ^^
Jeah just started to going trough your Builds.
I saw you also have an Takuma V100. I also have one and thought to make a bit faster build with this one.
How is your folding propellor going for durability and efficiency with PETG?
I’m interested in which orientation you are using for printing, and how much infill/wall thickness? It looks as if you have sanded the propellor, so perhaps used supports and printed in the flat orientation?
I have a roll of ePLA-ST which I’m planning to test with a folding propellor, just wondering if yours has been durable for many sessions.
Printed it like this with 6 top/bottom and 6 perimeter layers in esun PLA+, support overhang angle 65° (no support under the propeller blade). I had to offset and rotate:
Z offset 310.6
X rotation 90
y rotation 176
z rotation -26
Thanks michael and sat_be, both look like reasonable ways to print it. 6 walls/top/bottom seems a good idea.
Is KlapppropV4 the updated/fixed STL file, in a previous post above?
I’ve been sent a higher kV motor than I ordered (6374 170kV arrived, instead of 6384 120kV), so it’s going to be spinning at a faster RPM than I wanted. It’ll be with a 6s battery, for a foil drive, so I’m after efficiency with low speed push.
Hi Achim I really like your build. Simple effective cool. Above all with a screwdriverpack as a battery. Wow.
Especially the folding propeller looks great for me, as like you, I want to cruise on our channel in front of the house and also hope to chase waves in the nearby sea, which most probably will be fantastic with your folding prop. Looking around I noticed that some people also took the 63100 because it’s a bit stronger, but I also like your setup because it’s a bit lighter which might be an advantage in the waves. Therefore my first question :
I weigh around 80 kg included my neoprene and my hipe 5.5 is a little bit heavier than yours. are you in the same weight range that It would be safe to assume the setup also works for me?
Which vesc do you actually have there?
Is it actually the motor that determines the choice for the vesc size or the battery?
Which manipulations did you actually make on your motor ? There seems to be a new model , “battle hardened”, at Flipsky that I ask myself If it would maybe be ok to take it as it is, without adding epoxy and change bearings.
i weight around 70kg. But the System has plenty of thrust so i think it could handle your 80kg.
But the folding prop is actually not really reliable so i would not going out in the wafes with it.
But i have several plans how to improve that. I hope i have a reliable version till beginning of summer.
Great , thanks a lot Michael, the vesc is actually a great tip for this price! As for the prop I can go for the Normal version for the beginning.
But just to know, in wich way is the folding prop unreliable? It sometimes does not unfold?
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