VESC6 Beta

So far I have repaired three VESC6 that have failed for various reasons. Here is what went wrong and how to prevent similar failures. I will update this thread if I repair more VESCs that have failed for different reasons.

Dead MCU

HI BETAS, I just added the VESC SIX BETA Manual to the Trampa website.

http://www.trampaboards.com/vesc-6-complete--vedder-electronic-speed-con...

The desktop version of the website will display a manual tab below the product image.

I had to split the manual into two parts, since our server didn't accept it in one hit.

The BETA manual has 5 pages in total!

Frank

As you may have noticed, updating the firmware on the beta VESCs from VESC Tool does not work. This is because something went wrong with flashing the bootloader, so there is no bootloader present on them. I was able to come up with a hackish solution for this by making VESC Tool able to upload the bootloader using the firmware upload command with an offset. One problem with this approach is that if there already is a bootloader present that is not identical in binary (for example compiled with a different version of GCC) this can mess up the bootloader.

ST-Link:

Do not connect the 3.3V pin, using a simple ebay ST-Link! That will kill the 3.3v regulator, which results in almost having a short in the 3.3v rail. The 3.3v on the swd connector is only for sensing 3.3v with the st branded stlink programmers. When using the small eBay stlinks the 3.3v should be left unconnected. The vesc 4 did not have this problem since it uses a different regulator. Fixing this is easy if it should happen, the VESC will work again after replacing the 3.3v regulator.

Array of VESCs:

I know that it is mentioned in the five pages long VESC_SIX_Manual_V64_BETA.pdf already in red, so everybody should know that, but because I have heard that someone already flashed the firmware for VESC 6.0 on his 4.12 hardware its maybe useful to warn here again.
The text from the silkscreen is mirrored, so that you would short the 5v to GND when connecting the wrong way. So please read in the PDF what the right order is and tripple check so that you connect it the right way. Hope that second reminder is helpful for someone.