I wanted to ask if there’s any specific considerations one should have if intending to use ODrive for an electric longboard conversion.
I’m planning to buy an off-the-shelf truck outfitted with motors (probably this one) an simply hook it up to ODrive.
The rig doesn’t come with any encoders or anything else of the sort, and I was planning to use a Teensy 3.2 or 3.6 microcontroller to communicate with ODrive over UART to control the motors.
Is there anything specific to watch out for or consider? Is the lack of encoders going to be a significant problem/challenge?
The speedup ramp algorithm we have right now is quite crude and probably not suitable for skateboard use. We could add a better one, but right now we (ODrive Robotics) cannot prioritise such a feature. If you are very keen you could add this yourself.
If you are able to find motors that include Hall sensors (sensored motors), then you should be okay.
Hey! I’m looking to use ODrive for a longboard too. There’s a sensorless mode, and position control doesn’t matter, so no need for an encoder. Maybe hall effect sensors if you want really smooth startups. Speed ramping isn’t necessary either, typically people just control the motor current or duty cycle, which the ODrive already supports. And it also supports the servo PWM protocol that is used by this remote! So no Arduino necessary, I think the ODrive should work out of the box, with a bit of sensorless startup tuning.
The features I think I think would be nice to have would be overtemperature protection, and a current ramping algorithm, I’ll take a stab at those once I get mine.