Should I buy an OpenSource Board?

[Jack Bauer]

I want to address a topic that has come up recently regards the differences between one of my OpenSource Tesla (and other) boards and those offered by commercial vendors. I had thought this was at least implicitly understood but have decided to spell it out for the sake of clarity.

My boards are priced hugely cheaper than any other solution on the basis you either have or can acquire the necessary technical skill to get your project up and running along with some forum community based support. Indeed any profit I do make on them is largely fed back into R&D efforts to make solutions for other systems (e.g. Nissan Leaf inverter) or improvements on existing product lines (e.g. new Tesla Gen 2 charger boards just released).

As I explained in this video I do not provide one to one support for any boards or products :


I am trying to grow a community knowledge pool here on Openinverter in order to assist people in their endevaours. My goal is to get people building their own DIY electric vehicle projects.

Now, if you need a fully supported product with all the trimmings like warranty etc then I can highly recommend ZeroEV in the UK :
https://zero-ev.co.uk/

Naturally their products are more expensive as you are paying for a LOT of investment in design, testing, manufacture and support.

So as the saying goes : choose wisely.

[Jack Bauer]

Another point worth making. The support threads on here are the user manual. By now most of the commonly asked questions have been answered more than once. Reading through the thread or using the search function will probably result in getting a question answered faster than just repeating it and waiting. If you do not have the time to do this then you need a commercial solution.

[johu]

And I may add: do not write private messages expecting quicker reply.

We should also promote the wiki more and set up FAQ lists there. Reading through page long threads is tedious, indeed.

So, promotion: https://openinverter.org/wiki

[Kevin Sharpe]

Interesting post on DIY Electric comparing the various Tesla controller options on the market;

https://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/s ... 01457.html

[Jack Bauer]

Here is a video detailing exactly how support works for logic boards from the evbmw webshop. I would encourage anyone considering a purchase to please view this video and ensure you are comfortable and familiar with the support structure around these products.

[johu]

I am having numerous people filing warranty claims who in reality made fundamental user errors.

Reacting to that I will not respond to warranty claims unless a forum post has been made to try and clear up the problem. I have added that to the product descriptions and also to the T&C of the shop.

[jon volk]

What is provided with the boards for documentation? The draft of a quick start guide found here seems like a decent bridge from the basics to things that would need to be asked on the forum.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=565

I came into my Tesla project with near zero knowledge of EV components and made it a point to understand things as best I could. Unfortunately, with the Tesla hardware in particular, we are venturing into the high performance automotive aftermarket. This is a shit show of an industry were many expect to have their hand held at every turn, parts need to be available yesterday and for bottom dollar.

I will say I have no regrets about buying a full price board that included some of Damien's valuable support time. At that point in time, there certainly was not the level of information compiled about the applications. Just about every hiccup my newbie self encountered is now documented on the forum.

[slow67]

we are venturing into the high performance automotive aftermarket. This is a shit show of an industry were many expect to have their hand held at every turn, parts need to be available yesterday and for bottom dollar.

I cannot stress enough that this is 100% factual (from experience)

[tom91]

we are venturing into the high performance automotive aftermarket. This is a shit show of an industry were many expect to have their hand held at every turn, parts need to be available yesterday and for bottom dollar.

I cannot stress enough that this is 100% factual (from experience)

Yea that's why I moved to a distributor setup for the SimpBMS.

So many people want to play but not put in the graft and learning to get there.

[johu]

Yea that's why I moved to a distributor setup for the SimpBMS.

So many people want to play but not put in the graft and learning to get there.

Worth a think, even though it's fun to pack up the kits and 99% sell without problems.

[jalovick]

I'm loving the learning experience, and have started acquiring parts to get a bench setup going. I'm likely going to start with a Toyota Camry Gen 3 inverter or a Prius C Gen 3 (so I'd use either the Gen 3 version c board or I believe the Prius C has the same inverter/converter as the Yaris/Auris, so I'd use that board), combined with either a MGR or Outlander PHEV rear motor.

I feel that the videos created by Damien and Johannes are great, and has increased my understanding, but the forums can be a bit challenging. The Wiki has been great as well, but it's not always obvious what's the current information for a particular board.

Overall, what both of you and the other contributors have created here is excellent, even if it can be a bit more challenging for those without strong electronics knowledge.

Thank you!

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

The Wiki has been great as well, but it's not always obvious what's the current information for a particular board.

This is why it's vital for every to group-encourage "Check the wiki... can someone update the wiki? That's great, can you add that to the wiki?"

A wiki is great when it's THE source everyone collectively looks to. But as soon as it becomes "Oh, yeah, that's not up to date", then that's the kind of thing you can't know that you don't know, so then you might as well just ask for 1-on-1 help on every single little issue. And then that's double-demotivating to anyone who might have otherwise updated the wiki, as what's the point if everyone presumes it's out of date?

Discussion threads are good at discussion. But they are a terrible, awful way of archiving information. The trick is that it never seems like NOW is the moment to summarize or box up this section of discussion which appears to be mostly-concluded and add it to the wiki. You never know when you're done with a piece of knowledge.

Anyway, just a note to encourage everyone to push each other to add everything they can to the wiki. To volunteer yourself, and to polite-nag each other, and to point people to it as often as possible.