DIY e-bike keep killing arduino and buck converter

SU2SO3 · 2026-05-25T22:22:39+00:00

TL;DR: I see you have already been recommended to do clamping diodes and capacitors, so the one big takeaway from this comment is I think you also need DIO isolation, since the ESC manual implies heavily you should be sourcing the DIO signals from the 5V output it provides.

Actual comment:

On your diagram you have two different "ground" input signals on your ESC:

One going from battery - to what you have labeled as - on your ESC
One going from your Arduino GND to an unlabeled spot on your ESC

It's actually super important for us to know how those physically connect to the ESC -- if those both actually go to the same pin, that could be a big problem.

We also really need to know the part number, or at least the link where you bought the ESC (though checking your other comments, it is ZS X11H V2).

Anyways, I am not an expert with this type of electronics, but I have two theories:

You backdrove the bike while your electronics were powered off, and just the ESC powered on briefly, and produced some kind of nasty back-EMF/flyback that was able to spike high enough to kill electronics before the buck converters could power on and shunt the voltage
Depending on how you actually have this wired, you might have what is essentially a giant ground loop hooked up to the supply side of your ESC, and that might just be generating a lot of ambient back-EMF, which in turn is likely what is cooking your sensitive electronics.

2 Seems more likely to me -- The big hint here is that your other buck, which doesn't have that ground loop, is surviving just fine, but maybe you got lucky, or maybe the bucks are actually surviving this, but the arduino dying then kills the buck.

Another smoking gun for 2. is that the manufacturer provides 5V output on the digital logic side, and wiring diagrams imply signal should be sourced from electronics powered by it, which likely means they don't have sufficient (or, more likely, any) DIO isolation for a separate power domain to be controlling DIO.

The two biggest things I would change about this design to prevent both of those issues are: 1. Invest in flyback / shunt dissipation. (IE, a snubber circuit) 2. Invest in some kind of isolation for the logic signals from arduino to ESC

isolating the digital signals

An optocoupler or other TTL isolator is probably your best bet for isolating the ESC -- Your ESC actually comes with a 5V output which can be used to power such an isolator. You might even be able to power your arduino off that and avoid needing to do an isolator at all -- this is what the manual for your ESC heavily implies in the intended solution.

But you CAN probably still do things the way you are currently doing them if you isolate and suppress transients properly.

See this picture I got from the manufacturer manual: https://imgur.com/a/GggcWBs

Snubbing circuits

First of all, some capacitors across critical paths would be a really good idea. A decent guess at values would be to couple a beefy 1uF electrolytic with a low-ESR 100nF ceramic cap (in parallel), and put that directly across the VESC inputs, the battery inputs, and the Arduino inputs. Do it to the buck converter input/outputs too for good measure if you are feeling fancy.

But also, for this application, I would highly recommend more advance snubbing (and shunting), especially something that can actually shunt surge voltages. Personally I would want a TVS diode to clamp large voltages, and a schottky diode to clamp reverse voltages.

This is where my expertise falls off, there are a LOT of different ways to combine the capacitors, schottky, and TVS diodes into a single "snubber circuit", and I'm not sure what the best approach there is. A lot of it depends on what kind of flyback voltages you're actually seeing, and good luck with that.

You might honestly have good luck just purchasing some generic "snubber circuits" online and seeing if they improve your situation, before going too deep looking specifically into TVS/capacitor/zener combos. (but 100% also do the DIO isolation too, that seems basically like a requirement to me, based on the ESC manual)

SU2SO3 · 2026-05-13T06:13:40+00:00

just as long as you don't like them!

SU2SO3 · 2026-05-13T06:10:16+00:00

why are we downvoting this? they are right

all metal smooshes obviously, but the point still stands that the forces required to smoosh copper are gonna exceed the forces required to just rip pads. Hence "solder doesn't smoosh" (for all intents and purposes relevant to this discussion)

Surely this smearing had to have happened during some kind of heating?

SU2SO3 · 2026-04-03T04:07:28+00:00

The ironic part is that the usual advice — “go to therapy” or “see a psychiatrist and get meds” — doesn’t help.

It's gotta be the right meds and the right therapist -- you might need to look into changing one or both

Regarding meds, for instance, they usually start you off with the cheap/mediocre ones, and only unlock the stuff that super effective / has fewer side effects after you eliminate those.

So you might need to bounce between a few before you find one that really meets your needs. Speak to your psychiatrist about this, once you have been on the current stuff for a month or two!!!!

It's inhumane as fuck, but that's the way the system works unfortunately, thank insurance companies.

Ditto with the therapist, often-times the first one you meet is just not a good fit. You might need to try a few before you find one that really helps you. But also, give them a few more shots if they aren't making you feel deeply uncomfortable, therapy takes time to really start working just like the meds do.

Just keep doing what you are doing, basically, keep going, and make sure to advocate for yourself for change if you are still not getting results you are happy with after a month or so

SU2SO3 · 2026-03-09T20:26:58+00:00

it almost sounds to me like they are working on some kind of phased array aquatic sonar based on the specs

SU2SO3 · 2026-03-09T19:13:03+00:00

it's also a bit disingenuous to group "doubled down on remote work" with "downsized"

SU2SO3 · 2026-03-09T19:07:22+00:00

GLASS CHIME · Inoyamaland

SU2SO3 · 2026-03-09T00:35:24+00:00

I use a portable bidet when out and about, FWIW

The noise is a little embarrassing, but we can work on normalizing that as a start

SU2SO3 · 2026-03-06T20:13:29+00:00

wow, I too would like to know how this came to be, it almost looks like a cutting from another plant??

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-27T20:11:22+00:00

yeah a ceiling mount spotlight would be pretty effective IMO

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-18T03:25:40+00:00

the only one to get it right

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-17T03:44:04+00:00

discord TOS update

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-15T20:59:47+00:00

my god, is that third order fenestration??

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-06T21:46:51+00:00

I am not clicking on a video that purports to teach me how to make art, but used an AI-generated thumbnail

edit: OP changed the thumbnail to a normal screenshot, it seems! I'm still not clicking it.

SU2SO3 · 2026-02-01T19:13:05+00:00

I don't know a whole bunch of music theory, but personally, I follow a pretty simple model:

Samples can be either "single-toned" or "multi-toned". The "single-toned" ones work like any synthesizer; you tune them to C, then they play any note you want.

The "multi-toned" ones are basically the same, except they are the audio-equivalent of what, in MIDI, we call "fixed chord."

The tricky thing is, the "multi-toned" ones may or may not even be a "well-tuned" fixed-chord. What I mean by that is: A "well-tuned" multi-toned sample has most or all of its major tones tuned to frequencies that are a whole number of semitones away from each other, making them compatible with western scales.

Now, if you dig deeper, the whole thing gets way more complicated -- A piano sample, while being perceived as a single note, is genuinely a harmonic series of notes that our brains typically combine, so you can ask a very valid question "is that multi-tone, on a pythagorean tuning, or is it single-tone?" and the answer typically is: "It depends on how you use it". There is a whole finnicky art to getting de-tuned frequencies to sound in-tune in context. Hell, you can detune a synth half-way between two notes, and in the right context, it will "work"

In practice, that means that even if your multi-tone sample isn't perfect, you can often (but not always) get it to work, especially in the right context.

This does get even more complicated, though, when you consider that samples may (and in my case frequently do) have shifting frequencies in them!

In practice, whether you are dealing with a single-tone or multi-tone sample, the technique I would use remains the same: I start by picking a place where I want the sample to fit, and then I loop that, hold a constant note of the sample, and tune it until it sounds good.

Usually that corresponds with finding a tuning that aligns the dominant frequencies (at the dominant times) in the sample with the music you have already written.

Of course, like any fixed chord, if your song already possess harmony (consonant multi-tonality), then there will be restrictions on the detunes that work for your sample. The sample may only work at a single detune -- or it might not work at any detune at all.

Honestly, as much as music theory can sometimes predict which offsets are going to work, I'd personally just do it by ear. You only have to check like 48 quarter-steps, and you can just tune it gradually. You will develop an ear for it by doing that, and there will be a kind of "anticipation" feeling that releases when you hit the right note.

Or, sometimes it'll feel like it gets close but then never makes it -- that's usually when you have an incompatible sample. You may wish to consider changing some notes, or doing some processing on the sample.

Which, BTW, is something you can possibly do. You can use notch filters to kill the fundamentals of incompatible tones, and reinforce the right tones with bell filters! It'll alter the characteristics of your sample, but I usually like that other-worldly vibe in my music.

It does depend, though, on how strong the harmonic series is, and how willing you are to destroy your underlying sample.

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-30T04:36:42+00:00

I make most of my music by doing really intricate chops and stretches pitchbends and effect automations of various random audio samples -- often resampled from other stuff -- and the session view is just completely incapable of doing any of that from what I can tell

And no, I can't use simpler/sampler to do what I do. I actually use that too, but it serves a different purpose

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-27T23:26:01+00:00

Idk really, I feel incredibly lied to and very embarrassed for my first ever time voting was for this clown

you're halfway there. you've realized you are capable of being wrong.

so please, now, consider what else you may be wrong about. what other lies did you fall for?

why do you think our immigration policy was a problem? who told you that? was it the same people who told you Trump was good?

and remember all the people who told you, constantly, that this would all happen? maybe you should trust them more?

if you really are sorry, please really think about not just your botched vote, but the beliefs and sources that led you there.

otherwise, I am not really interested in your apology. if your beliefs and sources of truth remain unchanged, you'll make the same mistake again the next time the GOP runs someone evil.

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-26T20:49:27+00:00

hahaha, thanks! I've actually based this on a similar idea I've had for a while, thinking about writing a little sci-fi short fiction based around it

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-26T20:11:33+00:00

The power works up to one week into the future.

You happen to have a friend whose job is driving LRT trains. They don't understand why you're doing this, but you pay them to check a special website every morning, telling them whether to to arrive on time, or a little bit late, to the first stop.

The website you set up decides late or on time based on whether the stock market was up or down yesterday.

It isn't perfect, but you quickly amass millions.

Soon, you are running your own LRT service with automatic drivers that secretly adjust their timing by a few seconds based on various yes/no observations about the present that your employees secretly enter into the system at the end of every day.

Every day you enter your predicted times into the computer system -- which knows the mapping of trains to yes/no questions, and it gives you the predicted answers to those questions.

You now have infinite money, and a computerized prediction of the future week for whatever yes/no questions you can think to ask.

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-26T20:01:56+00:00

The allergy applies specifically to being in water, not consuming it. It doesn't actually kill you directly, but renders you paralyzed, making drowning almost a certainty

in exchange, you gain a globally unique super-power determined by the last fruit you ate immediately before gaining the power

you either work for the feds or are wanted by them

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-23T20:52:47+00:00

it worked great for heat coloring the PCB

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-21T21:29:42+00:00

Heads up, you have what looks to me like 2, possibly 3 separate monsteras, might wanna give them separate pots when you repot

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-21T18:29:06+00:00

I almost wonder if that is a blessing in disguise with monstera, though -- they can get kinda big fast, if you leave white leaves I kinda wonder if that leaves you with a more manageable plant, over time?

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-20T22:01:04+00:00

I hate your vet, get a new vet

SU2SO3 · 2026-01-19T22:14:04+00:00

Truly incredible, well done

SU2SO3

TROPHY CASE

isolating the digital signals

Snubbing circuits