No, this isn’t an attempt at sneaking in a build thread right before 2019 ends to enter the best build competition. This is a belated thread for my first build, which I started last Summer, and “completed” this May. (Everyone knows a build is never truly finished)
The main point of this thread is to give new builders an idea of what problems they may face, and how to avoid them, by learning from my mistakes.
Goals
- Dual drive because I want to ride on the streets, and traction is important.
- Cheap, because I am funding it from my 1st ever job/internship.
- Reliable, because I want to get it right the 1st time.
- Air-travel safe, because I study abroad.
Parts list
- Deck: 38" DB Freeride DT from sickboards 87€
- Trucks: Caliber 2 trucks from Sickboards 65€
- Wheels: Caguamas 70€
- Motors: 2x Torqueboards 6355 180$
- Motor mount: Torqueboards old mount 120$
- Pulleys: 14:36 from Torqueboards 100$
- Battery: 12s2p from @pjotr47 with LG HB6 – 60A discharge, 131.4Wh (260€ I think)
- ESC: 2x Focboxes from Enertion 220€
- Remote: Nano X from Enertion 40€
- Enclosure: “I’ll DIY it” (40€ from esk8.de later)
- risers and hardware: at least 20€
- Griptape: 20€
- Charger: 20€
Total (without counting tools + screws + loctite + buying replacement parts): 1198€
Add a couple hundred to that for the real cost. Let’s say 1500€ in total.
The main mistake of my build was not following @b264’s order in which you should plan by:
Because of this mistake, I ended up having to use duct-tape to hold all my internals until I could both
- find an enclosure that fit my deck
- wait for it to arrive.
I replaced the duct tape once every 2 weeks, basically before it would have worn out / lost its stickiness.
Eventually I got an enclosure made out of ABS plastic from esk8.de, which is quite bad. All it holds is my ESCs. The battery I attached with velcro and screws to the deck with threaded inserts, which I bought at a furniture store, and turned out to be horrible because they would break when I screwed them into the wood.
Despite having a discharge capable BMS (which ended up being a very smart decision because loopkeys are sketch and there weren’t any durable anti-sparks at the time), the button I ordered from china ended up being a momentary push switch, but I needed a latching one. I ended up using the switch from a broken lamp instead, and never got to the point of replacing it lol.
Another major downside of my board was the battery. I got the skilled battery builder @pjotr47 to make it for me, and used cells that would make the total capacity below 160Wh so that I could legally fly with it in the EU. (Which I did twice)
It’s a great battery, just the range really sucks. In hilly Scotland I get a range of about 4.5km, which is barely enough to get to uni. So I would have to charge 2h at uni with my slow charger, and only then I could get home. In flat Latvia I get around 6km – enough to get to and from the post office 
Also, because the cells are held with spacers, the battery is quite safe imo, however it takes a lot of space. So much, in fact, that I could replace it with my brother’s 10s4p battery this summer while his board was broken 
As you may have noticed, I painted the top of my deck in an attempt to give it some style. The paint job ended up pretty ugly because of the uneven edge where the masking tape went. I recommend painting the entire deck, not just 1 side. I also upgraded from 80a caguamas to 77a blue ones, which match the color of the deck once they get dirty. I picked caguamas over flywheels because of cost, and durability. These wheels do not chunk. the 77a ones are actually really good, they are nearly as comfortable as Evolve’s new 97mm GTR wheels, despite being much smaller and lighter.
Another lesson I learned the hard way is that velcro cannot be trusted. I used heavy duty original brand velcro to add these lights to my board, and… both fell off and I only found one lol. That’s why I used screws to secure velcro strips to my deck, which wrap around the battery to hold it secure. So far so good, but I recommend getting a fiberglass enclosure that can hold the weight of your battery instead.
After riding my board for a while, I realized that 14T really is problematic for the drive pulley, because of belt slippage. Also, I had become a speed addict, and wanted to go faster, so I upgraded to 18T pulleys. I had to increase my motor amps, but they work perfectly – no more slipping! Honestly work better than my brother’s mount with a single idler, because his belt still slips on heavy breaking. I’m a firm believer in lower kv motors and larger drive pulleys now.
As you may have noticed in the picture above, my mounts were not in line with the wheels. This is because Caliber trucks are horribly soft and my 2 piece TB mounts couldn’t be tightened to stay level. This is no longer a problem thanks to the new 3 piece design, so be sure to check what your mount uses. Also, I recommend forged or precision (CNC milled) trucks, because calibers do bend slightly under heavy usage.
I later fixed the belt alignment issues by using spacers between motors and their mounts. I don’t have a picture to show, so please ask if you’re interested.
Other issues I've encountered during this journey:
- Old TB motors would have the can get loose from the shaft, causing noise, overheating, slippage, i.e. a bad time. New ones have grub screws secured with green loctite, seems to be holding fine so far.
- I switched to an APS remote because I wanted a trigger remote, and it will set itself up wrong on startup if you are holding the trigger, so be sure not to touch it when turning it on if you have one.
- Vibrations will destroy bad soldering connections
- Turning your focboxes on after using them in canbus mode will kill them if they’re not v1.7. Gonna try to revive mine now…
- Had to replace my pivot cups because they broke loose from riding. Went with ones a bit too hard, but meh
- Use angled risers to eliminate speed wobbles
- Although keeping your weight forward is what people recommend, my board actually gets wobbles unless I keep pressure on the back as well to make sure the rear is engaged. I’m running a 59, 35 split I believe.
- Angled risers make inserting the hardware very difficult – use different baseplates / custom angled baseplates / deck that changes the angles itself. (Like an evo)
- I wanted more grip, so I bought viscous grip tape and ended up with the design seen in the first picture. It’s tearing off slowly and breaks apart, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
- Use neutral cure silicon. I used a smelly one for gluing a silicon baking sheet underneath my enclosure in a futile attempt at “waterproofing” it. The enclosure started breaking after a few days near the screw holes, so no real point. Anyway, the smell was horrible, and took over a week outside to go away enough for me to be able to assemble it again.
- Battery percentage monitor is better to be external rather than always connected to your board. I recommend this:
- Don’t ride on wet leaves, be careful in the wet. Urethane slips like soap.
- Wera hex keys break easily. Tbf I bought the stainless steel version, but still.
- Buy proper soldering equipment. You want your iron tinned, and powerful enough for whatever you plan to do. Also, use quality hobbyking wire that’s flexible, instead of stiff hardware store crap.
- Battery’s can discharge far more amps than they can charge with – I have my battery set to 20A charge despite it only supporting 8A from the spec sheet. I wouldn’t recommend just a 2p battery out of 18650 cells for this reason alone.
- Use loctite. Let it dry. Push-fit drive pulleys are amazing, try to plan your build to use those rather than the bolt on ones which require lots of loctite and waiting for it to cure. It’s not fun having your bolts fall out while on the road lol.
My top speed was around 48km/h when I had my 14:36 pulley ratio (which has enough torque to throw me off), but now it’s 58km/h with the 18:36 ratio. The higher speed definitely kills the range some more due to increased air drag.
That’s all I have to say for now. Happy new-year everyone! 
More build threads will follow shortly
