Got any matrix 3 adapter’s that don’t have sunlight coming through the fucking sides where you mulled it through?
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No,
The Matrix III profile does not perfectly fit inside a 30mm circle, so physically this is what makes it possible.
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Hi kevaball can we have a file for the straight cut wheel gears on the M1-AT?
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I second this. I have 3 drives I wanna swap to straight cuts
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We could do a group buy of gears from PCBway!
Hey @ShutterShock I bet you could nag a big discount if you made a video
I also have a brand new set of drives I wanna swap to straight cuts
I can get another run of gears made (the last to exist) but I need to check pricing first. Seems like an order of 15 would suffice. The gears are not able to be 3D printed or cut from just any steel so I am hesitant to give files away freely.
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Are you planning on coming back to these gear drives as a product one day? At what point will you tell us if you’re in or out of the business? I don’t mean this in a sassy way. I just genuinely want to know so I know when would be appropriate to ask for these files.
They don’t have to become unobtainium, we can save them.
Can we group buy the rights to the production files 
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Curious what specifically that would be difficult to obtain or would be ill-suited for esk8. Granted I might be down-playing the amount of force/shock that people at the high end are applying to various parts of their boards. Having done a cursory glance, I’d assume 4340 would be sufficient but I’ve been out of the steel-fab industry for over 10 years at this point.
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Granted mine are mod1.5 but I’ve been abusing lasercut gears (even teeth being laser cut) from 4130 chromoly and they are holding up great. Didn’t even harden them more than the laser itself did.
Were 30$ each from sendcutsend with a quantity of 8. 78T mod 1.5, so 120mm diameter.
I did manage to snap half a teeth off an M1AT drive’s pinion before going to mod1.5, I do abuse my stuff pretty hard on the raceboard.
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This is the main reason I’ve switched from bn products. Cant tell if bn is working or if bn is dead. Would love a set of straight cuts, 70mm axles, adjustable baseplates but not really willing to play the “eskate is dead” chicken. I’ve just been going other places for my needs. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ if it’s dead be done with it already lol
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We need more gear drives, and standardised interfaces between vendors to help prevent what’s become regular obsolescence though unobtanium.
Gear drives, their mounting methods, availabilty, motor shafts, and wheel options are more inconsistent than methods for mounting disc brakes to a bike was in '98.
I like my BN street gears, but it seems the entire world still isn’t a big enough market that production is profitable or scalable?
If so, is the DIY market shrinking as consumer level boards are now sufficient for the average consumer?
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He doesnt want to give up the goods(files for gears) LOL
Honestly something I was flirting with myself in lieu of running chains. Glad to hear 4130 off the laser was working well. I would be surprised if I ever really put that much shock loading on my boards but im only hitting 15-20 on mountain bike trails in my area and still chicken out of most jumps at speed.
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True, and it’s his ip to protect but it just doesn’t make sense to me. When im done with something im done, i just hand it off to the next guy to have a go with it. Im a filthy socialist and dont care to horde anything beyond my current hyper fixation though so grain of salt here necessary
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Because of the lack of standardized parts, the m1at interface was great because of how it integrated with the hanger - don’t have to add extra complexity with clamp alignment and even on the most beefy hanger (matrix 3) the adapter is essentially a shim so having it cut clean through still works.
Not holding my breath for straight cuts - even if a run was done it would take 9 months to ship so they get properly aged in a garage waiting for kevball to find a fuck to give.
Not a dig any more than just pointing out that Kevin doesn’t want to make and supply parts for diy - not his jam and that’s fine. Let bn die
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@jack.luis suggested he was working on an open-source design.
I agree, the number of gear drives around that are impossible to replace or have so many modular parts that make them irrelevant from board to board. But that isnt a design failure of the gear-drive but of the various hangers out there. If you want to have a drive that has the widest functionality you make sure you can fit on as much of the market as possible.
Esk8 is a pretty small market as it stands, its even smaller when you start talking about DIY centric parts that people are interested in buying. So yeah I would be surprised if you could reasonably offset a modest wage doing a parts-shop like BN even at scale. Also Gear Drives are usually a buy-once situation. So dont have a post-sale reason for customers to come back unless they build a new board. I cant speak to the economics of it but my understanding is that esk8 parts is a dead-end if there is pretty much any labor involved.
Also for every electric skateboard (diy or pre-built) I see, I see probably 5x scooters and 10x onewheels. They’re significantly more available, better advertised and in the case of scooters cheaper and easier to learn how to ride. I’d argue that Esk8 as a whole is shrinking in all spaces (entry, mid and high end) due to eScooters, OneWheels and EUC’s for people looking at “no fuss” PEVs to do anything with.
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The open source might be a good idea. I’ve always believed there isn’t money to be made in eskate. Especially from New Zealand unless you’re Evolve, who have just closed their NZ distribution and handle it from AUS.
I think you’re right. Just because I have about ten eboards plus the boards I plan to build enclosures and batteries for lying around my house, car and office doesn’t mean that’s normal behavior.
I’m surprised though. Pointing a board around the street with sketchy little wheels and a big light on my helmet hits the same spot as DH biking. I really thought it would become more popular.
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Esk8 is a small market, but i see as many production boards as i see one wheels. Skateboards are a small section of the micro mobility ecosystem.
Big flagship boards are an even smaller section of the eskate market. Little thane boards you can easily pick up and carry are the bread and butter offerings of most brands. Low power and 8-20 miles of range and less than 30mph. But just look at longboard manufacturers - there are a million dead truck manufacturers and deck builders. It’s just not a profitable venture. You kinda gotta love it to make it work but it won’t be a viable business venture if you’re trying to make a bunch of money. As soon as the passionate owner moves on the company dies.
It’s not a badge of honor to hang on past sunset, it’s a hindrance to the next generation of entrepreneurs. What would be nice is if everyone didn’t take their ball and go home when they were done - the rest of us are still playing .
Need to start a pirate bay of skate like roger chargers or randal compatible baseplates. Paris, caliber, randal truck geometry is so prevalent because it’s good and also not some ip fight. Find a hanger and it works with any of the baseplates.
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Yeah, i mean… Absolutely no shade to Kevin but none of his designs would take me more than 1hr with some calipers to clone in CAD.* I’ve already made a fair start on doing that, for my own purposes. The only reason I haven’t pursued that more seriously is because Kevin cant seem to decide if he’s done yet, and I dont want to step on any toes if he’s not done.
*The reverse engineering into CAD is the easy part. The hard parts are building out engineering drawings which call out all the critical dimensions correctly, and establishing a relationship with a manufacturer who we can trust to fulfill those critical dimensions.
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