Most of us know about all the Aliexpress craptastic “mountainboards” that get thrown around for super cheap prices. There haven’t been too many real mountainboards out there from the China side of things, minus maybe Propel and Cycleagle.
Does this change now? Maybe. Ecomobl is a very interesting company, and currently (I think) the only company investigating / using planetary gear drives on their boards. Well, just recently, Ecomobl has had some more interesting developments.
The first of these is the Ripper. I remember first seeing pictures of the Ripper a few weeks ago, maybe more than that. The Ripper is Ecomobl’s first real mountainboard. Their other boards are kind of like mountainboards, but the Ripper is the first with a deck similar to what most of us would consider “built for offroading.” It also features channel trucks, which are actuated by springs rather than bushings.
With that into consideration, the main benefit of this is that the battery is top mounted, so when you run over rocks and whatnot, you never have battery or enclosure damage. You can see the ripper below:
While it’s not as pretty as some of our mountainboards, it’s a decent first go in my opinion. So what are the specs?
Hm. Interesting.
Allegedly, you are able to swap the battery, which weighs approx 8kg. The whole board allegedly weighs 23kg, according to the site.
In terms of drivetrain, we’ve got two 8 inch AT wheel planetary gear drives. These seem similar to ones used in the past, and my guess is that they’re pretty much identical to the ones used in previous boards. I’ve heard good and bad things about them.
Here’s their marketing jargon:
As for the battery, apparently it is simply a 12s4p, adding up to 768wh. I’m not really sure what cell that is, but using the calculator, it seems like it should be 4400 mAh cells, which doesn’t really make sense to me, but who knows. Could be some cell I’m not familiar with.
This image confuses me as to what they’re trying to actually say here. Usually when people talk about C ratings they’re talking about Lipos. Could this be lipos? Most likely not, but very odd terminology.
The other mechanical parts on here are the deck, which appears to be made of wood, and then the trucks, which are ecomobl’s spring trucks. No idea how good these are, but that’s what they’ve got.
The ESC appears to be some kind of Lingyi by its shape and size, apparently configured for 55 amps. I would assume this is 55amps per motor, but not sure.
Anyways, that’s most of the facts about the Ripper.
The more recent development is this bad boy: the Telum, the Telum Pro, and the Telum BA. Why are there three entirely different models? Not really sure, but that’s how they chose to do it. Let’s break these down a bit. And WOW look at those prices. Talk about premium.
So what have we got here?
Staring at these pictures for a while, you’ll see some similarities. At the base level, all three seem to use the same trucks, same motors, same esc’s, same deck, and same battery enclosure. However, they are all laid out slightly differently.
Oh wait… There are some similarities here to the Ripper. Same battery, same motors, and same battery enclosure? Could that also be the same trucks, and the same esc? I think so. So I guess you’re paying a premium for the carbon fiber deck?
Starting with the Telum base model, it appears to be basically identical to the Ripper, minus the deck.
After looking at the page, it seems like the only difference I could find was that the esc is supposedly configured for 55A instead of 50.
Next up, we have the Telum pro, which at first glance appears to just be a 4WD version of the Telum. However, the other major upgrade is the battery. With the Telum pro, you get a 12s6p battery instead of a 12s4p.
Now, to me, the battery enclosure looks exactly the same, so I have to wonder, is there some weird picture error going on here, or does the 12s4p have space for more cells in its enclosure?
The only other upgrade I was able to see here is that allegedly the ESC is configured for 60A, instead of 55A, like on the base Telum.
Finally, we come to the big boy. The Telum BA. Oh wait. Almost everything is exactly the same… HMMMM. So what’s different?
I guess, the main difference here, is that you get the 10 inch tires with it, and the ESC is configured for 65A instead of 60, as with the Telum Pro. I can’t really tell what else is different here, seems to be the same battery, deck, trucks, motors, enclosure, bindings… You get the point. So why the insane premium price? Couldn’t tell you! Maybe Ecomobl will release more info about it later but man, you could build an INSANE DIY for that kind of money.
Use this thread to discuss your thoughts about these new mountainboards, and talk about how ridiculous they are, good or bad.
I’m intending to reach out to Ecomobl to see if I can have one of these to beat up and review for you guys, but we’ll see how that goes. I would love to compare it to a real mtb like my haero, and see if it even can hold a candle to something like the boardnamics gear drives, and a real 12s7p of p42a, with quality tires and matrix 2 trucks.
