Clandestino I | Landyachtz Evo 40 (Hydro dipped) | Helical Gear Drive | Kahua Trucks | MK IV VESCs

This build would not have seen the light of day without this awesome and crazy forum - so a huge thanks and shout out to everyone out there for your generous help and advice along the way and to all those that keep the fire burning or are just getting ignited!

Prologue

I first discovered eskating in the pre-Covid-19 world in spring 2019 on a Trampa mountainboard (MTB) with a belt drive. Here’s some footage from one of my first rides.

In the summer of 2019, this board was then upgraded with a 1:5.8 helical spur gear drive. Although this increased the board’s ability to go uphill offroad significantly (and in particular at slower speeds), it did not make it any lighter of course, and with more than 20 kg the board appeared to be somewhat impratical for commuting (illegally unfortunately, see e.g. the terra incognita) to work on a daily basis. Thus, I began to look for alternatives.

Background

Commercial boards I: Evolve Carbon GTR All Terrain

At around 12 kg, a range of about 15-20 km (with my riding style), a top speed of 30-35 km/h, a much smaller turning radius than the Trampa MTB and its ability to carve turns on and offroad, the Evolve Carbon GTR All Terrain appeared to be such an alternative at first.

However, in just about 3 months I burned 3 motors and 1 ESC. Moreover, whenever I went offroad and/or uphill the motors overheated within 1-3 minutes and the mode automatically changed from GTR to so called PRO resulting in loss of power and performance. Thus, although I loved the carvy feel of the board with its double kingpin (DKP) trucks (I changed the original bushings to Venom Downhill HPF with a green (93A, I think) and a red (90A, I think) on the bottom and top, respectively), I soon got very tired of its unreliability with motors and ESCs repeatedly braking and Evolve charging more than 400€ for a repair (1 motor + 1 motor controller (I guess that is the ESC?))! Perhaps I could do better?

Commercial boards II: Backfire Mini

With about 6 kg and its small form factor the Backfire Mini appeared to me like a pretty good board for my daily commutes to work. Furthermore and perhaps even more importantly, from the outside the Mini looks very much like a normal non-electric skateboard which can be advantageous in retrogressive countries like Germany in which esk8 is illegal. With a range of about 10-15 km and a top speed of 30 km/h it seemed worth a try. However, the Mini does use urethane wheels which are not suitable for my travels which often include bad roads and also some offroad passages. I therefore recently upgraded the Mini with 105 mm Cloud wheels.

This has further decreased the range from 10-15 km to about 5-10 km and especially braking power on downhill slopes, but I very much prefer this setup to urethane wheels (please also see IWonder Pulley for HUB motors). However, the setup may not be stable and pose potential risks and serious dangers, as has been pointed out by others in the above mentioned thread. I will continue testing it.

First build: Clandestino I

Clandestino I



Components


  • Deck: Landyachtz Evo 40

  • Trucks: Kahua from @haggyboard.timo

  • Baseplates: Kahua from @haggyboard.timo in the back and Hammock adjustable baseplate from @rey8801 in the front

  • Drive: Mini 1:4 helical gear drive from @NoWind (E-Toxx)

  • Motors: 2 x 6376 160 KV 3800 W from @Trampa

  • Wheels: 150 mm Bergmeister pneumatics from @haggyboard.timo

  • Battery: 12S3P P42A Molicel from @tinp123

  • Enclosure: Double stack from @eBoosted

  • VESC: 2 x MK IV from @Trampa

  • Connectivity module: NRF51 V1.0 wireless dongle from @Trampa to connect to the VESC app on Android and the Wand remote

  • Remote: Wand from @Trampa

  • Heatsink: VESC6 plate from @3DServisas

  • Brackets: FatBoy X Plate Longboard Trucks Braket from @3DServisas

  • Bolts & Screws: Largely from Jäger Schrauben


Details of the build


Hydro dipping the board and the enclosure

First, I hydro dipped the deck and added glass frit followed by the enclosure (first hydro dip that actually worked!).

Mounting the enclosure

Although this excellent tutorial here helped me a lot, I was still a little afraid of this step, and therefore decided to first test it on a nearby Landyachtz Evo 36 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. Using duct tape I secured the enclosure in the middle of the board and then started drilling with a 3 mm drill to mark the deck. I then took the enclosure off the board and increased the drill size step by step from 3 up to 8 mm on the deck and 10 mm on the enclosure, respectively, on the initially drilled holes as described in Pavel’s tutorial mentioned above.


It worked fairly well on the Evo 36 deck so I switch to the real thing using the same technique.


Small insert holes

Final size of insert holes

clandestino1_-6

clandestino1_-7

I used Rampa socket type SK M5 10 mm as inserts which could fortunately be drilled in fairly easily.


First alignment of the enclosure to the board looked promising.

Next, I followed the enclosure’s shape outlined by the inserts with a sticky rubber band, cutting it away from or around the inserts (first with nail scissors which proved more or less impossible and then with a scapel which proved slightly more successful).

Attaching cable glands (IP68) to the enclosure

This was rather straight forward. I simply drilled holes with successively increasing the drill size from 4 to 10 mm (similar as for drilling the holes in the enclosure) and then used a file until the correct diameter for the glands was reached.

However, I made a big mistake in drilling the holes for the cable glands too far away from the deck in an upward position on the enclosure resulting in an unnecessary tight space and steep angle of the motor cables - something I only realized when I got the drive with the motors mounted, of course, and was actually standing on the deck to get a first feel for it. Although I could eventually compensate this with cable binders it would have been much better had I given this issue more thought initially or simpy looked more carefully at the tons of other Evo builds out there!

Attaching the heatsink to the enclosure and mounting the MK IV VESCs onto it

Before cutting with a dremel I made a template that was a little smaller than the heat sink from 4 pieces of paper and then drew an outline of that template on the enclosure (in the shadow in the picture below).

I then spend a long time with a file to get the perfect cut and failed miserably. Again, I found it very difficult to file a straight and not a somewhat angled line.

Next, I added some adhesive foam around the edges inside the eclosure.

After inserting the heat sink and attaching it to the enclosure, I sealed off the edges of the cutted hole with lots of sugru before attaching the MK IV VESCs.

Intermezzo: (adjustable) baseplates, trucks, and motors

Because of particular shape of the Evo deck, I thought that I would have to use adjustable baseplates to set the angle of the axles/trucks correctly, and Alessio was so kind to send me some of his Hammocks. It turned out, however, that the motors were too big and hitting the baseplate in the middle (see video below). Once again doing justice to my noobie background, this was something that I only realized when I finally got the trucks mounted and was actually standing on the deck. Thus, in the back I changed back to the Kahua baseplates, but kept the adjustable Hammocks in the front.

Intermezzo: bloody cable ties

Since I incorrectly positioned the cable glands too far away from the deck on the enclosure (see above), I had to use cable ties to keep the motor cables sufficiently far away from the motors. To this end, I had to drill another 4 holes into the deck at a specific position which was easy to localize but inaccessible from the bottom and thus had to be more or less guessed from the top. After drilling the holes I enlarged them with a file which can also easily be used to cause some blood spill, I found out.

Electronics

Thanks to @tinp123 and Dave from Trampa connecting all things electronic inside the enclosure and to the MK IV VESCs in particular was a piece of cake. Labelled photos below on how to connect the power button to the VESCs are a courtesy of Dave.

This is how it looked like in my case:

As you can see in above pictures, I almost fucked up big time again by placing the power switch not in the back but much too far in front of the enclosure. Luckily, the 12S3P double stack battery still fitted just a few millimeters in front of that protuding power switch and I was thus able to close the enclosure - it just took me about 1 hour or so and I was kneeling on it to align with the threaded inserts.

Before that though I thought it could not be wrong to run motor detection. Here’s what I got and a first test.

As already mentioned above, kneeling on the enclosure and repeated tightening of the screws then resulted in good fit of the enclosure to the deck leaving almost no gap between the two.

Waterproofing

Where I live it rains at least 1 time per day and usually that’s when I either have to go to work or go home, of course. Overall, I expect to ride more in the rain than in the sunshine; thus, trying to make the board waterproof or at least water-resistant is very important to me. Luckily, I got a pretty snug fit of the enclosure to the deck which, I thought, would be a good starting point to smear some sugru all along it and the deck, and that is what I did. Finally, I first cutted and then drilled a small hole into a silicon wedge kind of thing (whatever they are called?) and inserted this wedge into the charging port. Together with sealing the heat sink as depicted above, I hope I will be able to ride this board even if the streets are flooded. However, only time will tell, I guess.

30 Likes

Wow @hans_maier :star_struck: super sweet build :call_me_hand:

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Thanks a lot for all your help along the way! :partying_face:

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That looks sooooo sweet! Very clean build bro! Great documentation too!

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so colourful, love it

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I don’t really know what I’m looking at but whatever it is, its probably one of the coolest first build evos. Also excellent documentation. I love ALL of it. I do recommend adding a layer of epoxy on top of that sugru because sugru is decent for sealing but not the best as far as adhesives go. But again, everything is gorgeous :heart_eyes:

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Good idea, thanks a lot!

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Nice aesthetics

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Wow. Really nice build. Hydrodripping is really awesone

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Thanks again for your fantastic adjustable base plates and all your advice along the way! You and others made me realize that I could not really use TB DD - at least not with a 2 WD setup - with all terrain wheels and therefore went for the helical gear drive.

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My pleasure. Ah for sure DD and tyre don’t match nice. We need way lower Kv for those. The board is really sick

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Looks pretty nice man I love the colors

The motor wires sketch me out a little bit but it’s aight

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Yep, I should have mounted the cable glands much closer to the deck on the enclosure. That’s probably one of the biggest noobie mistakes of this build, although there are several … However, I got lucky, as the cable ties route the motor wires just sufficiently far away from the motors even at fairly tight turns, i.e. when the deck is strongly tilted.

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DUUUUDE NOOOOO WHY DID U DRILL HOLES!?!?

You should have looked for P clips!!!

Its still a nice build though, love the hydrodip.

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Right, that would have even saved me half a cup of blood or so :crazy_face:, thanks man!

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Yah glad i could help :rofl: nah man great first build!

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Freaking sweet dude. Are you a Manu Chao fan?

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I like Manu Chao, yes. The name Clandestino, however, refers even more to my clandestine riding style that I am obliged to practise whenever I step on my visually not-so-clandestine board in a country (Germany) where esk8 is illegal. It is characterized by a raised awareness of your surroundings and a constant look over your shoulders; in short, in means clandestine riding like a thief.

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What a colorful build! Very well done. Also, I didnt know Etoxx’s gear drive fit the Kahuas. Did you have to do any modification to fit? Or do they all click into place.

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Thanks, Linny, means a lot that you like the build. It is the first time that @NoWind fitted his mini gear drive to the Kahuas, I think, and he was quite excited about this new project himself. Jens did all the work on that so I guess you would have to ask him directly about the details, since I got it kind of ready made.

4 Likes