Community Board Project X

Chricious · October 10, 2019, 12:00pm

Hey everyone, I like to introduce you to the Community Board. The Community Board was board straight out of the community wishes and needs for a better performing ESK8 for our group rides. We are with over 100 riders the largest ESK8 group ride community in Germany located in NRW (Düsseldorf/Cologne area) and organize group rides on weekly basis during the summer time. Since our group grew bigger and bigger, our rides got also more extended and the need of faster boards with higher range come up. The only problem is, that the vast majority of us already has one of the best performing boards on the market. If you are aksking yourself now what we are riding, I can tell you, that most of us are riding GTRs since the European headquater of Evolve is located in our City and we really appreciate a reliable local customer service. As you can see, for some of us 40km-50km of range in street setup or 25-30km in AT setup and 36km/h-46km/h is just not enough. There are for sure alternatives with higher top speed and higher range out there, like LaCroix, KalyNYC or BajaBoards, but like I said we really appreciate a local customer service for every eventuality, just in case. Further we would like to avoid high shipping costs, custom duties, long waiting time and gerneral problems regarding the import of ESK8s from non EU countries. So it felt just natural for us to building our own boards that fit our individual needs and purposes. After facing some major DIY problems finding the right parts or paying a super high premium with high minimum order quantitys for customized parts, we were thinking about alternatives. Since not everyone of us is able to produce ESK8 parts by himself and not everybody who just likes to ride a better board enjoys the process through a DIY build, we decided to make our own small production series of high performance boards. So everyone who feels the need of more performance during group rides can fulfill his wishes and compensate the lack of power his actual board offers him or her. So far to our background story.

Let’s go the hard facts. We are aiming to build an ESK8 with high power, high range, unquestionable reliability and unique driving experience. All paird with a customer service located in Germany. The parts of the board should be also made a far as possible in Germany or Europe and we prefer to work with local manufactures to provide a sustainable, environmentally friendly production with short transportation ways and a high grade of customization and quick adaptation to improvements.

We also did some survays to figure out what most riders expecet from such a high performance board. The results are a range of over 80km and a top speed of arround 60km/h and enough torque and acceleration to ride through the woods and shred some hills with ease, if necessary. A 2in1 ST/AT setup is also a must have for most of us. So we put together a list with parts we want to test for our build. Please feel free to add you thoughts, opinions and suggestions to our plans.

Parts we tested already or will test in the future:

Deck: Customized appx. 11"x41" deck with various flex out of various woods hand made in Germany Probably top mount with micro drop. Suggestions welcome!

Griptabe: Customized high friction soft griptabe with memory foam cushioning

Battery: 12S12P 18650 30Q, 12S8P 21700 40T battery pack hand made in Germany

BMS: Customized high current smart BMS designed in NL and Germany

ESC: Customized FS or MT VESC6 with 200A/400A coded in Germany

Enclousure: Customized GFK/CFK/ABS enclousure, we are still looking for an EU/GER manufacturer

Motors: MT 6396, we are still going to test alternatives like MT 8085, TB 6380, FS 6384, APS 6384S tuned in Germany

Trucks: Since we want to offer a 2in1 ST/AT solution we were thinking about offering 2 types of trucks. E.g. MBS Metal Matrix II for AT and a DKP Evolve style for ST. We are also looking for a manufacturer for customized trucks

Mounts and gears: Customized E-TOXX (since we are almost neighbors) alternatives are welcome for testing, especially from manufacturers who can process titanium

Belts: Kevlar/rubber belts

Bushings: At least 3 different in hard, middle, soft. suggestions and manufacturer welcome!

Wheels: We will offer at least 4 types of wheels in 4"-5" in PU/rubber and 6"-9" pneumatics

Bearings: Customized high speed no corrosion ceramic bearings

Screws and washers: Customized made out of titanium

Charger: 6-12A quick charger

Lights: Custom shape high output lights

After finishing and stress testing the prototype we will launch a limited first batch of 50 boards on Kickstarter/Indiegogo

Please let us know your improvement suggestions for the Community Board and if you have general mentionable ideas, that you think will help the Project X feel free to share them with us. Since it is a 100% community project we appreciate and respect all opinions and try to fulfill as many wishes as possible.

We hope you will enjoy the process creating a Community Board as much as we do and you will have as much fun with the Project X as we have.

Sincerely yours

Group Ride NRW

For those of you who are interested in following the Community Bord Project and keep updated, there is also a thread on the ESK8 Builders forum. Have fun!

https://www.electric-skateboard.builders/t/community-board-project-x/102777

glyphiks · October 10, 2019, 12:18pm

You would be better off keeping this as your main forum dude… the other one is old news

mutantbass · October 10, 2019, 12:23pm

well. this is a first

Chricious · October 10, 2019, 3:50pm

I see. I updated the first post. Thank you!

Saturn_Corp · October 10, 2019, 3:54pm

Sounds like a beast, good luck!

murdomeek · October 10, 2019, 4:59pm

wait, so are you an upcoming store/vendor?

Brenternet · October 10, 2019, 5:57pm

This board sits in a niche market I suppose. Giant battery, heavy as balls and presumably pricey due to manufacture location. With that said… there’s definitely a market for them.

You’re sourcing all your build talent from within your community? Could we see some examples of builds that these people have put together before?

I assume you’ve already looked at some numbers but don’t forget the small stuff, costs add up SUPER fast if you’re not tight with it.

Chricious · October 10, 2019, 8:00pm

Community manufacturer

Chricious · October 10, 2019, 8:03pm

you can see an example on the picture I’ve posted. Second board on the left side

We try to keep the costs as low as possible without compromising on quality.

murdomeek · October 10, 2019, 9:57pm

Whats the end cost?
You listed some pretty high end specs and parts list

Marsl187 · October 10, 2019, 10:52pm

Maybe you should limit the first batch amount to 10. The board is going to be somewhere where Bioboards is. I’m not sure about there sales but I rather doubt they’ve sold more than 50 and they are on the market already some time.

Some brands done the thing right in building high quality boards (Kaly, Lacroix, Bioboards), they didn’t try to invent every screw new. They just took the highest quality parts available and made a good board out of it.

Discharge BMS is not necessary in my opinion, especially in such big packs. In packs with so many p groups, the drift will be very small. The cut-off from the esc is more than safe enough. Maybe think of a charge only BMS, way cheaper than getting something customized.

What’s the thing behind customized washers and screws? Saving a few grams on a board which will be at least 15kg? Rather save the money and the effort.

Why belts when you corporate with Jenso? I mean, if you want the maximum performance gear drive is the way to go especially for AT.

Chricious · October 11, 2019, 7:41am

Hi @Marsl187, thank you for engagement. You mentioned some good and important points.

Of course we can not perdict how many boards we will sell in the first batch, but I think there will be more than 10. Besides the costs would be way higher for just 10 boards, because we will have the same costs for customizing, like the modls, etc. I also don’t know how man boards Baja, Kaly, LaCroix and BioBoards have sold so far, but it would be interesting to know, if some of you have some inside information.
About the BMS maybe you are right. But since we get custom DieBies maybe it’s woth to build them in. I’m not sure about this yet though.
On long term we want to replace all metal parts of the board with titanium. It doesn’t play a big role on the screws and wahsers, but there are some significant effects on the trucks. We need to finde first a manufacturer that can produce titanium parts and check out the prices.
Gear drives are way to expensive for a production board. If we would go be gear drives we would have by far the most expensive board on the market. Very few of our friends could afford let’s say a 500€ premium for a gear drive. Since our motors are capable more than enough I think there is no need for a gear drive. But still, we need to do our tests first.

From which are you from Marcel?

Marsl187 · October 11, 2019, 9:08am

Sure nobody can predict, but to be honest I guess 50 is way to ambitious for crowdfunding/pre-sale. Maybe @mackann can and will tell something about the amount of sales bioboards made since there on the market (approximately). Getting everything manufactured external is expensive as hell, I would suggest to use more standard parts or handmade parts in the beginning, if the interest is there you can specialize later.
What are the significant effects? I mean a 12s6p is almost 5kg, two big motors are 1kg each. For example a blank Trampa deck with trucks and wheels is 7kg already. Their titanium axle saves them 250g. I bet in the end nobody really cares if the board is 15kg or 15,8kg (for example). It sounds nice in sight of technology but for a production board overkill and unnecessary.
From what I can tell: My mountainboard ist belt drive with 6374 150kv (80A discharge) and 1:4,5 gearing. I rode the one of a friend which has a e-toxx 1:4 drive and a 6365 150kv (65A discharge). In terms of power my boards should be far ahead with torque but the one with the geardrive feels much more powerful. (I’m developing my own geardrive because of that event )

Berlin, Germany

moon · October 11, 2019, 9:12am

titanium is complete overkill

Chricious · October 11, 2019, 10:50am

You mention entitled concerns. It would be great if @mackann could tell me something about their sales. I am also very interested in LaCroix sales since I think this is the most coparable board to ours.
What do you mean by home made parts? We can’t buld electronics or trucks by ourselves.
It really doesn’t matter if we don’t sale all 50 boards during the campaign. Just the number is limited to 50 for the first batch and I think it will sell out fast. Anyway we will start the production series just after the campaign. So nothing to worry about.
We don’t intend to make the trucks out of titanium just for the weight. We do it also for material properties. It is stronger as steal and alsmost as light as aluminium. It has a nice flex and no bracking point like aluminium, so it can’t snap. It also can be made thinner than steal or aluminium and it looks more elegant. Yes it is pricier, but if we find a good munufacturer with resonable prices we will try it out.
Nice, I’m really excited to see your gear drive! I would be happy to test it and take it in consideration

@moon Thats exactly what our skateboard is!

As soon as our deck is finished, we are ready to stress test our parts!

mackann · October 11, 2019, 11:12am

Here is my advise:
All I can say is dont do this if you do it for money or wanting it as a daily job with salary. I have been working 1 year 30 hours a week for free (and I have 40 hours day job and family so its hard)
If you want it as a daily job you have to find some way to charge 600-700 eur more per board then what customer expect to pay.

I think Lacroix sold around 150 - 200 of their new boards since release, but they have worked many(well not many but some time) years to build the brand up and did alot of things right (I’m a little jealous how they managed to get so many fanboys) . Dont expect more then 50 boards / year in that price segment, probebly alot less as a new brand.

Good luck! Seems like it will be a cool board.

Marsl187 · October 11, 2019, 11:26am

Homemade parts like enclosures for example, 3D printed parts.
Do you have experience with longboard trucks? I mean there are manufactures for this which have years and years of experience in what makes a good truck. Paris just released their V3 truck, even after many years they have ideas to make the ride feeling better. Sorry to say but I doubt that you will be able to design a truck which can compare to the big brands in terms of ride feeling, carving etc. when you re not in that business. I guess it is not that hard to design a truck but it might take years to design a really good one. A caliber precision truck (not even titanium) is almost 400€, so might be that your trucks costs as much as a chinese eboard
The drive will be just for me I guess. Complicated design, lots of labour work and heavy But I like to develop something on my own and build it.

Marsl187 · October 11, 2019, 11:35am

Thanks @mackann!

@Chricious Maybe something more like custom boards is something to got for. The electric skateboard market is rather overcrowded by now. So many players and already a board for every niche to think of. So custom boards like Damon is doing it might be something in EU but will be really hard to get into the market.

Chricious · October 11, 2019, 11:46am

Thank you @mackann for the advise. We don’t do it for the money, we do it for the prestige and plesure to design a awesome board made in Germany and with Ger/EU customer service.
We will see how it goes, but thank you for your support!

@Marsl187 I’m sorry for missunderstanding. We won’t design our own trucks. We are looking for a manufacturer who can make an established truck out of titanium a an custom truck.

So far we will go with Metal Matrix II for now for AT and testing a DKP for ST.
I really appreciate you sceptisism though!

dani · October 11, 2019, 1:00pm

If designed properly nothing has to snap.
There are steel alloys which are stronger than titanium.
Also, look at the new trucks from Lacroix, how thinner do you want to go?
And, everything can snap if designed badly.

Titanium is overrated, especially in our niche.

Good luck,
Dani