Completely 3D printed eScate with suspension

[Heheheh]

Hi there, want to show my 3D printed electro-mountain-board. Features:

• Independent double wishbone front and rear suspension with 70 mm travel, 10 inch wheels;
• All-wheel drive (one 6374 motor for each wheel), 50 km/h max speed;
• Completely 3D PRINTED SUSPENSION ARMS, wheel disks, DRIVE GEARS AND SHAFTS, gearbox housings, steering racks and pinions, cases for batteries and electronics (PA-12 for pinions, PETG for everything else). Main frame is made of aluminum profile and sheet steel cut on a laser machine. Suitable for self-assembly: welding, gluing, milling and other complex operations were not used. Final cost is about $1500 and 2 months for printing and assembly.
• Unusual steering. The deck is divided into 2 parts: rear part is rigidly connected with the main frame, and the front part can tilt and control the front wheels. Never felt any wobbling, but the load on the back leg and the turning radius seems a bit big.
• The frame and suspension tested with 60 kg rider for 1000 km of poor quality roads and it did not break (for now). Drive gears and shafts tested for 2000 km and still looks ok.

In terms of transmission and suspension, it’s just a big 3D printed RC car with foot platforms or something like what the company BajaBoard produces, but cheaper, less quality and with different steering.

Current version is not perfect, but it WORKS! I’m going to correct some small mistakes about wiring and inconvenience during assembly and then publish the files as an open source project that everyone 3D printer owner could repeat or change a little. I’ll add details to this topic later.

Just some cool photos:

Frame with motors and 18650 cell batteries:

Suspension:

Gears and shafts:

[Venom121212]

That looks complicated but interesting. Congratulations on all the hard work. Can you describe the truck performance and where you got the idea from to model it this way?

[Heheheh]

Thank you! The design is really quite complex, mainly because of the type of suspension used. It takes a lot of patience to print and fit each part.
I can’t compare this board to others, because I haven’t tried them yet. I can only say that it is ideal for dirt roads, even on big bumps at maximum speed it feels very stable. On a smooth road it even gets a little boring, it just goes forward and doesn’t try to jerk or break out from under feet.
The idea to model in this way was simple: copy the suspension from a radio-controlled car and attach platforms for the feet on top. In general, boards with this type of suspension are already produced by the Bajaboard company, but their products are quite expensive for me. I tried to do the same, but cheaper, and it seems to work!

[BallisticBullocks]

That’s impressive. I was proud of myself for making a little 2 cell power bank the other day.

[zero_ads]

We need videos! Would love to see some videos.

[glyphiks]

Probably still stronger than a Baja.

This is seriously impressive, really cool work!

[glyphiks]

For real. I put a switch on an off-the-shelf timer relay and felt like a magician

We are not worthy!

[tuckjohn]

Very very cool. Post like this keeps me on the forum. Impressive work!

What’s your interface between 3D printed parts and metallic ones? Inserts?

What’s your lubrication method for the PA-12 gears?

You going to be at esk8con?? Would love to see this beast in person

[DougM]

I would love it if you could post all the build files as STEP’s.

Last year I made my first run at building a full suspension mountainboard and I didn’t get very far.

You’ve made it much farther so I’d like to be able use your designs as a guideline.

[Heheheh]

Hi, thanks!
Yes, I’v used standard copper insets, in total, the project needed more than 200 of them.

It turned out to be a very interesting story about the lubricant for polyamide. I was surprised by its friction properties. There were three places which require lubrication.

Gears in reducer (here you can see a little bit of lithol, which was squeezed out from the teeth onto the center part of the gear):

Inner constant velocity cup (I’m not sure if I’m using the right name). After about 300 km looks like:

And outer constant velocity cup after 1500 km:

I used Lithol for the gears simply because I already had it. I don’t think there are any extreme conditions in the skate gearbox (very high temperature, for example), so I didn’t bother with the choice of lubricant. The small gear in the gearbox is printed from polyamide-12, and the large one is made of PETG, which melts at 60 degrees. So far, it has not melted yet, although I have not skated in hot weather (above 25 degrees Celsius). Maybe I’ll look for another lubricant if the gearbox will melt or break.

For inner and outer CV cup I was going to use lithol too, but I couldn’t find the suitable “protective boots” (that’s what they seem to be called) to protect them from dirt sticking. So, for now, I’ve left them without any lube at all. Inner CV cup is made of PETG, outer is made completely from PA-12. PETG CV cup brokes down after 500-700 km, but PA-12 cup looks great even after 1500 km, there is no visible wear on it, just a little dirt embedded in the layers of plastic. When I disassembled it, there was quite a lot of dirt, but it continued to work perfectly. I’m going to continue to leave them without lubrication, only to reprint the inner CV cup with PA-12.

I would love to participate in esk8con, but unfortunately live VERY VERY FAR from Las Vegas, so I definitely won’t be there. However, this project was conceived as free to repeat, maybe someone would also like to print it and bring it to esk8con, maybe next year…

[Heheheh]

Hi, I have seen your posts, it is very nice to meet a like-minded person in this difficult matter. To be honest, this is not my first attempt to make a skateboard with an independent suspension. This is version 4, there were 3 more versions before it, all of them were not reliable enough. Including breaks for study and work, this project took almost 6 years…
I hope to be able to fix and upload the STL files within the next two weeks. Do you use SolidWorks? I’m afraid it will be difficult to copy the project using only STL files, because some parts are mated with bearings and require adjusting the tolerances depending on your printer. My project is currently done in one complicated and not very popular CAD system, I hope that within a month I will transfer it to SolidWorks and upload it to github.

[DougM]

@Heheheh

Do you use SolidWorks?

I do use Solidworks, though it’s a slightly older version (2021 I think) Let me know if I can help in the conversion process.

[IDEA]

Awesome work! Huge respect for the dedication and seeing such an ambitious project through. Fully 3D-printed suspension and drivetrain? That’s next level! Cool to see it holding up in real-world testing. Looking forward to more updates and riding impressions – hope it keeps shredding without issues!

Years ago, I also started my first electric board projects with 3D-printed mechanical parts, but mine were way less advanced.