…whereas if I only manufactured trucks, I’d be pushing for standards.
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Yeah. I feel that a lot of people are already striving towards this and I don’t disagree.
When something works well I feel it will naturally lend itself to being repeated. And then new designs will also incorporate/accommodate.
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I wrote this same editorial some time ago. It would in particular, allow easy troubleshooting.
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Any new standards should be metric, even if legacy standards still being used are Imperial.
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It just looks like a bearing seat/spacer to me
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I guess my point here is that I feel that standards will eventually set themselves… as long as we don’t see litigation and threats for things such as using square shaped escs.
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Yup, just measured Kahua at 30mm.
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‘Legacy’ hardware in my mind is stuff that we already use and it’s ‘legacy’ because it’s a standard that has already been met…
So to go and change it, defeats the whole purpose of having the standard in the first place 
This is a really interesting topic in that our industry is built on the back of an already long-standing industry that seemingly has no issue with certain standards. While these standards may not be ideal for us, i cannot see the introduction of our industry as any reason for traditional skateboarding to change their standards, and in the same way, I can’t see electric moving far enough away from analog to warrant new standards.
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Yeah I’m not planning on adhering to any kind of standard. Usually that involves design compromises and can complicate innovation. For example I’m not going to use 22x22 hangar profile on my street trucks because it will be heavier and more bulky looking. Hoyt St couldn’t have made that sick one piece hangar and motor mount if they had to use a 22x22 profile so other things could fit them. I think at this point standards should be left alone so people are really encouraged to innovate.
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uh sure, 1s15p
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Non-standards are really good for some people, and Standards are good for everyone/the general consumer. Heavy standardization could reduce the progress towards better products but the lack of causing frustration.
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While it makes this really well, and I completely agree, it was never on our mind to purposely make it incompatible, just something completely
I can say more here but maybe one day in person over a few beers 
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Flat and cup washers are the cheapest most effective way to tune your setup. When a truck company decides to design a truck not using a boardside washer, they do not understand what they are giving up or they do not care since they think it looks better without the washer.
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The last thing I want to do is stifle creativity and innovation. I am looking for instances where we could simplify our lives and make pursuing our dream setups faster and easier. Plug and play solutions or a open source spec classification. I created this thread out of my general ongoing frustration and I was wondering who else was feeling it. Looks like a lot of us by the response…
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I’m down Pedro!
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The reason that a designer/manufacturer/vendor (for convenience, lets call them a “maker”) might not adhere to a common design standard is to minimise customer choice. From a marketing perspective, when a maker wants someone to buy their product from a range of others, you would seek to differentiate your product from all the others in the market. So its not in a maker’s interest to comply with a design standard, as they may claim it permits them to provide customers a unique value proposition. A maker would always be reluctant to to share their IP, but there would be compromises.
From the maker’s perspective, if your truck hangers are some odd dimension or profile, this would present a captive market, forcing customers to come back to you to buy your proprietary accessories, such as a light mounting system, (or mudguards or trailer hitch). If a maker adopted a certain design standard, it would in effect permit other (perhaps smaller) vendors to generate revenue from a product that manufacturer might not already produce. This would not be in the maker’s interest’s, as there would be additional competition in the market, cutting into their potential sales and profit margins. Alternately some makers seek to embrace these common standards, seeking volume sales instead. e.g. Boardnamics.
Unless a maker intends their parts used with third party components, they have no incentive to consider interoperability. Refusing to adopt a common standard and in the absence of a cheaper alternative, they can use any obscure specification they want. The only people that have an issue with this might be the customer, who might be forced to only buy a limited range of parts from the original maker. This is like the Apple v Android and the right to repair argument, everyone has vested interests. This being a DIY forum, you would think there would be more encouragement for what things ought to have standards, or what a reasonable requirement might be, as opposed to what a certain standard should specifically be. Using my earlier example of truck profile I think it is reasonable that a standard only requires a thing/product to comply by meeting a minimum criteria, for example within “X” distance of the end of the hanger. This would permit the product to remain substantially unique, but nonetheless comply with the standard. I for one would hope that we could all agree on some minimum standards, and I have suggested a few below.
It would be reasonable to propose certain minimum standards to ensure that builds did not pose a safety threat to riders, either due to structural failure or through electrical problems (fire anyone?). I for one would like to see three standards developed. One electrical design standard, and two other general standards, one for asphalt or primarily on-road use esk8s, and one for off-road EMTBs, where beefier specifications are justified. These standards do not have to be focusd on physical design standards, but they could also include reasonably include performance failure testing of component.
As makers on this forum have intellectual property at stake, I do think there is some low hanging fruit which we could all agree on. We could agree on minimum standards for items such as:
- electrical componentry, i.e minimum gauge of wire, fuses, connectors, etc. Specifications could be minimums based on rules from voltage/amp ratings etc.
- Batteries - minimum insulation requirements.
- An Esk8 focused range test - where a standardised range test is developed - so newbies don’t have to rely on youtubers to tell them how far a battery will take them on their board.
- Minimum truck axle strength - regardless of what length and diameter you want - nobody likes bent/broken axles.
- The adoption of standard metric dimensions wherever possible. Yes I know this is contentious, but it was going to happen sooner or later. We might as well speak a common language as a community.
Thoughts?
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I don’t believe this to be true in many circumstances. In some, sure. But for the majority of makers, I don’t think that this is a logical, rational or sensible path.
If somebody is designing outside of the box, it’s generally because of some other design constraint, rather than exclusivity.
Unless you’re talking about Trampa or 3DS, and in that case i’d probably agree.
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I would argue its more so for builders of complete boards than individual components.
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In what areas would you personally like to see standardisation?
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I will fight for your cause my man. You have my sword. This is a brilliant approach to standardization. I like the idea of having certain mounting profiles within 40mm of the axle.
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