Daily Commuter || 1st build || 35in, dual 6355, flipsky 4.2, 97mm ABEC refly

[bwahl602]

Feb 2020 updates at post 14

Hey ESK8.news,

Long time reader from the old forum. Finally posting the “build” or rather, the series of upgrades from this summer. This was my experience starting out with ditching the car and adopting esk8 for 100% of my philly commuting this year. Ive been here/old forum for 100% of the motivation and info

Stumbled upon the boosted board in April of this year. Found the old forum and knew that’s the route Id wind up. Decided to buy a cheap board to get started with, learn on and see if I wanted to make a $1500+ investment in Esk8.

I used to skateboard when I was 15-16, that was 15 years ago. Bought a loaded vanguard and pushed kicked it around for a month. In May, pulled the trigger on an ownboard when they were on sale

Ownboard W1AS - While I think ownboard makes a great starter board, I very quickly outgrew it.
$379 stock on sale. Immediately added new 90mm 74a front wheels, new shorter riser pads, caliber trucks and new bushings and eventually a cheapy moose deck from amazon.
The budget board route does work, but the deck on the W1AS was terrible for philly. And the combination of standing above the trucks, on a stiff deck, with hub motors… it limited me to just a few blocks between feet numbness

The deck allowed me to get the trucks out from right under my feet and the ride did improve.
Next, about 6 weeks later, I learned my lesson for buying a $35 plywood deck from amazon. Crossing trolley tracks at low speed, the deck snapped under me and sent my ass to the ground. Fortunately this was at low speed and I wasn’t seriously hurt.

Replacement was a proper longboard deck with a mix of bamboo ply and fiberglass from sector nine. On closeout sale at $65. Plus, at 35 inches, I can carry the board from the front truck without it touching the ground (im only 5’9") which is a big plus since this is my daily commuter. Heres the new deck next to the stock W1AS.

I wanted to reinforce the structural integrity of the deck, especially where mine fractured. Also had no plans for drop through, so filled the holes.
Sanded to raw wood and laid up about 3mm of fiberglass. I only have this photo of a final coat of finish epoxy.

And yes, im laying up epoxy and sanding fiberglass in the bathroom of my 1BR apartment (girlfriend wasn’t thrilled)
I had intentions of exposing the sparkle black color I added to the epoxy. But I was tired of having the bathroom in disarray and threw things together. My Ownboard enclosures did not fit the width of the smaller deck, so I 3d printed some up quick with PLA+. I used some chemleaon vinyl on the bottom of the board to finish off the sanded epoxy FG underneath. About 3mm of thickness under the truck mounts that tapers out to 1mm in the center. Added a single layer of FB to the top to over some strips that built up the concave a bit in the rear

The board rode great. A bit of flex in the new deck was retained even after reinforcing with the fiberglass. But this is still an ownboard drive train. Heres a pic from riding out to the Made in America festival in Philly. This is likely the last time I rode without a helmet. I don’t leave without it now

I rode it like this for a solid month. But at this point, I had been riding for a few months and was really starting to get comfortable. I was really starting to notice that the rear hubs were creating more sketchy situations than Id like. I was sliding the back wheels continuously around turns when not intending to because of the lack of traction and thane depth. In addition, the worst was several scenarios where I was cruising around 22mph and would have to jump on the brake… Well Id mash the remote to 100% brake, and spend the next 10 seconds contemplating where I wanted to splat myself on the upcoming obstacle. Braking performance at high speed was scary bad, it was time for a change.

The build finally,
I had no plans to do this. But the need for tunable braking performance and better traction was high. I decided to strip the Vanguard build I had slowly been gathering parts for. I had everything but a battery, as I still haven’t pulled the trigger on a spot welder. So I combined them to the 10S2P 30q I had from ownboard

Caliber 2 44 rear/50 front
Boardnamics standard mounts
6355 x2 190kv motors from @torqueboards
x2 4.20 flipsky VESCs on sale for $50 ea
flispky antispark for now
@dickyho 36T pulleys

Not a ton to show off here, and I didn’t take many pics while building. Things were way way tight in the VESC enclosure I made.

Excuse the broken belt, I had way overtightened one and broke it first day.
For those nervous about there first build, the VESC configuration is really easy - this was probably the most intimidating step for me, and it was by far one of the easiest
VESC settings:
FOC
motor max 40
motor min -33
Batt max 14 per VESC
Batt min -14 per VESC (corrected)

Fast forward a week like this and I picked up some 97mm ABEC reflys. Rebuilt everything including the enclosures with new designs and ABS filament. Brightened the board up with some new Vinyl too. Cut the rear hanger to allow the use of a bearing on the dickyho pulleys too. Shredlightz for the night riding. Ditched the 5mm bullets for MR30 connectors.

Off to get some better finished pictures of the board as it sits now. Will update in a bit!

What I learned, what takeaways I have following the 1st build and my intro to esk8 in general:

• **Buying a cheap board first - **going the cheap route can work, but manage your expectations. Buying the Ownboard was both good and bad. Good because it gave me an opportunity to try esk8 for under $400. I saw exactly one esk8 in philly before buying my board, and have never ridden one. If it was just an occasional cruise to the store, that board may have been fine in stock form. But given the road quality in philly (more on that in a moment) and the ride frequency, this just wasn’t good enough for the amount of time my feet were on it. On the bad, the ownboard is essentially trash right now. I guess i could use the hubs and ESC to make a small deck for friends, but im not pleased with the braking performance. Will likely use on another project, but theres essentially zero resale value. Bad, I grew out of it quickly

-Road Quality - if you live somewhere with beautful streets, ride whatever the hell you want. If you live somewhere that it snows and the roads are always shit, do not waste your time with hub motors. I had researched like crazy to find people differentiating the feel between hub motor and belt drive. Most described it as a noticeable improvement in ride quality that wasn’t earth shattering. That was my experience, big increase in ride quality and control with the 90mm abec clones. Switching to the 97mm ABEC reflys changed everything. For those who are in the position i was, let me tell you : The ride quality of 90mm hub motors compared to a belt drive with a nice set of premium wheels is unapologetically horrendous in comparison. The ABEC 97s are like riding on a pillow. Even the worst of cracks are muted with a knock rather than a pain induced crack. If youre in an airea with bad roads, dont even mess with hub motors. Spend the $75-$150 on a nice set of premium soft wheels for your belt/direct drive setup and skip the hubs all together. They have no place on these streets

• Components - Dickyho pulleys are very affordable and do a great job. I ran them initially in bolt on setup with no bearing on stock caliber trucks. This was not great, the inside of the pulley rubbed the truck from the deflection created and I routinely could here thigns when really leaning into a turn. I cut 9mm from each side of the caliber truck and am currently using them with the bearings. Now im looking for a replacement truck because I don’t trust the axles. Will upgrade to something CNC with shoulder bolt axles soon.

The poor man buys twice this is worth restating and its something Ive learned and sometimes continue to experience over the years. Its hard to commit big spending when you are just getting into something without experience on what you really need vs want. But this statement will always be true.

Upcoming to finish this: Samsung 30q 10S3p flat pack and new single enclosure, ditching bolt through pulleys for true push fit, 40T pulleys for the 97s. CNC trucks

Ill add to this later when I think of more. Thank you to everyone on the forums for your gracious advice, shared builds and endless knowledge.

Bill

Also, Im accepting nominations for 2019 build of the year - most vanilla edition

Snapped two pics today while the weather was decent:

[Saturn_Corp]

I think this is a nice jump into the DIY esk8 world. Good job!

But be ready to build more boards and lose al the money in your wallet.

[bwahl602]

Elofty DD already has my attention

Its really hard when something is this new… Just in the time Ive been here, so much has changed. Elofty DD is super affordable, 40T cells, gear drives, wheels. New things get added to the want list every day. You can build a top shelf product that goes from dream build to yesterdays newspaper in a month lol

[bwahl602]

Im gonna just post it here rather than make a new thread:

Ive been experiencing one electrical issue: VESC/remote cuts out most notably, when I ride across the trolley tracks on the ride home from class. I ride diagonally across them at 5 mph ish and its a subtle and manageable bump. However, this has happened at other areas, two intersections where I barely hit any bumps and was just crusing around the corner.

It almost always happens when Im applying some throttle I think. The remote never indicates that it loses connection. It typically comes back around 5 seconds later (usually when im thrashing the remote trigger somewhere between full throttle and full brake wondering whats happening – which is bad when it suddenly responds). It happens randomly, not every time I cross certain areas. And I cant replicate it.

The flispky 4.2 vesc are secured to the board, one is obv slave. UART Flipsky VX1 connection to the master and sensor wires connected.

This most recent rebuild I replaced the 5.5mm bullets with MR30s. I found the heat shrink around the bullets had worn off as they had made contact with the motor at some point.
Okay this is easy, the disconnects are VESC resets because a phase wire grounded against the motor can, easy fix right? New enclosure, routed the MR30s into the board so theyre near flush and theres definitely not contact with the motors now

Today, the problem repeated itself twice. On the way there, over the tracks and no issue. On the way home, dhen I rode over the tracks, the board stopped responding. This time, it did not start responding again until I turned it off and back on. The VX1 remote was on and showing a solid connection to the board. The antispark on/off switch was on. I waited about 25 seconds before rebooting everything manually

About 10 blocks later, while making a right turn at an intersection, the board stopped responding. This time, it came back in 5 seconds

Any idea whats going on here? I thought I had this fixed when I replaced the bullets connectors that were rubbing. And I reinstalled every electrical component during the rebuild checking it as I did.

Remote and battery are charged
Im never losing connection to the remote when this happens.
There is no evidence of rubbing on wires from motor to VESC case
The motors are battle hardened, happening before and after, I saw no abnormalities when the cans were open
The VESC and antispark are secured inside the enclosure which has ample room for them
The connectors are all secured in placed to the VESC with glue, XT60s are taped together as well.
Wiring config is battery to antispark with 12AWG and XT60H, 12AWG from antispark to VESCs with XT60s, MR30s to motors.
The motors are luke warm at most, the VESC enclosure is never warm, do you think they could be overheating?

I can not recreate this issue. I have thrown, dropped, shaken the board dozens of times and rode over things intentionally trying to recreate. Not once have I been able to.
Im a little concerned that its electrical interference. The trolley tracks have high voltage wires above them. The intersections has transformers but I did not see any mini cell phone towers or things like that.

Appreciate any input

[A13XR3]

Batt min -20 per VESC

Did you happen to swap the battery amperage settings when you typed it? You didn’t mention the pack size, but if it’s still the own board pack, this is way to high. You really won’t sustain those kind of amps anyway, but throwing -40A at a battery pack is a lot for anything below 4P.

Also if you can run -20A safely from you pack, why run only 14A draw?

[Saturn_Corp]

Could potentially be over-current faults?

Check over all your solder joints and if you experience the issue again; don’t turn off your board and plug it into the pc when you get home to check the terminal.

[bwahl602]

Ah thanks Saturn, I haven’t tried running a log yet. Ill keep it on the next time it happens. Just happened earlier on a small bump… Random AF
Im gonna open it up and wiggle stuff-- edit. did that, wiggled all the xt60 connectors, the MR30s, all the JSTs to the vesc and all the wiring. Wasn’t able to replicate it.

@A13XR3 it is the 10s2p 30q, those batt min settings came from @Trampa on another thread. The 30Qs should be able to do 30A max from the 2p pack. I set max batt at 14ea to stay just under that.
I set batt min based on the suggestions from frank. I was experiencing really bad high speed braking when it was set to -6 each (double the fast recharge rate of 30Q) and he recommended I raise it to that. I had tried -12 ea too and it wasn’t great although better
As it was explained to me, youre not seeing -20 ea the whole time or potentially any of it depending on speed. Additionally, its for a fraction of a moment. Having brakes far exceeds cell longevity. Ive hear lots of discussion on batt min ranging from 100% of max recharge rate to triple that to whatever you want

This is specifically the reason I want to move up to 3p to better handle that. But anything below -10 ea I had worthless high speed brakes (above 20 mph).

I corrected the OP, batt min is actually set to -14

[bwahl602]

Just got back from a ride. Replicated the problem. Havent shut the board off and had to uber home because it didn’t come back to responding.

Remote still indicating connected. Master VESC has blue light only and Slave has blue and green on.

Trying to connect it to VESC tool and figure out the faults

EDIT: The master VESC has only a blue LED on (has the remote connected to it) the slave VESC has green and blue solid illuminated.
I am unable to connect to the master VESC with the single blue led on. It does not generate a com port when connecting to computer, says the firmware cant be read/has nothing to connect to.
I am able to connect to the slave directly. Terminal, “faults” reads no faults.

I cannot hit the can button to connect over to the master VESC

other settings from VESC tool:
Batt cutoff start 33
end 31

ERPM 65k
ERPM reverse -30

Played with it some more, absolutely could not get the master VESC to do anything. Checked several previous threads and videos for options

Rebooted and now both are blue and dim green, both connected and are operating normally.

Sooo it seems I need to figure out how to data log this since I cant connect once it happens

Max input voltage was set to 48V, I have returned that to the stock 57V

[murdomeek]

the ownboard isn’t completely junk.

Put all the parts back onto a random deck once you get your 30Q battery and it’d be a great introductory board for your friends to try out and go on short rides with you

[b264]

ditching the car and adopting esk8 for 100% of my philly commuting this year

Thanks for doing your part

Sometimes I think I’m the only one

[bwahl602]

Ride home, experienced the cut out only once, Again, crossing the tracks at an angle. This time was a 5 second reset and things were fine after. I didn’t power cycle the board or the remote. Came home, plugged in and seeing no faults

Went over the same tracks 2 hours before and no issue

[Lobbie]

Super 1st build, not only functional but good looking and a great parts lists.

[bwahl602]

Thanks @Lobbie

Btw, the power cut outs issue was sorted. Thanks @b264 and others who contributed to the troubleshooting. It seems to be an unknown issues with the antispark from flipsky. Nothing I do shaking wiring or connections will replicate it. However, replacing it with an XT90S antispark as a loopkey has 100% eliminated these issues

[bwahl602]

update:
This board is now rocking BN184 hangers, krank/purple nipple bushings, 40T 3D servasas pulleys with 15T motor. Stable up to 30mph on the 36T. I have lost one of my shreadlights headlights and the TB 6355s are slowly trying to die. The board is also currently sporting some 3D printed motor mounts and custom cross bars.

I have a bustin sportster in the works and am considering building a tayto I picked up recently. This board has been great as an all in one board. However, it’s not lightweight for carrying and the range is about 7-8 miles. Averaging 20-25wh/mi currently. It’s sort of not great at anything. Have some ideas in the works

Got a great deal on a very lightly used 10S3P 30q from @ThermalChild. Tore it apart and checked the voltages, charged it and everything looks balanced. Wrapped in 1/8” rubber for some vibration resistance and isolation and then re heat shrunk.

Onto designing an enclosure. The current enclosures once housed the ownboard esc, then the flipsky antispark, now there’s just a loop key sticking out the side. A METR, two 4.2 vescs and the receiver are crammed in.
This is the second enclosure I’ve created and the first single enclosure. First time using this bolt style rather than a flange, which was probably a mistake. This board has very minimal flex after being re-enforced before.
The new enclosure has been 3D printed in ABS and melted together. 0.3mm layer height with 0.75mm layer width. 3mm thick all around.
I printed this thinner than I usually would because I’m planning to skin in/out with FG.

getting ready for fusion 360

sketched up

printing in progress - 17 hours total for 5 pieces. Could have printed it in less time with two pieces because I have a 12x12 printer. However, I dont like to do 12 hr single prints that large if I can avoid it. If something goes wrong, its just that much longer to re-do. This also let me re-design charge ports and length by just adjusting the end pieces before final glue up.

Next, melted the pieces together, test fit it and began smoothing the transitions and filling.

Im about 95% finished with sanding and filling. Waiting on hardener from west systems to arrive so I can continue with the FG work. This will be my first time doing any FG with a vacuum bag [this is my practice run for when i do the bustin]. I have strechlon 200 as well as some standard bagging. I plan to use the stretchlon for the top and standard bagging for the inside where bridging wont matter. The holes on the outside will bridge and I will cut out the bolt hold and sand the FG flush with its circumference (not a good design choice for FG skinning)

More to come over the next week. Any advice with the bagging setup would be appreciated. Im giving this handheld vacuum pump from Roarockit a try. For my 1 BR apartment setup, a vacuum pump isnt reasonable. The roarockit pump applies an impressive vacuum to the heavy nylon bag they sell for skateboard building. If I can incorporate the valve and pump into this, would be great for small projects

Here’s the roarockit kit preforming some maple to the contour of the bustin. I wet the boards in the area of the drop to soften them more. Will glue them up individually. This will help them conform to the curve during glue up with no gap in the drop down. The vacuum pressure is pretty solid.

[DavidF]

What is the plan with this pressed maple?

[bwahl602]

I got that kit for XMAS. On this sector nine deck, all of the re-inforcement was with FG. I would have preferred that to be FG/Wood.

For the Bustin, im adding 4-5 layers of additional 1/16 maple to stiffen the deck with layers of FG [maybe a CF layer too]. Then going to route out a battery compartment with CNC or router on the bottom to maximize ground clearance underneath. I wanted to strengthen the forks on either end as well

[DavidF]

going to route out a battery compartment with CNC

Nice, following this!

[bwahl602]

Some follow up pics of the enclosure, 95% done. This was in the hand pump vacuum bag which worked perfectly. It’s painted now. Will add a few final photos.

Dealing with this DRV error that came about recently while running at top speed. Went away for a while and came back the other day. 10S190KV now with 10S3P.
40/-40, 25/-14 batt FOC. Temps never been above 50C

If I grab and hold one wheel and run the other wheel to top speed on the bench, the motors each spin fine independently without strange noises or hiccups. If both run, I get a surging that comes with a strange harmonic sound. Also like they are grinding or something.

The noise happens right before the power drops.

Appreciate any input. Will have to test these more. For now, I’m installing the 6.6 dual plus I have handy for another build. A dual 100amp 6.6 is a bit overkill, should run just fine and it fits.
While also installing new grip tape and changing some colors, the FG I laid up before delaminated a bit. I was able to actually muscle the whole sheet off both sides with a chisel. That was unexpected, and the last time I’ll use bar top bulk epoxy.
So now I’ve removed all of the old threaded inserts from the 3 different enclosure variations that were on here in the past, filled them. Laid up fiberglass and two layers of maple in the roarockit vacuum bag. Never easy