DM’ed
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Hi Doug, many more simulated miles of abuse have no doubt transpired since your last update. Are we getting any closer to having a production timeline or sales date? @TheGoodMomentum
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Checking in. About 3 weeks since the last update. 
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Hello. Yes, I am getting close. I decided to make one small tool change but I am having a final meetign with the manufacturer this Wednesday and then paying them for the first batch.
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Yeah, I have been hard at work. I also had to hire someone to help put more hours on the wheels. Summary is that I am making a small tool change to increase durability a little bit more but without adversely affecting comfort too much (but it is a little trade off of comfort vs. durability). I also casted these by hand to make sure there weren’t any major issues, but, of course, I can’t use my hand casted wheels for durability testing since they aren’t the production manufacturing process or materials.
Big update coming tomorrow night!
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Awesome! Thanks for the quick response Doug!
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Thanks for all the work you are putting into these! I don’t think you need to worry about selling these.
Running a little bit late on the update, but working on it right now!
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Sorry. Fell asleep last night. Writing these blogs helps me formulate my thoughts and it takes a little bit of time to gather all the data for you all in an easy to read manner (basically compacting 3 weeks of work into a blog post takes me time to present in a professional manner). But I am working on it through the day till I get more time to focus on the blog post specifically tonight.
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Here is a quick video update. Working on compiling the info into a blog in a concise and clear manner.
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Switching on the noisy machine right as you begin your report is truly masterful trolling, man.
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Oh common, release them already, no esk8er wants THAT level of safetyness ^^
Kiddin, you’re great, keep it up
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Ribbed for extra pleasure? I like it.
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Hello everyone,
Thank you for putting your faith in me and I am working hard to get across the finish line.
Cliff Notes: I am feeling confident enough to place the order. I am making a small tool change to strengthen the wheel. I am awaiting a specific timeline and feedback from the manufacturer. See below for details.
Here is a video update for those that want to see more of a behind of the scene look (same as the one above): Hollow Manufacturing Update 12 - YouTube
In this blog post, I will talk about all the durability testing, small changes to the wheel, and the timeline for production.
I durability tested all the wheels that I had on hand to get as much data to determine if the wheels in the latest configuration are reliable. This means I brought every single wheel that I had to failure to see how they would fail and why and when. Your safety is my ultimate concern.
The bad: I did identify a failure and it is failing on the inside of the wheel during extreme lateral forces (see below to see what “lateral forces” are).
The good: I already came up with a solution and the manufacturer is aware. I tested a bunch of different designs to strengthen the wheel for lateral load conditions and it is much stronger. I hand casted a wheel (see below). The new wheel is a tank even though it is a wheel. Sorry. Bad joke. No failures on the hand casted wheel with lateral load. So far we have 3x the run time over the previous configuration and on the competition. Of course, this is a hand casted wheel and not a production wheel yet, but the production wheel material is better than the hand casted urethane that I use.
The failure:
The Hollow Wheel stood up against the pot hole test very well, but the lateral test was the true killer. In my durability testing, the Hollow Wheel lasted hundreds of thousands of bumps on the bump test at 30-35mph (See reference section for pot hole testing).
However, when simulating for extended lateral loads of a 600 lb person doing 1G in a corner **(**what is “G” in a corner? See reference section), the wheel was bending in a certain direction that caused a crack. The reason why I selected 600lbs and 1G corner force is I wanted to get a factor of safety of 2. In other words, there are so many variables in the real-world that I can happen and so I want some extra buffer in case I did not take it into account. I also selected 1G corner force for the same reason. Most standard electric skateboards on urethane won’t be able to touch 1G.
That said, this isn’t a failure that is very sudden; it doesn’t explode. Rather, if you were riding on the wheel, there would be more vibration and you’d probably look to see what the heck is going on. Of course, I am working to completely eliminate this occurrence.
To bench mark the competition, I ran the same lateral test on other wheels to gauge where I was. Here is a picture of another wheel. The main failure here was delamination from the core to the tread.
New Rib Design & Production Mold Modification
The new rib design adds 13% more strength to withstand lateral load testing better. Specifically, the ribs help stiffen the wheel against the bending which the wheel has to experience during extreme lateral forces. Here is a simulation we ran. This picture depicts deflection. The yellow zone is where it bends most post ribs. Now it is away from the critical zone.
I tested multiple rib geometries and found this was the most durable and also doesn’t adversely impact comfort. It just strengthens the wheel for lateral load conditions.
Here is a picture of the a wheel that I hand casted so I could slap it on the test rig to see if how it performs on the test rig with lateral force loads - if it would out perform the other design. Hint: it does outperform and is now very durable - we have 3x the run time over the previous configuration and on the competition
Next Steps to SHIPPING
I’m placing the order for the big batch now and putting down the extra money for the tooling change. Green cells indicate complete. Yellow indicate in progress. If you see red, it means it is behind. We do not like red.
Walking through the timeline, they need about 20 days for production + tooling machining, then it is 2-4 weeks for shipping from China, then I am going to test and inspect many of the wheels.
I plan to test 50 sets of the wheels out of the 200. All we are doing in this testing sequence is checking to see if the quality is good from an aesthetic to production. I’ll throw them on the test rig as a check. Since I have a plethora of data on how they fail, it will be pretty quick to identify if we are in the clear or not. This is why the testing is only a week.
Then if they check out, then it ships from there.
Thank you all for your patience. I am so sorry there continues to be delays but I hope that my full transparency provides some sort of relief. Feel free to reach out any time.
Reference Section
For those that are not familiar with what “pot hole testing” is, then see this video: More durability testing - YouTube
What is lateral G force?
When I say “1G”, it refers to the gravitational force equivalent. In other words, when you go through a corner in a car, you can feel a side load on your body. 1G is equivalent to your body weight. In a really fast car, like a Corvette, they can max out at 1G load. Most road cars can only do a maximum of 1G of force in a corner. The race electric skateboards out there maybe could muster 1G in a corner, but most electric skateboards won’t come close. Still, I use 1G as a max load for buffer.
Here is a graphical representation of what lateral force is. The driver in this F1 car is experiencing cornering loads of 5G. So this driver is experiencing 5x his body weight in the corner. So if he only weighs 100lbs just standing still, he is experiencing 500lbs of side load through the corner.
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Oh man, fingers crossed it’s actually 10 weeks til I get them. I only get to ride during the summers here, and that’s coming up fast! 
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This is so awesome Doug it’s been a great ride watching your production and testing. I’m excited to get them!
Happy to be one of the first orders from back in September or October, whatever it was. Are we able to add different shock absorber sets to our kits if we ordered that long ago? It’s been so long I may have some more funds to get an additional stiffness
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Thank you so much. I apologize for the delays. The best thing I can do is of course deliver, but beyond that it is just being as transparent and as vulnerable as I can to let you guys know what I am doing and to show you that I am not just sitting around trying to get people’s money.
Yeah, you can add different shock absorber sets still, email me and I can take care of that for you.
Thank you so much.
Doug
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You’re doing such a great job. I can’t wait to see the end results.
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Have you considered this failure mode?
These are actual photos from 2 days ago. This isn’t as uncommon as I’d like it to be.
(These aren’t Momentum Wheels)
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Steel instead of urethane should solve that.
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