I have been pretty disappointed with SB as a company. There’s so much potential but it’s really let down by the electronics. I think it’s the sort of thing that I wouldn’t personally think is viable to produce as a rival. Summerboard have it sown up really and you would end up trying to compete with a company that have everything made and mostly assembled in China. I don’t know how big the DIY parts market would be - I assume lots of customers are snowboarders that have no previous experience or knowledge of building. In my experience it’s all about final cost, even if you had a superior product, if you are $600 more you’ll lose a lot of sales.
What I do think there’s a market for is “bulletproofing”. Taking peoples broken boards, removing the SB electronics entirely and adding a cheap VESC based ESC and a battery in a new case. I’ve been asked many many times to do this for people after they saw my conversion and I think that could be popular in the US.
Given I have avoided their electronics entirely and tried piecing together bits, I have a different problem with them. Parts availability unless you are under warranty seems to be a crapshoot. They show off a new and improved part and then shrowd its availability in mystery. Hoping you stop trying to repair your board and buy a new one it feels like. I really wish they would own up and say their don’t want to/can’t support the community with parts instead of it seems like ghosting us.
I thought it was funny when Aaron said they would add replacement part ordering into the SB app along with a community feature. Seems like such a 180 (pun intended) from the current status quo.
This Battery + VESC box with charger and remote combo seems to be missing from the market entirely. Sure a DIYer posts them time to time but nothing consistent, I guess maybe @mboards or whoever will make something like that someday.
DIY minded Summerboarders will lap that up big time.
Cost wise on the mechanical side with marrying the 5-X and Freebord designs I was thinking you can make the initial investment with a gravity Freebord, learn to ride/fall then decide if you want electric.
You could buy a broken summerboard and use the conversion kit sorta to take the SR360 slip rings and fit them, maybe use the stock battery / controller+remote. Or also get the diy electronics.
So a 2-3 stage series of upgrades.
5-X → 5X summerboard hybrid → full diy
SB SBX → summerboard 5X hybrid → full diy
I think it would really need to be a full service, customer sends in board and the parts are fitted for them and the work warrantied. The amount of customers that buy SB and would feel competent enough or even to be bothered messing about is minimal. If FB get their finger out I imagine they will sell the trucks and decks to SB customers but that’s about it.
The things that break on SB are the electronics, i’m not sure people are looking for mechanical parts (which seem to last much better) when they can hopefully soon just buy the 5 trucks and bolt them onto a working board.
Like I said the main customer you would sell this service to is someone with no DIY inclination who bought a board and the electronics have gone and they are tired of sending their boards into SB or they want a bigger range etc. Selling kits like you suggest I don’t think wouldn’t work very well, personal opinion. If you are serious you should do some market research and see if it’s viable.
Thanks for all the awesome posts and info guys! Especially @Fosterqc ! awesome work
Anybody tried angling the caster wheel?
I have the summerboard and just got the new 5x freebord so got the 5x spring loaded trucks onto the summerboard. have not yet tried it out yet, but doing some reading and with the previous troubles with the summerboard was its propensity to NOT straightline.
Ripstick and its angled caster wheels seems to get it to straightline more so.
I think this would make the summerboard directional, but curious if anybody tried this out.
Thanks!!
I wish I had a printer with some hardcore strong filament so I could print a good angled riser for the fb5 castor but I will have to settle for a block of wood or something.
I think about the ripstikafication of a Freeboard is it could be fun certainly not as versatile of a ride… however if you could wiggle your way uphill and then slide back down you got yourself an idea!
Possibly, if you never want to ride switch comfortably. Perhaps I am overblowing that negative aspect.
To twist this into a topic I am more interested in I wonder if you can get some interesting feeling from adding an angle symmetrically to the castor bases. Really have no idea what could be good/bad about that.
hmm what do you mean by asymmetric angled castor bases?
when i get some time i think ill try adding a small angle to the summerbord with some cut up rubber spacers just to see how they behave.
for riding switch, i think just have to ride goofy from the start. my ephasis on the summerbord is to keep up my snowboarding thru the off season, and i figure having the board directional would kind of equate to following the fall line/down hill direction… it would be sad not be able to ride switch whenever by doing a 180… we’ll see how it goes soon…
These days are passed seemingly. Both Major problems have been resolved on Summerboard and Freebord front.
Now with the SB being a hopefully viable product (nylon bases and new v2 electronics) I hope that aftermarket parts like idk maybe suspension could be brought about.
One thing that occourse to me, is there any reason you couldn’t just use normal bearings in place of a slip ring / rotary union? could be as simple as 3 608s stacked axialy, or 3 different bearings mounted concentrically. could even repack them with conductive grease to be sure.
Alternatively rotate the esc with it and use two bearings for power & a conventional electrical union / slip ring stack for data. additionally if you do it this way, you could step up to 100+ V to current through the bearings and then step down the other side. 40a DC-DC buck converters are cheap enough.
Might be a daft idea but easy enough to test I imagine.
This exact question has been asked here. From my research the answer to why that exact idea would not work is as the bearings spun there would be small arc that would errode the bearings till they seized. Same idea as EDM machining used to cut parts with tiny sparks.
The solution to that issue is found in the OG project I linked in the first post, on the old esb forum. They made DIY fully aluminum bearings arranged concentrically with rubber compression to keep even pressure.
I would love to see someone try putting the motor controller on the wheel module itself. One massive benefit would be getting motor sensor/encoder feedback also power cuts would be more likely to be not noticeable although on the same token a big problem also CAN bus would need to be solved… How to get low voltage slowdown and ABS errors coordinated on both modules. You could maybe see how that idea lends itself to a Center powered module Freeboard.
This idea is in my head quite a bit. I should really work on making the mockup model of the Crazy Cart XL, using the normal cart model that razor actually released themselves as guide… AFAIK the castors are identical more or less from standard to XL.
The adapter could be made a couple ways. Most simple being just like a truck riser with an extra hole that a bolt passes through and screw into the threads like seen in that pic of replacement castors. Or said adapter plate could also function as the base of the castor, holding the pivot bearing and sort of looking like the Otherbord mp1 castor bases.
the reason this interests me is there are lots of complaints about all castors kinda sucking on those, where on SBX and Freebord the complaints are more few and far between.
I have been speculating about how the resistance works on them, I think that central bolt has barrel bushings that get squished, and somehow the endstops are hiding on there. Or its a square bushing of some kind.
/ controller+remote. Or also get the diy electronics.
