Idk how often people usually replace gears, but from the passed 2 years of (abusive) wear and tear on mine I don’t think they’ll ever need to be replaced. Hardened steel lasts seemingly for ever.
You will need better alignment and tolerances though.
My guess would be that 15 instead of 10 will give a 50% longer cycle life. Since thats aproximately how much more surface area you add.
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i think you can definitely shave a lot of weight off the bull gears via pocketing. theres a lot of steel there that isnt doing much except increase MOI and overall weight. you could probably take off about half the weight of that gear which would put you ahead of BN if i had to guess. this does complicate machining a fare bit tho so maybe not worth.
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i’ve nearly worn out the steel gear on a steel-pom greased gear drive. fast high mileage will eat a drive for breakfast. (hardening will help wear)
i’d take 50% longer life for ~13g weight, reliability is king imo
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this is probably (like you said) highly dependent on the precision of the gear’s alignment. if you have perfect face contact then id imagine increasing face width by 50% might even get you more than 50% extra cycle life because the pressures on the tooth surfaces are reduced in addition to there being more gear that needs to be ground away before failure.
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How many miles? Backlash makes a big difference on gear tooth wear. There are many of us with over 1k miles on gd and barely any noticeable tooth wear
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yeah i definitely agree. i think the weight savings is more than 13g tho. Also, I think the main thing you gain from smaller face width is the increased space afforded for motors tho.
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That photo is of the prototype V1 gears. The V2 bull gears are already pocketed that’s one of the ways I managed to reduce weight . Great minds eh 
Sneak peak for you guys:
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Totally agree mate especially for mountainboarding where people are riding on rough terrain, pushing the limits of toque on steep inclines and doing jumps; robustness is a high priority.
The downside is added weight, but I think I’ve solved that, only 687g per drive is pretty decent. The width of the drives are not an issue either I have 6384 motors mounted and there is plenty of room for 63100 motors 
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1k not that many miles tho
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That was one example, I’ve seen plenty of drives with much more haha - I have to imagine monkey runs harder than most people though. Too tight backlash or too loose can prematurely wear em too
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That sounds like a freak accident. I put >25km on my board almost every single day for 2 years, through slush and salt, through rain and sleet and my steel in steel gears still look brand new after a wipe-down. I was hitting 60kph regularly and accelerating as fast as my setup could possibly so.
And my drivetrain is re-used from my first DIY, so add another summer of long rides on top of that.
Maybe I just don’t ride as aggressively as you, or your build must be a much higher power level than mine. A worn out steel gear just seems like quite a rare occurrence.
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~>5000miles, i do like power wheelies tho XD
been doing rc cars for over 10 years, nought worst then having to strip the whole car down cause the backlash is wrong
like i said hardened steel to hardened steel will last longer, but high rpm on a high gear ratio with high torque and miles will eat any drive
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I think these look great with thoughtful engineering & style.
Put me down for a set when UK rejoins Europe
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So, never?
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Maybe when all the old farts are dead.
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Update! – Prototype 2 Testing
Sorry about the lack of activity on this thread, I wanted to put some miles on the V2 prototype drives before going any further with the design. I’ve pretty much been riding exclusively offroad including mountain bike trials and pump tracks, in both dry and wet conditions to see how the drives hold up mechanically and to corrosion.
So far there have been no mechanical failures, the main issue I had with the V1 proto was the truck clamps coming loose from the hanger, and some tolerance issues with bearings and pinion gears, thankfully this has been completely fixed with V2.
@Pickled_Monkey has been kindly testing the V1 prototype; so much has changed from V1 to V2 that the only commonality is the gear teeth design, but it should give us a good idea about how the teeth wear as he does serious number of miles per week and is famous from breaking stuff. Check out his workshop thread here
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Archer Boards Storefront
I’m happy to announce that the Archer Boards website is finally live, and our E-MTB gear drives are available to pre-order!
The gear drive pre-orders will be available to purchase for one month from today, and we expect delivery of the gear drives to your door by the end of October.
Development of these gear drives would not have been possible without help from the esk8 News community, that’s why we are adverting the pre-order here first. Manufacture of our first batch of gear drives would not be possible without people willing to pre-order, and that’s why we are selling the gear drives for special price of £275, a saving of £50 off the RRP.
For more information about the gear drives and the pre-order process carry on reading, or to place an order visit our store!
E-MTB Gear Drive Pre-order Information
Our Story
When I set out to design my own electric mountain board gears drives, I thought it would be a quick and easy job I have a PhD in Electronic Engineering, how hard could it be to design some helical gears to mesh together, right!
Sadly, I was wrong, I started designing my first gear drive prototype in in early 2022 and after going through multiple 3D printed and metal CNC machined prototypes, and 1000s of miles of testing in hard terrain and weather conditions, I have arrived at robust final design that I’m very proud of.
I have maintained a public build log of for the gear drive development, and the amazing electric skateboard building community at esk8 News has had a lot of input into every step of the design process based on shortcomings they have experienced with existing gear drives. If you’re interested, you can see the entire journey here on the esk8 News Forums.
I’m going to continue this development philosophy going forward, all Archer Boards products will continue to advance and improve with input from the community.
E-MTB Gear Drives
The fundamental design goals were to produce a E-MTB gear drive that is:
Robust | Water and Corrosion Resistant | Easy to Use | Affordable
I’m proud to announce that we have met all these goals, this has been confirmed during months of hard off-road testing including jumps and muddy trail riding.
Robust
- Hardened steel all metal gears with 15mm face width: never break a gear tooth again! We expect these gears to outlast your board.
- All metal construction: The majority of the components are machined from 6061 aluminium.
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Bash guards: all gear drives come with ABS plastic bash guards to protect the gearbox casing from hard impacts.
Water and corrosion resistant
- Water resistance: every single possible point of water ingress is sealed using gaskets, O-rings, bearing seals or V-ring seals to ensure your gears are never exposed to water.
- Corrosion resistant: all exposed components and hardware are corrosion resistant either made from aluminium or stainless steel.
Easy to use
- Rapid wheel changes: Simply undo the axil nut and then pull the wheel hub away from the gear drive hub mount.
- Compatible with many hubs: We implemented a single hub mount design with a hole pattern for MBS hubs and Tramp hubs, allowing you to use lots of different hub variants without buying new hub mount adapters.
- Simple maintenance: The only maintenance required is periodic greasing of the V-ring seal, bearing seal, and gears via the convenient grease port. There is no need to disassemble the gear drive.
- Light weight: Even though we used hardened steel gears with 15mm face widths and full metal construction for the rest of the parts, they still only weigh in at 683g/drive including everything even hardware. For reference Boardnamics M1-AT Drive: 675g/drive, Newbee 4GS: 692g/drive (not including hardware).
Affordable
- No gear replacement required: Unlike some gear drives that use plastic POM gears, our hardened steel gears are made to last, say goodbye to broken gear teeth and gear wear.
- Cost effective: We set out to design and manufacture the most cost effective all metal E-MTB gear drive possible without sacrificing quality and robustness:
Pre-order price: £274.99 | Regular price: £324.99
Specifications
- Compatible trucks: MBS Matrix III, MBS Matrix II, Apex Air, Trampa CNC 19.5mm
- Compatible hubs: MBS Fivestar and Rockstar; and Trampa Superstar, Megastar and Phatlaz
- Available gear ratios: 5.3, 4.5 and 3.9
- Gears face width: 15mm
- Gear material: Hardened steel
- Compatible motors: Any motor with an 8mm shaft, 44mm diameter M4 hole pattern, up to 100mm long.
- Weight: 683g (including everything even screws)
- Dimensions: See drawing for details:
Pre-order Delivery Schedule
The reason we are opting for a pre-order method for the EMTB gear drive release is so we can bulk order components, which will help us get our first batch of gear drives to market. We couldn’t get started without support from people like you, so in exchange we are offering a hefty discount.
Collection period: For a limited time only the Archer Boards EMTB gear drives will be on sale for a special price of £274.99, the store will be open for pre-order payments for one month.
Go or No go: After the Collection period closes, if we have received at least 40 orders we will proceed to manufacture and deliver the first batch of gear drives, if not a full refund will be given to all the people that placed an order.
Additional truck clamp development: We haven’t developed truck clamps for the MBS MATRIX III, Apex Air or Trampa CNC 19.5mm trucks yet, this will be trivial and rapid for us to do. Aluminium prototypes will be manufactured and tested within a month.
Gear drive manufacture: We already have trusted manufacturers in place that we used for our protypes, typical lead times are around 15-20 days.
Gear drive assembly: All the gear drive components will be we inspected, assembled, and packaged at Archer Boards HQ.
Shipping: All gear drives will be shipped via tracked courier service.
Pre-order Terms and Conditions
Please refer to our Pre-order Policy.
Pre-order Now
Please visit our shop to pre-order the E-MTB gear drives, £274.99 for a limited time only!
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The greas port is an interesting and nice touch. Does your gear drive also experience grease leaking out?
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