Evan's 1st Mountainboard | The Apex Croix - 4wd atrocity

[Shadowfax]

Big Update. @poastoast stomp pads, bindings, and battery build. We stayed up laaaate finishing this thing but we had a rideable board by the end. Battery and escs fit perfect in the pelican 1200.

Unfortunately one of the d100s is bad and tried to kill one of my motors. One side of the front d100s cogs and overheats on one motor only. The issue switches sides when you switch phases so it’s definitely the esc. I maybe cooked a motor figuring this out. I sent @YUTW123 a message on WhatsApp so I’m hoping I can get this repaired/replaced fast.

So all in this board has been ridden about 10 feet inside the @Skyart new shop. Feels like a monster.

This is the motor that the d100s cooked. It got hot enough that it smoked a little. It still works and doesn’t look like it has fried windings, but it’s suspect for sure.

[Dinnye]

Dang, you managed to fit a fit a 20S4P with a BMS and two ESCs in the pelican 1200… That’s a nice job, I imagine it’s super tight in there… Gives me some hope that I can pull of the 20S4P or 21S4P with a smart BMS and a single D100S that is heatsinked in the pelican IM2050, which is just marginally bigger (0.5-1cm bigger in each direction). I really like your solution for the phase wires too. I’m going to take some inspiration

[fessyfoo]

I’m glad you kept the under grip tape wire routing so you can still board slide.

[poastoast]

@Dinnye

I imagine it’s super tight in there

yeah it is

i know how to pack it in

[jack.luis]

All mountain boards should look this clean

[Shadowfax]

Big build update!

Turns out the d100s is totally fine. It was just accidentally set to control mode “bidirectional current” on the cogging motor, instead of “off”. If you ever seeing weird cogging on a motor on can, check the control mode…

Im might replace the motor anyway because I overheated it a bit before I figured this out. It appears to work 100% fine, but it smoked a little bit.

Shoutout to @zero_ads for letting me borrow his d100s to diagnose. It was only while setting his d100s up that it dawned on me to recheck the can side control mode….

@DuckBatterySystems recommended some FR4/G10 to insulate the battery from the ESC’s in case they ever suffer a firey death. It’s unlikely but a good precaution nontheless. It also serves as a nice solid base for the entire battery to sit on. Thanks Benjamin for the good idea, and @poastoast for the idea of including it inside the battery shrink wrap.

The D100s’s are packed in with all accessories plugged in. I’m using all 4 uart ports (remote, davega, bluetooth module, hoyt puck receiver for backup (yeah it’s pwm, but it blocks uart port on d100s )

The battery fits absolutely perfect inside of the pelican 1200. I added a 1/8 layer of weatherstripping around the outside to protect from bumping the side.

Yup, that’s a stormcore button. After drilling the button hole too high (blocks battery from dropping in fully), we had to get creative. @poastoast had another great idea, repurposing a much smaller stormcore button instead of the stock d100s button (stock button goes DEEP). The momentary button works fine, but I don’t have a light because the stormy is 3v, and d100s is 5v. We also learned that a LP20 is very low profile on the inside, so no issue with charge port here.

Poast also suggested we could 3dp a housing and use the stock button(s). I think eventually I’d like to do that, but this works well for now.

@3DServisas hall sensor going in @Skyart vx4. @poastoast did the soldering here

In the photo below you can see I had to trim a little more plastic off than recommended by @3DServisas instructions. The case would not close correctly unless I did this. I also added 1 layer of 3m vhb on the hall sensor on the “screen side” of the remote, and 2 layers of vhb on the “palm side” of the remote.

Honestly this remote feel fantastic. I still prefer index finger trigger, but this is quite nice.

[Shadowfax]

First ride!

Overall I’m stoked - this thing is exactly what I was hoping it would be, and I’m looking forward to ripping up dirt hills, sand, and snow.

Wanna send some love and shoutouts to @poastoast for building a killer battery and helping me knock this board out SO FAST. Also thanks @Skyart for letting me come work on the board at your new shop. That place is ESK8 building paradise, and it is SICK.

This build felt like trying to sprint a marathon. We knocked it out in under 30 days start to finish. By far the fastest build time I’ve done. Also… I wasn’t even planning to do this build… it all started black friday when 18650battery store had that stupid good sale on p45b bahahaha

Good things:

• This board has a lot of power and I had a great time on my first quick ride around the neighborhood
• PKP feels floaty and dampens a ton of road chatter
• I have soft krank bushings all around (white//red), which allows a decent amount of carve but feels pretty stable at speed. I haven’t pushed it past 22mph yet because I’m kinda spooked on bindings on road. I REALLY like how much lean the PKP have. Much prefer this amount of lean to traditional channel trucks. The feel stable and i think they do turn enough, although I am going to keep playing with bushing setups, and probably end up spending another $100 at riptide.
• the 3ds hall throttle // vx4 combo - feels good. Lovely amount of tension on the throttle. I did notice that the vx4, while very comfortable to hold, I do kind of lose track where I am on the throttle. I’d like to try out the @3DServisas 3dp case for the remote.
• I’m got 30wh/mile efficiency, which is better than i was expecting. My historical average is 27-29wh/mile on 2wd boards of 12s, 18s, and 21s.
• Freeroll is good on the jump drives. Not quite the same level as POAST drives or BN, but it is 100% acceptable.

Need to work on:

• The shit slinger tires balance just OK on hubba hubs. They front starts to vibrating a little once I hit 20 mph. I can probably improve this with wrapping some layers of tape on the hub for a tighter bead fit. I don’t think I’ll even notice this offroad tho.
• the wire routing food pads hurt my feet pretty fast. I think on a board with more concave you wouldn’t have any issues, but the croix deck is quite flat which causes the wire channels to stab into your foot arch. It gets painful pretty quick with bindings because your foot doesn’t really have much option to move around and reposition.
• the board turned out to be 48 lbs, which is slightly more than expected, but there isn’t much I can do about that anyway. It’s more of an all terrain trophy truck than it is a jump board anyway.

[monsterbuilder]

What an awesome build!

[Shadowfax]

@monsterbuilder

What an awesome build!

thanks man - I’m stoked. Adding some build threads that I took inspiration from while I was cooking this up in my head:

@DuckBatterySystems With Morning Comes Mistfall - The Duck’s first eMTB
@jack.luis | VantaBlack | 12s8p P42A | Trampa Holy Pro | AWD | BN-AT
@ducktaperules EVOLUTION - The 2 year idea. - DIY Builds
@Skyart 18s12p 4WD Lacroix, finality, Monster!!!
@poastoast Project Stop Resisting: a testbed of sorts | 21s 4wd fucc-it-we-ball build | bonus gear drive development!
@rafaelinmissouri - Gravel Flux
@monsterbuilder - The street bro
@alankerr - 4wd lacroix with bindings (TY for the reminder @AlexB)

[AlexB]

This board is killer. Super clean!

Can’t forget @alankerr for inspiration too except he’s a stubborn mofo and won’t make a build thread!

[BillGordon]

Damn nice build there!

Also, this shot is pretty sweet:

[rafaelinmissouri]

@Shadowfax

I wasn’t even planning to do this build…

Preach!!!

[rafaelinmissouri]

Also do you think you could run it without the bindings?

[Shadowfax]

@rafaelinmissouri

Also do you think you could run it without the bindings?

Yeah you could definitely run it no bindings. That’s the main reason I did the wiring underfoot - I wanted the option to pull the bindings off for street riding.

I’m running the apex airs with a lot of lean and I don’t think you would have any issues if you are with angled risers and soft bushings

[monsterbuilder]

@Shadowfax

with angled risers and soft bushings

This right here is the magical combination with an MTB deck on channels. So much fun.

[rafaelinmissouri]

Also I think handles are cool.
You need to get a hold of yourself…

[Shadowfax]

Update on bindings…. I wouldn’t recommend riding airs without bindings.

I’m running the softest krank bushings (red) up front and soft (white) in back as barrel//cone combo. This feels super carvey and fun with bindings on, but it just feels kind of dead with no bindings.

No bindings with airs might be ok if you ran cone // cone bushings for more turn. I’ll have to try that eventually but I don’t have enough cones on hand to test.

I’ll say I do really like the airs. They have a lot of lean and are super playful how I have them set up.

No binding carves

Loose binding carves

[rafaelinmissouri]

That is quite a difference on the videos.

[poastoast]

@Shadowfax

Wanna send some love and shoutouts to @poastoast for building a killer battery and helping me knock this board out SO FAST

if there’s one thing i can be good at, it’s finishing fast

glad i could help! zoom zoom

[ShutterShock]

Yeah you can reaaalllly go deep with bindings on - not as deep as rtkp, but definitely enough to have a lot of fun