Hello! Wanted to share the deck swap build I did on the Evolve/Loaded collab cruiser board. I believe the deck was built by Loaded (Omakase-ish) and everything else by Evolve. As a low powered cruiser, I didn’t necessarily have gripes about the power, except its range left a lot to be desired (10S2P Samsung 30Qs). As some of you may know, Evolve really locks its electronics down with proprietary parts including the BMS that makes switching out any part very difficult. So I decided to swap everything out. To quote @rafaelinmissouri, DIY is a disease.
I kept only the deck and the enclosure. I’ll probably sell the original electronics/drivetrain for someone planning a super-lightweight build. It took a LOT of measuring and Dremel’ing of the enclosure to fit the new parts. I wanted to fit a 12S2P pack but there wasn’t enough space. I could barely fit 10S2P 21700s, so I chose MBoards’ 50S PCB pack. I prioritized cell capacity over current for this low power build. There was no space for a smart BMS, so in goes the tiny MBoards’ Daly BMS.
For the ESC, the smallest form factor dual VESC I could think of was MakerX DV4S, so no brainer there (I believe they are smaller than Flipskys that don’t have the aluminum shell). I am still utilizing the stock enclosure heatsink, although it should almost never get that hot due to low power draw.
Even these small parts were too tall for the stock ABS enclosure, but nothing pliers and more Dremel’ing could not handle. Evolve makes separate enclosure for battery and ESC, so they were joined by hot glue. The finishing touch was closed cell neoprene foam strips and hot glue.
The motors are @Skyart 6354s, perfectly suited and lightweight for this kind of build. The wire color matches the grip tape. For trucks, I chose @Boardnamics older gen BN220s I got from @KaramQ. The blue complements the overall color scheme as well. BN Adjustable Baseplates set to 40 degrees and decked with @RipTideSports Krank bushings. I used a long flat bracket from @IDEA to push back the rear truck and make space, inspired by @tomiboi. Basic BN motor mounts. I wanted to mount the motors forward but had clearance issues, and there was so much excess motor wire that had to go somewhere, so reverse mounted for now. I didn’t want to shorten the motor wires. Mad 105 V2s from @fujio001. Flipsky VX4s with thumbwheel upgrade from @3DServisas.
I personally like the looks of the rear truck further back, though now the wheels don’t not match the wheel wells. The stock Evolve board didn’t either with their DKPs, because this deck was designed for RKPs. The kicktail is nonfunctional, but that’s not a big deal for me.
I really enjoyed making the off the shelf serviceable with aftermarket parts (I even changed out all imperial bolts to metric bolts too). With nominal 370 Wh battery capacity, the range is enough for a thane board before my feet get tired. This is my third DIY build but needed most hands on work because of the space constraints, so I am proud of the outcome and wanted to share. The other builds, while higher spec’d, weren’t as challenging (just drilling holes, shimming here and there to put it together) because the enclosure space was largely no object. Thanks for reading!
