Yep. I’ve gone completely submerged, as in water coming over the top of my deck. Sensor cables shorted and kicked errors, but it kept going and got me home.
Granted, that did allow some water in upon inspection, but my enclosure was missing 3 bolts at the time because I’m a lazy savage. It could have been catastrophic, as opposed to very little water penetration. Nothing came through any silicone sealed port.
Yea mine was quite as bad as that. I still have that shitty tiller enclosure on it so there are a few gaps around the deck area but I’ve used plenty of weather stripping to seal that up too.
Nice thread 
where on earth did you get that Drang deck for $30!?
Did you test this nickel for purity? It could very well be stainless if it was blowing out like that
based on the welds that @SeanHacker was yiking about, looks like you had a bit too much heat on the welder (too high joules / watt seconds set ) and / or not enough pressure on the nickel. When the positive makes contact with the nickel but not good contact with the cell top, it asplodes.
however, i’ve blown a few holes in nickel myself while learning to weld and as long as its not in danger of shorting on its own cell it shouldn’t be a big deal. just make absolutely sure you don’t have molten metal laying around inside the cell top and nothing stupid is happening with the heat shrink on the cell. But next time definitely use insulator rings.
and don’t try to fix weld blast holes with solder. Once the nickel has been altered by the heat solder won’t stick to it. Its better to tuna-can peel it off with needle nose pliers, grind the weld points down on the cell top with a dremel grinding wheel (using almost no pressure, let the speed do the work) and start over.
also, i love the idea of actually using that key switch but i can tell you don’t have room for it in the enclosure really. I’d like to try biometrics at some point.
likely wasn’t stainless, maybe nickel plated steel… stainless can’t be soldered to in my experience of buying nickel and not actually getting nickel. stainless is a motherfucker because it looks right, welds amazing, and then you can’t fucking solder anything to it. I have about 2 pounds of what i beleive to be stainless on a roll if anyone wants it for fixing the trim on thier trailer or making chinese armor costumes.
Sure, I should have been less specific. I just mean could be ‘not pure nickel or nickel plated steel’.
That stuff welds ‘so well’ that it tends to blow holes out at higher power, where pure nickel doesn’t. I just ran into that exact situation last year, was like: wtf? Turned down power and it stopped blowing through.
Then sodium showed it to be all made of lies.
and stainless will pass the salt test with ease, making it even more sinister. ooooooh that guy on ebay… really got my goat. Lost like $300 bucks on a roll of “good deal pure nickel for battery build many amps”
then i tried hitting up a legit supplier for the govt/mil complex and they gave me the run around then vanished.
I’m still looking for legit 25mm x .15 nickel.
I can get you.
Boom! Jeff saving the day again!!
I kinda want some too!
Water will go in through those cables. Even if the cables are sealed externally, water can go in from the inside of the cable around the wires.
Whats the best thing to do for that? I guess embed the female connector in the enclosure so its solid metal?
Well, to be fair I did not buy it separately. I got someone’s beat up long board collection with material worth 4 complete decks. Fixed and sold one, traded another for a focbox 1.6, and based on what I have left I estimate the deck to have cost me like $30.
Does anyone have a similar Drang build?
Did not. Figured that even nickel plated steel can carry the 20A that this ESC can handle.
But I’ll make sure to make a test before using this stuff again. I bet you are right.
I think you’re right.
Might it also be that pos/neg terminals of the cells need different joules? Kinda felt like that while welding.
Yeah, I did my best on this.
You bet! No more cutting fishpaper strips…
Great to know, thank you!!
I love the idea, too, but i ditched it because: If someone is going to steal your board, they won’t have the remote, so they will have to carry it anyways.
A finger-print on-switch would actually be awesome.
Imagine you combine it with bkb’s gps tracker, and somehow extend it to send you a copy of the thief’s fingerprint along with the gps location, without the thief knowing what just happened. mind blown.
why not make some art?
Please, I have been looking for this, too!!
Critics, don’t lose your shit. Learning is happening here. … but please do chime in prn. 
@b264 as I’m taking premade CNC’D mounts and hubs to get blinged out just bc I want to feel pretty for once, I love gritty builds that embody the essence of “fuck it, I’ll do my way and if it works it fucking works”. Irony noted.
Final sprint:
