Intro: (just skip this part)
Everything started one year ago, I was very attracted to longboards (gave up street skateboarding some time ago) and I loved watching downhill raw runs (I still do), then some videos of electric skateboards popped up on youtube and I liked the idea of having always the speed as in downhill skateboarding and the fact that I could use it as a means of transport.
So I bought my first eskate: Apsuboard X2.
Cheap, well built and its stats were more than enough for me at the time.
Summer went by and I was looking for more, something more powerful that I could even ride on dirt paths and grass.
I’ve watched hundreds of videos on prebuilt Eboards but I didn’t find anything that I was really going crazy about.
One day someone on Reddit told me to DIY and build the best board for my budget. I was definitely not thinking about it because I didn’t know shit about electronics… didn’t even know what iron soldering was or what a multimeter was.
After more research on prebuilt boards founding nothing worth my money, I took the idea to DIY more seriously and found out a lot of good information, especially in this forum… I remember reading some posts of the most experienced guys and thinking: “fuuuk I’m way too dumb for this”. Slowly after a ton of videos explaining how the electric components of an Eskate worked I started to put my “project” together.
The idea:
I wanted something with the classic skateboard feeling and also (light)offroad friendly. To be honest, I got inspired by the Evolve gt… don’t hate me for that (every Eskate new entry likes those boards 
), I obviously needed better escs (compatible with vesc), beefier motors, stiff wooden deck and rkp trucks instead of dkp to get a more downhill board feeling instead of a cruiser board feeling and I also wanted it to be cheaper than an Evolve.
Then I started ordering the components and here’s the parts list:
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Deck: Fibretec Downhill 980 (detailed description of the deck here https://baboonboards.com/shop/fibretec-downhill-980-drop/ )
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Trucks: Torqueboard CNC 220
( bought a pair of used trucks from @Taraskasyanyuk , they have just a few scratches and they came with 93a barrel from riptide)
-wheels: 90mm Boa Hatchling 83a for street setup, used 6x2 pneumatics from @martijns98 for AT setup
-pulleys: 16:36 for street setup, 16:50 for AT setup
( I thought that pulleys were 60T when I bought them but once they arrived I counted only 50t)
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Motor mounts: I got a pair of extended Dickyho motor mounts from @Anubis
![image|375x500, 75%]
(shoutout to Ben for helping me out on the gear ratio choice and for sending me other cool stuff!
When motor mounts arrived I realized that the clamps weren’t compatible with my trucks, I thought that tb 218 and tb 220 had the same style truck but I was terribly wrong. That’s when I asked @dickyho himself for help, he made me some custom clamps that are fitting my trucks.
Thank you again buddy
-
ESCs: 2x Maytech SUPERFOC6.8 50A
( I probably could have spent my money better here, they cost a lot more due to the import taxes but I personally find their heat dissipation covers sexy In Stock SUPERFOC6.8 50V V6.0 based Speed Controller Great FOC Functio – Maytech.cn--Maytech official website )
-Receiver – Remote: Maytech MTSKR2005WF IP66 ( https://maytech.cn/products/pre-sale-maytech-new-remote-for-electric-skateboard-mtskr2005wf-v2-waterproof-hand-remote?_pos=1&_sid=46dc557b6&_ss=r )
- Motors: 2x Maytech 6365 brushless motor 190kv ( In Stock! MTO6365-200/190/170-HA Maytech sensored engine 6365 170KV 19 – MICHOBBY.COM )
-Enclosure: Abs 50x15x4cm
-Battery: 10s4p Samsung 30q pack BMS charge only made by @Simeon .
Classic, reliable and well built.
The best choice of the entire build was this one, not because of the battery itself but because of Simeon.
He always helped me out massively answering all my noob questions with patience and kindness. He guided me to my first soldering jobs and explained me a lot of stuff in a way that I could understand, he is my Eskate Guru basically <3
Listen up European folks, if you want a solid battery pack and a five stars customer service now you know who to ask.
Total cost of the build: around 1500€
*About the 15% of the cost are shipping expenses (I ordered stuff from the same shops at different times so I paid the shipping more than once:’[ )
Building process/problems:
All the parts arrived in different periods so the actual building process took more time than I expected.
When I finally had everything to put the board together I had a lot of issues: went to a hobby store, bought an iron solder and it wasn’t working, after buying a new one I soldered some more 12awg wire to extend a bit my esc to battery connections, I even tried to avoid soldering with crimp connectors but I fucked it up and I had to redo it two more times to get it right. Then I had some trouble configuring escs with the vesc tool not reading the slave esc… and many more but they’re mainly because of my miserable building skills and my poor knowledge of electronics.
I also had to cut off the edges of the deck to avoid wheel bite with pneumatics… something that I didn’t take into account.
Long story short I finally got the board working before summer and this was my target.
First rides feelings:
Cause of the pandemic I couldn’t go far from home to test it properly yet, but I had some fun in parking lots and hills nearby. I really didn’t expect the result though, it rides wonderfully!
The board has some serious torque in the street set up and having those wide drop thru trucks with a long wheelbase lets me fully exploit its potential, squeezing the throttle at 30kmh can still kick me off if I’m not leaning forward.
Carving is enjoyable too: the wide trucks let me throw my whole body into the curves but tight turns take some effort, it can be pretty tough sometimes so I may get softer bushings in the future.
Slides are easy to initiate due to the stiff board and the trucks mounted drop thru, this lowers the center of gravity and helps the wheels to break traction when I apply pressure on one side of the deck.
“Little” 6x2’s are grippy on the asphalt and they handle rough terrains pretty well, but I feel like I need more torque in this configuration so I’ll get 60t pulleys sooner or later.
I’m looking forward to test its acceleration and top speed.
Future changes/adjustments
already mentioned: softer bushings, bigger wheel pulley in AT set up (at least 60T)
-foam griptape
-turning up Battery values on the Vesc tool to increase performance a lil bit
Conclusion:
I just found out recently some good videos on youtube showing how to get smoother looking holes to get charge port and loop key port out of the enclosure and I definitely wasn’t precise in this build mostly because of inexperience… but DIY is all about learning from your mistakes, isn’t it?
I’ll put more effort aesthetically speaking on my next builds.
I also recently found out that there are a lot of Eboards named “outlaw” in this forum(much better than mine 
)… wish I discovered this earlier, spraying the enclosure* and applying homemade stencils was one of the first things I did. Since in Italy we don’t have any type of law mentioning electric skateboards (just ebikes and escooters), I thought that “Outlaw” was a proper name for it.
*I know the graphics are upside down but that was on purpose: when I lay the board on a wall I will place it front wheels down otherwise its weight will be put on the motors and motor mounts.
I learned a lot in here and there are other people that answered some of my silly noob questions that I want to thank and deserve a shoutout:
@b264 @PixelatedPolyeurthan @Venom121212 @rafaelinmissouri @Fosterqc @ShutterShock @MysticalDork @BenjaminF @BillGordon
I probably forgot someone…
Here’s a little edit of my first fun session with this board:
Cheers! 
