Hi all, brand new to the forum here and looking forward to some help (hopefully).
I have recently purchased an old “Golf Skate Caddy” for use at my local club. You can see one of their old promo videos here: Golf Skate Caddy - YouTube
Well, needless to say, it’s pretty old, and this thing is in ROUGH shape. But, considering some of the new golfboards (golfboard.com) 3-5K… i figure this is worth taking a shot at trying to fix it up. A buddy of mine basically said to me… you know this thing is just a giant esk8 board. So, after watching many many vids on esk8 builds, battery DIY, etc. it led me here.
I think all I need to do is figure out some of the electrical specs, build a battery, and replace the “guts” with a new VESC, etc. But…
It’s HEAVY and clunky. I was able to find an old spec sheet on one here: Golf Skate Caddy Specifications - Village Cartworks All it says about the motors is that they are both 1000w. But, that doesn’t give me enough info for what ESC would control them properly does it?
The battery was enormous (but is gone, and looks like someone had hacked in their own solution because the power switch is a different shape (and rusted out) etc.
From what I can gather it was a 30AH 36volt system. They claim it could last for 2 full rounds before needing a re-charge. I would likely never want to go past 1 round per charge. But, given hills / elevation, etc. i guess planning for longer is a good idea.
What else should I be paying attention to? The one thing I can’t seem to find much information on is how these things BRAKE? I get that the controller has a brake function like an rc car trigger, but is it just using the motors themselves to brake? What about when I stop? Presumably for a golf course situation… i will be stopping on steep hills sometimes and would want the motorized wheels to hold like a parking brake. Is that how they will naturally behave when powered? Right now, I can roll all 4 wheels freely. Not sure if that is a good sign or a bad sign. Could be broken belts in there too, I suppose? Will have to take those apart next.
I suppose step 1 is finding or building a battery and getting my hands on an appropriate VESC that can control 2 motors. Suggestions?
Anyway, thanks VERY MUCH for any guidance / suggestion / tips you guys can give me on this. I’m eager to learn and get this thing back to the land of the living.
You’re looking for a dual controller, pretty common and many for sale here used. You need the voltage of the system and how many peak amps you plan to feed the motors which will tell you what controller you’ll need. Braking is done via the motors, but there’s no sort of mechanical parking brake feature. You’d need something mechanical for that.
I’m a traditional trigger system you’d flick forward for braking.
All four wheels rolling freely with no mechanical whine of sorts, yeah likely broken belts.
I saw some vids that said they topped out at about 13MPH. The weight without the battery is about 70 pounds. The factory battery was 36V 30Ah Lithium NMC. Looks like the battery was another 15 pounds or so? I can’t find any specifics about the motors other than “dual 1000w brushless motors.”
I know it’s 36 volts, which means I need 10S. But, how do i figure out discharge rates and all that kind of stuff? Like I said, i want to make sure it has PLENTY of power for a full round, but i dont necessarily need all the extra weight of trying to get 2 rounds out of it. When I asked the company, they said I can order the original battery still (although they now use a custom builder). They quoted 650 for a 32AH 36 volt, but said that I could proabably drop it to 20-24 and still have PLENTY of power for a single round of use.
Yeah plenty of battery builders around. Discharge rate depends on how many cells in a p group the original battery had and what cells they originally used. That could tell you what the original battery was capable of outputting amps wise.
In terms of motor amps I’m not sure, depends on the original controller and it’s settings. But at 13mph top speed I think if you just figure out the battery you can just play with settings later for motor.
@G8rfn2 Welcome! I’ve been wanting to do something like this for myself for awhile now. I have golfed on my old board once before. While it was cool at first, it kinda sucked carrying my clubs on my back in the end. It really sucked when I ate dirt as well. Plus, I had no place for my beer.
I had looked at them a while back but couldn’t find a lot of info on using them to build a 36v battery. Most are 12v for car stereo systems from what i can tell?
