Helllloooo my friends! I’m finally starting a build thread for another build! Great times. I promise I will consider updating my mountainboard build thread sometime this year.
This build thread will document the entire process of building and upgrading my primary raceboard that will be used for any any all racing events that I participate in, as well as all track days at our San Diego ARD/I2S meets.
The idea behind this build is to create a beautiful one-of-a-kind build with bright colors, custom graphics, and crazy power. My goal as a racer is actually to become one of the best. I’ve got a long ways to go, but this is the beginning of my journey.
What you will see here today is far from the final configuration, but will get it rolling, and let me start practicing with 3Links to prepare for more power down the road. Now of course, this is no slouch as it exists today, but it will have a large boost in performance with my planned upgrades. Additionally, in interest of running this build at esk8con, I will not be painting anything until after that event. This means disassembling the board completely, sanding things, stripping the grip tape, and a whole host of other things. So beware, the ugly duckling (not really, it’s just plain lol) will turn into a beautiful swan later this year.
Enough words for now. Let’s see some gear!
In the above picture, you can see pretty much all of the parts for this build, as it stands in phase one.
ESC(s):
MakerX M100 x 2 @YUTW123 . This lovely Secret Santa present is getting put to use in this build as a temporary brain until I can upgrade to some higher power gear. I do not think they will break or anything like that, but considering their absolutely minute size, I believe heatsoak will occur in a very small number of minutes, even at 40 battery amps each. As I’m writing this, I have not had my first test ride yet, so I am not sure. Never fear @frame when I take them out of this build, they will be going straight into another.
Remote:
iRemote??? Man who even knows. I tried my absolute hardest so far to get the ilogger and iremote to work, but it was not enough. Nothing works and I can’t even get the ilogger to update to the latest firmware. I’m going to need to communicate with @WavRX to try and figure out what the problem is. I’ve tried CAN, UART, and the app just won’t connect with the device anymore. Who knows.
In lieu of the non-functional iremote, I am using the trusty ol’ Hoyt Puck, wired in split PPM mode for these two ESCS. Why not CAN across the two? Because I used my CAN cables (with the adapters for the tiny M100 side) to try and connect to the ilogger
Eventually, I still hope to use the iRemote because the throttle feels excellent and would be great for controlling all this power.
Motors:
For now, I’ve got Boardnamics (FS) 6384 x 170kv motors. I’ve run these FS motors in tons of builds now and they never disappoint. I do think it’s possible track conditions will overwhelm them so one day maybe I’ll upgrade to Reachers. Who knows.
Drivetrain:
Gear drive was the most logical choice for this high power application, and with my truck choice, the two main options were Stooge Open gears or BNAT. I do like BN @Boardnamics products quite a bit, and I didn’t like the idea of having open gears so I went with BNAT straight cuts.
My particular set is straight cut ratio 3.8:1 so it gives a decent balance of torque and speed. I will make up for lack of torque later with motor amps, if that is an issue.
Trucks:
Some might claim there are other good options for both short track AND long track, but I still think the SRB trucks from @MoeStooge are the best you can get for both high speed stabillity & low speed turning, as well as an enormous amount of adjustability.
I went with somewhat of an odd setup, choosing to have the newer HD style in the front, and the OG hanger in the back. I’ve got both HD baseplates so no problems there, but for the rear, due to the BNAT being design around the OG hanger, I needed to use that. I may just make a custom piece later with the threads for the larger hanger, but for now I will use the OG. If it bends, I’ll deal with that when it happens.
Wheels/Tires:
For the road contact, I’ve got another favor called in from @frame thanks for importing these for me. Meepo (& Linnpower) came out with some tubeless racing wheels and I’ve been dying to get them on a board. It took some finagling with an adapter to get them to work with the BN AT but I got it done. Also had to get some 22x10x7 bearings from FastEddy to get them rolling. I fully recommend this company, fast service and great pricing. The bearings seem to be high quality, but time will tell. @glyphiks thanks for the shout.
My fallback for if these do not work out is the BN GT3 wheels, with a set of BKB 150mm tires on em. The reason I would rather have the meepo though is mainly the size, because 150 reduces my speed quite a bit until later upgrades.
Deck:
If you’ve gotten this far you most definitely know about the decks from @jamie, AKA Red Ember Boards. The decks are truly works of art, and are incredibly strong. I got my RE44 from @BenChieffen a while back, and now will finally get to put it to use. Standing on this thing, it feels like a great combination of flat deck, and grip to corner with. Griptape on here will be temporary until I get paint and design done.
Battery:
Most of you know me pretty well, and know I build pretty great batteries - well, this one is not mine, for once. I got this battery as part of a deal and it was a good price, so I’m going to try it out here. If it doesn’t work out here, I’ll probably end up reselling it. I do plan to build a new battery for this in Phase Two, so idk how long I’ll have it. Anyway, it’s a 14s8p battery from @Skyart it’s got pretty low miles/cycles on it, and is made from the Panasonic (Tesla) cells. Should have crazy range, which is ironically not really what I need here, but it’s what I’ve got for the moment.
Battery Enclosure:
Paired along with the massive battery, we have a ginormous enclosure from none other than the man himself, eBoosted Peru @eBoosted. Alan’s enclosure have always been on my list to get, and I’ve finally gotten the opportunity to use one on a build for myself. Although it looks great in black, it’ll be getting painted later along in this build.
I think that all summarizes Phase One pretty well. I will be making a full YouTube series on this build on my channel RB E-Motion - YouTube
I’ll post the videos in here as well as they come out. Any and all discussion may happen in the comments below. I will be updating this thread continuously as a normal build thread, which I have not done for some time, so I’m looking forward to it throughout the year. This build is going to be epic, and even though it’s quite plain now, it still looks pretty great imo.
Once the painting and finishing happens - gonna be top tier. Can’t wait!
p.s. Inazuma (稲妻) is Lightning in Japanese, if you were wondering.
