This is my first “serious” build. Planning started a few months ago and I’m just waiting for my final parts to come in. I expect it to be finished for spring 2020 ride season!
My current board is a meepo v3 deck swapped with a landyachtz tomahawk with a bigger diyeboard 10ah (360wh) battery. It has been extremely robust so far but I am outgrowing it. I want to go further than 25-30km and faster than 45km/h. I want to build a board that can achieve what I want with tight budget in mind. (no all out precision trucks and gear drives unfortunately)
Original parts list:
Motors: elofty DD’s
Deck: torqueboards 40” deck with cutout
Enclosure: DIY rubber mat method
Battery: 10s6p 30Q
ESC: makerX dual mini esc
Wheels: TB110
Remote: VX1
Switch: AS150
Charger: 12s 4a charger on aliexpress
Motors:
I fell in love with the direct drive concept as soon as I saw carvons years ago. Low maintenance, light weight, real thane. I didn’t have a big budget and couldn’t buy torqueboards’ DD. But the elofty drive has gotten quite a few user feedback and most seem to be positive. I set up a group buy and ended up getting them from @nathan at esk8supply.
Deck:
I fell in love with the hummie deck earlier this year and everyone’s builds with it. Mostly because of the cutout and how sleek and “stealth” I can get it while still fitting a large battery. At the time, the hummie group buy was stuck at 12/50 people, so I decided to go with Torqueboards deck also with a cutout.
Enclosure:
I wanted it to be sleek and aesthetic, but broke ass me can’t afford a big ben enclosure. And I didn’t really like the “esc hump” on the enclosure torqueboards offers. 18650 is 18mm tall. And the cutout is 15mm deep. That leaves ~3mm of the battery sticking out. If I did something like what @bartroosen did with the rubber mat, that’ll be an ultimate stealth build!
Battery:
I want range! Before, 30km satisfied me. There were enough local trails, and I can transit to the Vancouver seawall for group rides and leisure afternoon solo rides. And then I got an ebike earlier this year, and that has completely spoiled me. My ebike has 70km + 70km range (two batteries). I can bike from my house, to the seawall, and back with only 1 battery! I can bike 2 cities over to North Vancouver trails, and see the rural coquitlum all on my bike with both batteries! Screw transit. I want to board from my house to the destination and back!
A 10s6p 30q’s pack will fit in the deck tightly. That’ll 648wh of range! Could do with a bit more, but I didn’t want a do a double stack… I looked into 21700 40T’s and I can fit 12s4p (691wh) with room to spare! An extra 3mm in thickness and more room for the BMS/ESC/ect is worth the trade-off.
ESC:
I was originally going to go with aliexpress 4.12 single ESC’s. But I have hears reports that it can be unstable with 12s. At the time makerX came out with their dual mini esc and good reviews are starting to pop up. I expect to have 60 battery amps total for my build and this can definitely handle that. I decided to go with this and the black friday deal made it a no brainer. And the “mini” size is a nice bonus.
Wheels:
The TB110’s are getting high praise everywhere. I know I want big wheels to get over cracks and bumps on the road (coming from 90mm meepo hubs).
Remote:
VX1. I want the mode settings, and this is the best remote for it. Great feedback from everyone.
On/off switch:
Didn’t have the budget for a reliable antispark. And I didn’t like the look of loopkeys, and I just found out about Deckoz’ AS150 connectors method. Wayyy cleaner look! And I designed a 3D model to be mounted on the inside of the enclosure so it looks like a regular mechanical slide switch from the outside (inspired from his post).
As we all know, plans change. Here are the parts that were changed:
Deck: Landyachtz evo 40
Enclosure: DIY, ???
Battery: 12s5p 21700 liitokala cells
Wheels: 120mm cloud wheels
Over the course of planning, some parts have changed…
Battery: 12s4p 40T is really pricey :’( Even with a great value battery builder like M.Hboards, it would come out to $450+ after shipping and everything. I looked up alternative cells and @Accrobrandon had a thread about liitokala 21700 that looked really promising. They seem to be 40T B-stock cells but the value for what you get is one of the best for non-oem cells. A 12s4p single stack battery made of these cells will be kinder to my budget. Plus, I won’t be utilizing the full 120a that the 40T’s can provide anyways.
Plot twist! While I was waiting on black Friday discounts on cells, accrobrandon wanted to sell the 12s5p battery pack he made for just the cost of the cells! 25% more capacity that cost 40% less is hard to pass up. The pack has only been charged ~5 cycles, so essentially brand new. Plus I won’t have to take the gamble on if the cells I get is a crappier re-wrap batch. I probably scored the best battery deal all year 
With 864wh, I can go 70km range at near max speeds! And probably 85-100km at leisure/groupride speeds. This is more like it! And hence the “marathon” in the title
Deck:
I scored a smoking local deal on a brand new Landyachtz Evo 40 deck for $58 on black Friday! I was just going to hang it on my wall as art until a future (electric or analog) build required it. Around this time dexter from torqueboards said that there will be more delays (I was supposed to have the deck already when I had pre-ordered). I decided to take him up on his “refund pre-order” offer because I wanted to build over the holidays, and I just got a big fat non-stealth battery. No point in getting a specialized deck with the cutout with a thick battery that takes up only half of the cutout space… So I decided to go with the Landyachtz evo! Which was actually my deck choice for a non-cutout deck! This also played a part in the title
Enclosure:
Since I got a fat battery, I have yet to figure out an enclosure. I’ll probably DIY a nice-ish looking enclosure out of sheet metal/3D prints. A bolted down sheet metal for structure and integrity support. And the 3D print just to cover up the ugliness. If that doesn’t work out, maybe a rubber mat over the whole thing. Any tips for budget DIY enclosures will be helpful
Wheels:
The first groupbuy with 72kv elofty direct drives failed due to delays and flakiness of the supplier. We went with esk8supply’s DD’s instead at 58kv. Due to the kv change, I would need a bigger wheels to keep my desired top speed (~55-60km/h top speed). 120mm cloud wheels have great reviews and is a solid choice. Esk8supply sells it too with DD kegle adapters for convenience!
The overall cost list is:
Direct drives + wheels + kegle adapter: $437
Deck: $43
Battery: $240
ESC: $96
Remote: $40
Switch: $6
Charger: $26
Unconfirmed:
Enclosure: ~$25?
Misc wires, hardware, etc: ~$30?
Total: ~$943 usd
Hope I won’t go over budget too much by the end of it! Right now I am only waiting on the battery and esc which should be here soon.
Thanks for reading and I will keep this thread updated!
