TLDR, scroll way down.
I bought a prebuilt, as I needed a way to tow my kayak, with my dog in it, to the launch 1.25 miles away and then stuff the prebuilt into the kayak hatch, paddle a few miles, bark at cormorants, then tow the happy wet dog, and kayak home.
My funds are quite limited, and so is the time to fulfill the promise made to my dog, when I adopted her from a family of sociopaths, 6 years ago.
So I got a Jking hb2. It claims 700 watts of hub motor, about 8 mile range 16mph, or close to that. I measured 538 watts peak.
Ill assume 700 watts with a 10s battery.
The bamboo veneered maple deck is actually pretty nice, but the rest is scary bad. The truck axles would dead stop on wobbly kingpins, limiting range of movement and turning radius.
One hub motor feels nice and crisp. Spinning it by hand the magnetic detents solid and similar through full 360 degrees.
The other hub motor feels muddy and crusty in comparison.
The plate holding the square motor shaft into axle was loose, and one screw tapped at an angle so that only one edge of screw head touches plate.
The throttle is horribly unsteady, as are the brakes. Jerky, inconsistent, unpredictable, dangerous.
It has a 7s2p battery 4000mah, unknown cells. Unknown BMS.
The charge port does not read battery voltage, and when I feed it 29.35v precisely with an xl4015 bucker, the fake xt60 output connector shows 28.95v.
The provided 1.5 amp charger has an open circuit voltage that ranges from 30.12v to 29.87v. The light goes from red to green as soon as amps taper to 0.32.
I carbide burred enough clearance on hanger so full range of movement, and wheelbite was then possible with some
of shortys doh dohs bushings.
I extended wheelbase so wheels fit closer to center of recesses on underside of the deck, instead of biting on the edges of them. This greatly improved response and shortened turn radius
The speed controller sticker says aladdin on it. it is potted in clear epoxy
Not sure if it is a Yingli, or hobbywing or something else.
ESC is attached to an aluminum plate that has some rtv sealing it from a ventilated space below.
The assembler stripped the plastic post, attaching heatsink to enclosure, and then used a larger screw whose head did not sit flush, so there was a 1mm gap between the ESC and heatsink on one corner, and not enough grease to fill The void.
I counter sunk that screw, added finned heatsinks to theoutside air exposed side, sanded bottom of esc and top of heatsink flat, used Arctic Silver thermal grease between, and reorganized power sensor and phase wiring inside, moving antenna away, hoping to improve the dangerous jerky brakes and schizo throttle. No luck there.
It does have enough power and battery capacity to tow goofball sheepdog laden wheeled kayak @ 110+lbs and my 190lbs, to launch and back, a little over 2 miles round trip, but not much headroom, and is obviously down on speed and torque last 1/4 mile.
It can, and does, do what I bought it for.
But I had no idea how awesome skating is, when one does not have to push endlessly with worn out arthritic overused joints.
I’m hooked. Need more power, more range, more confidence in equipment.
The 7s epoxy potted ESC is downright dangerous.
I don’t trust the battery, or charger, or BMS.
I expect the one crusty hub motor to fail way prematurely.
I will be addressing all these, as money and time allow.
First up is the ESC. Shoulda, but didnt go for a V ESC. I will eventually. inevitable.
I went for a ‘ebay esc’ dual hub motor. 62$. Slow boat from china. i liked it could be 6s, 7s or 10s depending on solder bridge. The other forum had lots of old info on it. Seemed ok for the price.
I might later use it to power 300 watt 24vdc brushless kayak thrusters, eventually.
The aladdin ESC seemed to be getting worse on brakes and at any throttle less than full, it was surging and sputtering, and
I decided a USA shipped ESC was needed, pronto. I ordered a Puaida 10s Esc.
Both escs arrived same day a few days later. The Llngyi ebay esc was bigger than imagined. I bridged the 7s solder tabs, removed enclosure, and no way it fits.
The Puaida is same physical size as Aladdin, but is 10s. I dont have a 10S battery, yet, but table tested it with 2 Makita 18v batteries in series, and my hub motors smoothly attained a significantly higher rpm than ever before, the remote displaying 48, km/h for 90mm wheels, I imagine.
I was almost going to mount two 'power wheels adapter’s on hull temporarily, but drill batteries have their own BMS, and do not recharge when fed voltage on the two output pins. I feared hitting the regen brakes would smoke the ESC so axed that idea.
So I decided to make a 10s battery, and a new enclosure utilizing dormant fiberglass skills.
20 DMEGC 15 amp 2600 mah 18650s and 10 P42a’s were ordered cyber monday from Liion wholesale, and I placed all on the hull of the HB2, and drank too many beers. almost ordered 10 more DMegcs but bank account laughed, and I cried.
Decided, F it, build a generously thick single stack enclosure as big as I could fit between truck bases. and then worry much battery I could fit, later.
Hoping that 10s3p of P42a could. Knowing P28’s would.
I’d watched Pavel’s and Shuttershocks battery build videos, every dang thing on battery spot welding , welders that I could find. Everything on Copper nickel sandwiches, lipo weld batteries, xt90,60, xt90s antispark.
Got fishpaper, and rings for 21 and 18s, ordered 3 different 20$ spot welders, Zee 3s 5.2ah 80c lipo battery kapton tape, wrong size heat shrink. 10S DALY dumb BMS. JST pigtails, mr30s., 0 15 10mm wide pure nickel, a sheet of 0.15 copper.
I used the foam padding, and double wall cardboard, and nashua flexfix tape as an enclosure mold. Lots of crap bondo brand fiberglass cloth, saturated with Apex surfboard laminating epoxy.
I just popped it off the mold today, and cleaned the edges up a bit.
The 20 DMEGC’S in 2p fishpapered packs hot glued and kapton taped together, look tiny inside the enclosure.
I should be out there now, cutting and welding copper and nickel plated steel, but here I type instead, beerless(8 days now)
not quitting, just stopping for a while.
The enclosure needs a bunch more work still. I think the BMS is going to be outside shrinkwrap.
At some point I will go for a V esc, and am contemplating mounting methods adaptable for different products. Ive got a zillion questions on vesc but will not ask until i read up more.
An external airflow assisted heatsink is going to happen, even if i can get away without, and since it will be in a salt air humid environment, i want to form as good a Seal as possible, enclosure to deck, heatsink to ESC mounting pad and phase and sensor wire entry point.
Still many days away from completion, and i’m just gonna return the sketchy 7s battery, enclosure and ESC so my tow vehicle is operational again, while I work on 10s battery and enclosure.
This tow vehicle is the second.
The first was a 99$ a single hub motor Anzo’ fashion’ pennyboard that was just too underpowered to be a tow vehicle .
However, it is fun for super tight carves on new asphalt at end of driveway, and it it going to get 10 p42a’s and a new esc, and likely a diagonal dual hub motor, should my ‘parts only’ penny esk8 have the same rpm on same esc
. I’ll be detailing that rebuild in this thread too unless requested otherwise.
TLDR;
Cheap surfbum moves to gulf of Mexico from San Diego.
Bum gets kayak
Bum wants to tow awesome dog and kayak to kayak launch, 2+miles round trip.
Cheap Bum orders cheap premade skate which fits in kayak hatch, which bum then finds too powerless to tow kayak.
Bumborders less cheap dual hubmotor skate.
Mission acconplished.
Bum falks in love skating without pushing.
Bum wants more power, reliability, more custom DIY.
Bum joins esk8 news, lurks, researches.
2 months later bum posts first post, awaits scorn 
