My Esk8s. A journal of sorts

rafaelinmissouri · November 24, 2021, 8:24pm

well, I am not gonna lie,… but I have not been on dirt or grass on a Board in a minute…
I got excited with the Haero and full bindings, for a minute, but then the temporary battery I had in there crapped out I have been slacking… and have not make finishing that battery a priority.

And I have not taken the Tow Truck on the trails. because I like the Haero better and suddently no heel straps felt odd…

So I have just been hitting the pavement.

I did take the Pint X on the trail the other day for a super slow stroll…
definitely not the same thing…

I do think the Gravel Flux will get some more loving…

rafaelinmissouri · November 24, 2021, 8:43pm

You know dude.
These very faintly crossed my mind.
But not in a serious way.
So I had not actually gone to the website until just now.

the price is not too crazy.
I wish he had pictures of it mounted so I could have a better vision.

I am now just leaning on going with the parts I have, because I am in the 2 hour window of the day that i am fiscally responsible…

But I had thought about getting these Trampa offset wheels, but I was not really sure how far out they would actually move the tire from the deck.

I keep thinking about these, and still kind of want them, because I like the color.
But I also think they would not move the tire far enough with the MBS 9s.

So I want to get them maybe with the 8 inch mudpluggers…
Again, I am very susceptible to videos and advertising, so I love the way the look in this video.

but, but, I circled back to, thinking that ride would be similar to the 8s I have on the Fivestars, and thought I should leave it alone.

I also pondered getting the 3D Servisas axles, but then I would also need new mounts, and yada yada, yada.

For the wires what I thought more of was a top plate, similar to what Apex has on their board, or the Trampa wings…

I even pondered fabricating something with ABS sheets…

But, I ended up just wanting to take the wires through the bottom as I thought that would be easier.

And since this is a bit of a frankenstein board, it ain’t got to be too pretty…

rafaelinmissouri · November 30, 2021, 4:49am

The Holiday was great.
Stayed home!!!
Weather was nice!!!
Got 2 boards running.

Got the gravel Flux Rolling.

Put the Drive together.
running 8 inch knobbies on MBS Fivestar.
11/62 #25H chain.
my old beat up battle hardened Flipsky 6384s that I battle hardened. they still come up sensored.

I cut the Junction box to mount the Infinysink on the outside like I did with the Haero.

So I got a little weird with mounting the enclosure and routing the wires.

I decided to use the inserts that were already on the Flux Deck.

2 on either side of the deck so 4 holding the enclosure and double sided tape.

Then I sent it and punched a bunch of holes through the deck.

with these long ass wires and handling them a bunch I kept worrying about messing up the sensor wires…
I ran detection a bunch of times through the build before buttoning things up to see how it came up.

so far so good…

So I continued to get weird and put a sheet of abs to cover the wires on the bottom…

I covered the hole with Butyl Tape.

I hope this thing is sufficiently water resistant.

and I crammed it all in there… I do want to put a layer of two of heat shrink around the battery so I will pop that out a bit later and retape it better.

still coming up sensored!!!

Then I took it on a 6 mile night ride and it was great.

I rode on the road and that felt great.
quite a bit louder and rattlier than the Street Flux… but great still
went over to the school and hopped on some grass…
and it did fine. but for this I wish it had 9 inch tires…

I just want to transition to grass and over rough surfaces more seamlessly.

The next day I took it down to the Gravel trails.
I pulled the trailer on rhese a ton with the kids.
but only did solo rides on them on the Tow Truck very rarely…

It was fun.
it does good on older gravel and dirt packed trails.
the new small gravel is soupy…

rafaelinmissouri · November 30, 2021, 5:10am

And I opened up the Khymera and slapped the BN 6384s in there!!!

I got out in it today for a lunch break ride and did 17 miles and it was just great.
These motors are awesome and we’re eating up hills.
I am glad they were forced onto me…

this thing really can’t turn in a tight radius for nothing.
but it is super fun to carve at speed and seems very stable…
I love the giant standing platform…
really happy with it

rafaelinmissouri · December 6, 2021, 2:15am

Sometimes my wife asks me why don’t you sell some of these boards…

Besides me being insane and a hoarder, I really hesitate to sell a board because these things are always breaking…

and it is such random shit…

recent highlights…

The Loaner 2.0.
the freaking motor mount broke on Benji.

same way one broke on me with the Rayne Crush

Benji thinks he was hitting it on his driveway…

so I put a different axle on there with didferent mounts and back on the road it goes…

and there is a weird noise…
one of the motor shaft circlips is rubbing on the motor mount…
which is weird.

so I take the pulley off and the motor off the mount and open it up.

And something I had never seen…

the motor shaft is moving…

so I put it back in place with Greel loctite 648 on the shaft and red 271 on the grub screws…

I wonder if it will hold or come loose with the motor heat.

but yeah.
yet another brand new to me failure mode…

oh.
these are Flipsky 6384s 190kv from a. while back way before the new battle hardened ones…

b264 · December 6, 2021, 2:18am

This is how I’ve fixed it

Venom121212 · December 6, 2021, 2:19am

Whoa that’s an odd one. I wonder if slamming the mount on the driveway over time transferred it’s way to the shaft somehow. I’d expect a belt to be insanely tight or snap before the shaft shifted though.

b264 · December 6, 2021, 2:20am

I’ve had this exact failure mode on 3 different freerchobby motors and none of them were bashed on a driveway.

Just my $0.02

rafaelinmissouri · December 6, 2021, 2:20am

I have had some gems recently…
always something…

rafaelinmissouri · December 6, 2021, 2:33am

on a more positive note it has been a great winter here in Missouri so far…
it was 60 today and I got a nice sunset 22 miler on the Flux.

rafaelinmissouri · December 8, 2021, 9:27pm

ok. so the Loaner 2.0 is back together.
let’s see how long that lasts.

rafaelinmissouri · December 8, 2021, 9:41pm

ok ok.
on a more exciting note over the past couple of days I got the Pack for the Haero done…

This is a 12S6P P42A pack that has been in the works for a long time…
I had it half welded a couple months back…

finished welding…

I had not used adhesive fish paper before… that stuff is awesome.

then I went on to do the balance wires.

I put a thin sheet of abs on the bottom just for more layers…

then I taped the hell out of it because I can’t do heat shrink with the way I put the wires on both sides…

this here is a very exciting moment…

I drilled a giant hole for the plug…
and put some foam strips around…

now… I am bummed about this… but I did not take a picture after putting the pack in and before putting the lid on…

but this thing is ridiculous in there…
is is dumb tight…
like the lid does not even seal on all edges…

you know. because planning and design is for suckers!!!

but I was able to take the Haero around the block and jump off some curbs and stuff…

so the Haero is back!!!

rafaelinmissouri · December 8, 2021, 9:55pm

as I was finishing up the Haero something exciting shows up in the mail!!!

my ultra bright yellow Phatlads hubs!!!

they are going to go on the Gravel Flux and will allow me to use 9 inch tires without wheel bite…

it was not gonna work with Fivestar Hubs and the MBS 9s…

so I took the gamble and ordered the Phatlads hoping the offset would move the tires out far enough…

well.
they are going to work.

I did not know this… but the bearing seat on the Phatlads is narrower than on the MBS hubs… so I can get some speed rings in the axle…

so this maybe 5mm and the offset was enough.

So I am stoked…
I wanted 9s to just roll over everything.

I have not decided if I want to put on the MBS 9s or the 9Inch mudpluggers…

I think I am leaning towards the MBS…

I wonder which ones would do better on gravel.

I have to drill out the chain sprocket to match the holes on the new hubs next to get it going!!!

rafaelinmissouri · December 10, 2021, 9:31pm

yey.
so I found an old ATC wheel pulley with both mbs and Trampa hole spacing and used that as a jig to drill out the chain sprockets.

So last night I put the new wheels and tires on the Gravel Flux.

going to rock 11/70 on 225mm wheels…

I decided to go with the MBS tires.

I am pretty stoked on the look.

it was pretty late last night so I just went out for a couple miles to try it out.

but the first impression was great!!!

pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

I can roll off curbs with no problems…
I can even roll up smaller curbs…

and rolling on the grass was so much smoother.

so I am really looking forward to taking the Everywhere Carver out some more.!!!

rafaelinmissouri · January 4, 2022, 3:45am

My neighbor Benji got his Ownboard Zeus today.

I think it took close to a month to get it.

We did not go out to ride it today because the roads are gross…

But I did get to go over there and geek on his unboxing.

I don’t come across many production boards and it has been a long time since I took one out of a box.
But man… that board looked super nice…

the overall build and finish really impressed me.

I wonder how deep down this rabbit hole I would have gone if my first board was something more like this…

Venom121212 · January 4, 2022, 12:20pm

They did a good job on their battery wiring too. I’m impressed with the level of attention.

The thing doesn’t have much accel but the top speed is nice.

rafaelinmissouri · January 4, 2022, 3:12pm

I wonder if it would be better with a 14 tooth motor pulley instead of the 15…

b264 · January 4, 2022, 3:54pm

Is this an Ownboard battery??

If so, that looks a lot better than I’d expect from a budget board.

ShutterShock · January 4, 2022, 5:40pm

Yeah Zeus, with only this picture it would be hard for me to find something to complain about

rafaelinmissouri · January 4, 2022, 7:52pm

I think I can thank La Niña. but November and December were super mild here in Missouri.

Like super duper nice…

This week winter showed up.
nothing brutal but definitely winter…

We even got a coating of snow on Saturday.

Today it got to 45 degrees and the roads looked pretty clear…

So I took the Gravel Flux out.

It was fun!!!

and I got it a little dirty…

I am stoked on having this set up that I am ok with getting dirty and wet and muddy…