Last year I checked with the folks at Ride The Hurricane about taking my esk8 up and they said I could do it. But the problem is it’s 5400 feet of climb across 20 miles (one way). I’ve done 2400 feet across 10 miles (one way - Road to Sunrise, Mt Rainier) and come down with about 60% battery, so to me that’s cutting it just a bit too close. I fear I would completely exhaust the battery a mile from the top.
On the other hand, I’ve got the Sand Runner, which is unbelievably underutilized and is deeply in need of more batteries.
Also, I ran into a guy, one of the Ben’s I think, who had a 100 mile range on his board and I got all envious.
So it’s too late this year to pull it off since the Ride the Ridge is August 4th, but I think I’m going to try to figure out a way to turn the Sand Runner into a dual purpose machine - to be able to quick-change out the Sand running gear for street tires (probably Hoyt 7") and add a lot more battery to it.
I guess this is the beginning of the build log.
Probably 1.5 times the amount of battery in FS2, which is 12S5P of 5Ah BAK 20700’s, so something like 15S6P. I have a 17S BMS in stock. But then on the other hand I’ve got all these 12S chargers. The other option would be 12S8P. Either of these will require all new battery cages and PCB’s so no downside on that end.
I’ll have to go look, but I think the whole gear-train is just clamped on to the trucks, so I bet I could loosen the clamp and slide the whole thing off in one piece after I removed the wheels. So I’d need another drivetrain - I might try gear drive with no housing if I can find gears that are quieter. There was a guy with straight-cut un-housed gears on a ride not too long ago and they are really loud!
So I like those herringbone gears. I might try to source some and when I inevitably fail I’ll see if I can figure out how to cut some on the CNC machine.
What I found interesting is that you and I must have had exactly the same tooth count because my board was the same frequency, just a lot quieter (and I think my board is loud).
I’ll check out the above options, though I’m intrigued about making my own gears. Plus I’m on a budget.
In other news I did sit down and make my 7P plates. I’ll put the order in today and hopefully get them late next week. I had originally thought 8P but I think with 5Ah cells this will be enough to get me up Hurricane.
I honestly only noticed a small difference in noise going from helical to straight cuts, but it does depend on your backlash tbf. Also the helicals aren’t really reliable on the bn drives, I think they are really only good when running the straight cuts.
Hmm, maybe I should just stick with belts. I was hoping to get the increased efficiency that the gears offer to get a few more miles out of the board. I can do it with chain, but that’s pretty unforgiving tension wise.
i will say that straight cuts have been extremely reliable for me even if i forget to lube em before/after a ride. the helicals have side loading (don’t remember what the term is) and effectively get pulled to one side which is why they broke loose
