"Nothing Fancy", A Tito Duality truck build

[E.Hands]

If you incorporate titanium, flint, zirconium or magnesium in the skid plate it would drop a shower of sparks every time it contacts the concrete, just like an Formula One car.

Introducing: Rail Devils

[tuckjohn]

Corded my set of CSTs, put on a new set of Kendas I was gifted.

(Keeping my set of NOVAs fresh for EE SanFran)

[tuckjohn]

Had an absolute blast at electrify expo this weekend!

Went on a ride through downtown San Francisco Friday night with the floatpack

I got a nail through my tire early in the ride but I didn’t have a spare tube… so I just ran my nova’s flat for 15 miles. Unsurprisingly, the tube was not happy about this.

Changing out the tube when I got home, the Tire wasn’t happy about that decision either.

I pulled out the several feet of steel cord that was loose on the inside. (all of this came out of my tire)

Turns out I somehow extracted the steel cord out of the bead of tire by riding

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Now a tire short, I bought a set of Linnpower NEXT slicks from Poast. I should’ve done this a long time ago, these tires are awesome!

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Thanks to the Lins, I qualified 5th on Saturday, finished 3rd in the final. I qualified 4th on Saturday, finished 4th in the final, giving me 4th overall for the weekend.

Sunday’s Mod Final:

Electrify Expo San Fran Sunday Mod Final

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Not Nothing Fancy, but I really want to share these awesome photos of me on Ankle Wreacher, taken by 15 year old Mia Loblu, who raced in stock class. Keep an eye out for her, she’s some real up and coming talent.

[tuckjohn]

I did a writeup thing in another thread, it’s relevant here

@tuckjohn

@Ash

how did they compare in san fran to your v5? just handling wise?

Supprisingly complicated and nuanced question!

I’ll preface that I can only really talk specifics about Nothing Fancy (Lacroix Duality build) and Ankle Wreacher (Stooge v5 4wd build), but they’re very different board. I hope that the conclusions that I draw from the differences between the two (very different boards) are accruate conclusions of Dualities vs 3-links, generally.

General Feel
Nothing Fancy is definitly more snappy and manuverable then Ankle Wreacher. This makes a big difference to the characteristics when turning- I can be much more dynamic on Nothing Fancy, feeling out and riding the edge of traction with my feet/ankles. On Ankle Wreacher, because of how much inertia it has, I do by feathering the throttle on the edge of traction. However, this difference in prefered riding style is most likely due to the weight difference and power avalibility, not trucks. Ankle Wreacher is significantly heavier then Nothing Fancy(like, 2x) and has like 6 pounds of motors attached to the front truck.

Another massive difference is the deck/frame
Nothing fancy is a Fiberglass/plywood deck that has a non-negligible amount of flex. When I go into a turn, pressing into the deck flexes it, and changles the geometry of the trucks to be more agressive, decreasing the turning radius. Bascically I’m able to throw myself into a corner, and the cornering forces change the board’s shape and truck geometry, which pulls the board around me. I’m able to make fine adjustments to the turning radius very quickly by changing the pressure I putting into the board with my legs.

Ankle Wreacher doesn’t do this, at all. Makes switching between the two boards on race day a challenge, and was eternally grateful for the outlaps in San Fran. When I go into a turn, the turn I set is the turn I get, pressure on the board be damned. If anyone’s ridden a stiff 3-link setup with BRP’s, you know this “on rails” feeling. It doesn’t have the “dynamic turning radius” that Nothing Fancy does.

To complicate things further, the standing platform is different. Ankle Wreacher’s V5 frame has me level with the axles. Nothing Fancy is close, but it’s ~10mm higher then the axles. This, plus tires that are ~20mm larger in diameter puts me higher off the ground. HOWEVER- when I’m in a turn and flexing Nothing Fancy’s deck, the standing platform lowers to be much closer to Ankle Wreacher’s.

Tires
At EE San Fran, I ran BRP Wides 45A on Ankle Wreacher, Linpower Slicks on Nothing Fancy(Thanks @poasttoast!). Obviously, the BRP Wides have more grip then Linpower Slicks, so I was able to be faster around the corners.

Another notable effect is tire “squish” under pressure. When applying turning forces, the shape of a tire deforms from a perfect circle into a “squished circle” shape, decreasing the effective diameter. This decreases the “ride height” of the board. But due to different pressures on the inside/outside sides of the turn, but the effect isn’t equal, and can cause the trucks to no longer be level with the ground, which changes the deck angle(with the ground) that’s required to hold a set turning angle. This can change the turning radius non-negligiblly.

On Ankle Wreacher, the BRP wide tires have basically zero tire squish. The Linpower slicks don’t either, but when I switched to Linpower tires the morning of racing (From 200mm Kendas), I had to compleately re-learn the dynamics of Nothing Fancy because it had a much more “on rails” feeling. Not as much as Ankle Wreacher though, because of deck flex and the Lins still have some squish.

I mention this because it definitily affects the feeling of the trucks, and how responsive they feel. Just another factor to sus out.
(I daily Nothing Fancy on 200mm Kendas, which have a lot of squish and are very fun to slide on)

Power
No competition here. Nothing Fancy is 20s, 180 max total motor amps. Ankle Wreacher is 720 max total motor amps, 12s.

I was frequently full throttle on Nothing Fancy before I compleated the turn, while on Ankle Wreacher I could barely touch full throttle without breaking traction, so could only happen after I’ve compleated the turn and lined up for the next one (aka there was basically no power ceiling).

Conclusion
At EE San Fran, I was faster on Ankle Wreacher then Nothing Fancy, but not by much! Only a second or two. I belive this to be primarily because of Nothing Fancy’s traction and power limitations, not because of the different trucks setups.

TLDR; All of these factors makes it hard to detangle what is an effect from the trucks and what is an effect from the 3-links. I think the differences between my to boards are down to powertrain and deck setup, not the trucks. From my perspective, 3-links and duality trucks achieve the same thing, just with very different mechanisms.

I’m confident that with the right setup, a Duality raceboard could definitely challenge a 3-link setup.

I would really love to see duality trucks on an MLR Deck (and a custom powertrain). With the stiffness and crazy dropdown of that deck, I think that’d be an OP setup that could be directly compeate with 3-links.
I don’t need another board…I don’t need another board…Anyone wanna commission it

[BenjaminF]

Oh good, i was just thinking that I wish I could like your post a second time

[tuckjohn]

Jimmy caught some sick footage of me sliding through the corners at SD i2s a few months ago, wanted to share here. Kenda tires are so much fun to ride.

James Hodgson on Instagram: "@tuckjohn37 at @intro2speedsd on his DIY board...

Thought that this had been posted here already!

[tuckjohn]

Getting back into the swing of things, first day in a few months time really pushing on track.

So much fun sliding on Kenda tires
Feels good😎
thanks @TheSharpergardner for the vid!

[tuckjohn]

Decided to change stuff up and threw a set of Linpower slicks on the board a few weeks ago.

Thanks @HAIRYMANJACK for this candid from i2s garage night Wednesday

Nothing Fancy at i2s garage night 12/18/2024

[tuckjohn]

Was gifted a new set of tires at track on Saturday, and put them on the board.
At track tonight, one blew up and caused a crash. I’ve never gone through a tire so fast, so I wasn’t even checking to see if it was close to cording😅

Had lots of fun drifting them though!

(Thanks @MarioChacon for the candid!)

[tuckjohn]

Fresh CSTs. Thanks Ralph!

[TheSharpergardner]

TUCKER WHAT DID I TELL YOU??!?
THIS ISNT TOKYO DRIFT!
Lol.
But seriously sweet drifts!

[tuckjohn]

Mt. Baldy with my dad.

He loves this board, and is going to be racing it in Master’s class at esk8con

[CarelessAquarist]

I wasn’t sure where to put this, is axle space still an issue?

I turned down some nuts on a lathe and could do 7/16 x 20 threaded nuts too if it helps.

[Ash]

if you look up (size) nylock jam nuts, you should be able to find some thin nuts around the same size you ended up with

[CarelessAquarist]

These are a good bit thinner than that. There’s about 2 threads left in the nut and the ones behind it are only slightly taller than thin M12 nuts.

I mean I could make longer axles but I’ve aready promised someone else a set and the only chance I get on a lathe atm is unofficially joining 5th year metalwork classes on days I wasn’t supposed to be in.
I’m the only one to have skipped negative three classes

[MichaelWA]

That much thread engagement seems good, another way people do it is to screw the nut on backward. Or else, but some blue loctite on the nut, seems to work just fine.

[tuckjohn]

Nothing Fancy’s been doing great lately.

With my dad racing on it in a few weeks, It’s a good time to give the board a once-over and tune-up.

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Tires

Selecting a tire

On my shelf, I had a bunch of decent options for different tires

• 200mm CSTs
• 6" NOVAs (Thanks James)
• 7" NOVAs
• 8" NOVAs (Thanks Allen)
• Linpower Slicks

My dad’s a decent rider, but he’s not a “”““racer””“”, so I wanted the priority to be on comfort(So no small tires) and stability. On the off chance he does start sliding, I want a forgiving slide profile to help him recover from it (so no linslicks, I’ve found their sliding to be rather abrupt)

That leaves the CSTs and 8" NOVAs. He’s going to be racing, so traction is the deciding factor. NOVAs > CSTs

Allen Powell very kindly gave me with a set of 8" NOVAs. You’re awesome dude!

I’ve been running 200mm CST tires for ~the past month on MBS Rockstar II hubs, my Linpower Slicks have been sitting on a shelf. However, I need to steal the hubba hubs back from them. Some light prying later,

And on go 8" NOVAs, stretched onto the wide hubba hubs.

The new stance is growing on me.

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Megan Install
For how amazing she is, Nothing Fancy totally deserves to have a Megan.

I bought a broken Megan from @Ash and repaired it (check out this thread for details)

@tuckjohn

@Ash

Not often does a repair go 100% to plan. Woot.

Made a custom terminated CAN cable

Drilled a hole in the deck for the power switch and the new CAN cable

Threw the Megan baseplate on top of the handle mount

I started designing a whole custom box for the front to neatly integrate the power switch with the handle and Megan, but then I realized that it doesn’t matter and I don’t care, so I just hot glued the button

Mint.

Already feels like it’s always been there

Opening her up to connect the cables and do an inspection, everything looks in shockingly good condition for how many miles she has.

re-routing the switch through the new hole also meant that it’s long enough to not need to unplug it anymore when going inside the enclosure, which is nice.

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Charge Port
While I was inside, I opted to change out the charge port. It used to be a Male XT60 hot glued to a 3D printed adaptor thing. what in the world was I thinking when I decided to use male XT60…

@tuckjohn

While I was at it, I spent a couple hours this weekend to properly panel-mount my XT60 charge port. 3D printed a little plug to fit into the existing enclosure hole. Unfortunately, there’s a p-group right behind it, so the XT60 had to be off-center. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but it’s functional!

Had to do some minor enclosure modification,

But now it’s a proper panel mount XT60 Female. Should be a lot safer and durable then the Male XT60.

There’s something profoundly special of the state of a messy workbench at the end of a task

Approval from the on-duty inspecator

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Caution
While reassembling the board, I noticed that the right side had a subtle rattle that the other side didn’t.

Now, I would normally write something so subtle off and not bother fixing it. However, I’m lending it to my dad for the weekend. Safety standards are higher then normal.

Opening up the drives for the first time in forever

Oh… Oh no.

AHHH
W. T. F.

I took apart the other side, to see if it has the same issue.

Nope.

So, the bearing went bad and started rubbing against the axle?
That’s the wild part- the bearing is totally fine

Me noticing this a tiny rattle turned into a complete drivetrain disassembly, and deeming the board inoperable a few hours later.

sigh
Louie captured my mood pretty well

Wild speculation about the failure mode

I have a couple theories;

1. They’re 12s motors that I’m running at 20s, so can’t fault the motors.
   and tbf, Apex did mention this when I asked about running them at 20s when I purchased em. So maybe the motors were just WAY out of spec and there was nothing I could do.

2. It happed only on the right side. I’m regular, putting it on the outside for heelside turns. I frequently ride on track, frequently pushing harder on heelside turns then toeside turns (skill issue).
   Doing heelside turns, it wasn’t uncommon for me to unweight and spin up the outside tire. Mario actually captured a video of this happening (last video in post 212)
   Perhaps the fact that it spun up to such a high speed and/or snapped back to a normal speed caused the damage over time?

3. Perhaps just enough gearbox juice leaked out of the drive, and down the shaft of the motor. A little bit got under the bearing, which allowed it to start sliding on top of the shaft. Once it started sliding a little bit, progressive damage to the shaft allowed it to happen increasingly frequently and causing increasing amounts of damage

Perhaps all three are wrong, perhaps they all had a part to play.

[/quote]

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So, now what?

I can’t keep using these motors (safely, at least).

So I’ve got to replace the motors.
Kinda okay with this tbh, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Apex motors anyway. (relatively) inefficient and very, very loud. They were the weakest part of the build, so of all the parts the could’ve needed replacing, I’m glad it’s these.

Exact route TBD, but I’ve got to solve it in the next two weeks for my dad to race with. Should be possible to do.

For now, I’ve cat-safed the workbench and set it aside as a problem to solve later this weekend. Being busy and having way too much to do is better then the alternative, I suppose

[TheSharpergardner]

Wanna borrow my Reachers?
173kv

[hoytkid]

Yo I got a spare working flipsky zoobomb can if you want it has a bit of the same wear but not as much let me know

[tuckjohn]

@TheSharpergardner

Wanna borrow my Reachers?
173kv

Thanks for the offer! But those are for your raceboard, not mine😋

@hoytkid

Yo I got a spare working flipsky zoobomb can if you want it has a bit of the same wear but not as much let me know

It’s compatible with these apex motors, at least the shaft is? That’d be sick! How fast can you get it to me haha, I need this board in time for esk8con.

Alternatively, are you getting to Vegas on Thursday?