Optimal configurations thread

The Citadel - Essential References for Esk8
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Hello everyone.

I’ve been thinking for a long time, how cool it would be, If there was a thread that contains time-confirmed configurations for everyone who wants to try to build a new board.

Let me explain what i mean. We all know that board starts with the battery. Lets say some dude (like me 3 years ago) decided to use 6s LiPos. Well, he calculated erpm, and selected 400kv motor, because he did not even know, that there will be no usable torque. So he moved to 270kv. It works flawlessly. Now he purchased the gears with ratio 2:1. Wow, so much speed - he thought. And at the first ride he smells the burnt winding coating. Ooops. So he moved to 1:3 ratio. And so on and on…

So this is the topic for you to share your configurations that worked and work up to date flawlessly. Optionally, you can add pros, cons and summary

So, let me start:

6s - single 5065 270kv - (12:36 ratio) - 83 mm thane
Pros: cheap, all components run at small loads (no heat)
Cons: brakes succcc, belt slips.

Summary: cheap setup, optimal for kids or really lightweight guys. Otherwise - see cons.

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I feel like someone, maybe haljbabjly, tried to do this before.

Not sure. But the thing is, there are so many different configurations that it’s hard to just write it down. I mean I could come up with 20 configurations off the top of my head that would all work just fine

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10-12s battery
190kv motors
36t on the wheel
16t on the motor
90-110 mm wheel (5htm)
Bliss

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  • the biggest battery you can fit
  • quality escs
  • 4wd
  • no fear of death
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18/60 on 12s 170kv, dickyho pneumatics.
Solid 55km/hr~35mph, (assuming little sag) middle of the stack between torque and top speed, nothing overheating unless you ride like an ape.
Non-existent belt slip and low potential wear on belts, tyres last forever but need balancing

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Can we optimize this further by adding Vesc settings for said builds?

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I’m not sure there’s a lot to discuss

Speed goals start you off
But essentially select your voltage and then an appropriate KV motor. Select your wheels and gear to your ideal top speed.

For 12S, 190kv motors gets you to 57500 eRPM, which is safe for most vescs. 170kv work well here too
For 10S 190kv

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solid single drive

components
battery: 12s3p Samsung 30q
vesc: focbox 1.6
Motor: Maytech 6374 190kv
gearing: 15/36
wheels: 90mm

vesc settings
motor current: 80A
battery current: 60A
motor current regen: -36A
battery current regen: -30

real world specs
topspeed: 46kph
range: 50km
efficiency: 6-7Wh/km

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As I already mentioned, inappropriate gearing can lead to both belt slips and motor/esc overheat. So just use gearing for the desired speed is not that good idea at all.

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Within reason for 90% of users gearing to speed is best. Especially when you choose KV as mentioned above. For those, gearing to a top speed + a few gets you the most torque for that speed range

Too much gear reduction can cause belt slip, but that’s more a factor of center to center distance between pulleys. As the pulley diameters grow in size, distance between them needs to increase or the tangent angles become too extreme

For those 90% of users, gearing is a relatively easy choice- 15/16T motor and 36/40T wheel for thane, 47/52/60T for pneumatics. So basically 100mm+ wheel you’re going for 40T, smaller for 36. For pneumatics, your choice between lower and higher wheel tooth will depend on the tire diameter just the same. 147-200mm

If your gearing shows a top speed far above your desired in the calc, youre under geared, losing efficiency and increasing heat.

For lower voltage like 6S, which makes up a much smaller portion of all build, things do change. However, some users have great success with high KV motors and even more gear reduction. Availability of components comes in to play here, as you’ll find it hard to buy a 400kv in these sizes- especially on any of the routine vendors websites.

There is not a one size fits all pill. But for most on 10-12S, it holds. 6S or 20S will change the approach

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That’s interesting, I haven’t heard of the relationship between pulley diameter and center to center distance. Can you give an example of acceptable tangent angle threshold or is that sort of by feel? I’ve been paying more attention to torque values recently, for example I find around 30 N total torque on 2wd 6" pneumatics to feel like a good all-around value, so making the switch to 4wd and gearing for a target of 34 N ttl torque I think should keep the throttle response similar to what I’m used to but with much more gear reduction and dramatically higher speed. Is that a reasonable hypothesis?

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How are you calculating/measuring torque?

The center to center distance of the motor plate comes into play as you start to use a large wheel pulley with a small motor pulley
For example, the bkb plates and other very short plates will tend to have problems with 15/40 combinations. The angle of the tangency is just a fancy way to say the angle of the belt. The steeper the angle, the less teeth engaged. So a 15T pulley which is very small when put too close to a 40T pulley (large) will only have a few of the teeth of the motor pulley engaged with the belt (on the side of the motor pulley opposite the wheel pulley).
Increasing the distance between the pulleys will reduce that angle (closer to parallel) and engage more teeth on the motor pulley.
Larger diameter motor pulleys engage more teeth.
Idlers can essentially reorient the belt so that more teeth are engaged. The more redirection of the belt, the more load on the idler.

I can sketch some pics

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I calculated the torque using 3d Servisas calculator, before it stopped working so I’m not sure which formula he is using.

I get what the belt angle means, I was just wondering if on htd5 for example if there was an empirical, acceptable range for that, as opposed to just looking out for belt skips.

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Oh good. Well while you were replying I sketched something very basic out anyways.
For others that stumble on this - in this example, I simply drew some circles in different diameters to represent pulleys. It doesn’t matter what kind of pulley we are talking about, the concept is the same. We talk about tooth count, because its relative to what we are purchasing. But fundamentally what we are really choosing is pulley diameter. A 60t wheel pulley and a 15T motor pulley gives a gear ratio of 4:1 – It also means that pulley is 4x the diameter as the motor pulley

These are all just circles at rounded sizes to make this easy conceptually - So ill be saying pulley and im simply referencing the circle that represents that pulley. We can see to the right of the 60mm pulley (center) I drew some 15 mm motor pulleys at two separate distances. To the left, a larger 18mm motor pulley at the same distances. The tangent lines represent the belt and the closer the lines are to parallel, the more teeth engaged.

Below it, a basic representation of a 60T pulley and 15T motor pulley with dual 10mm idlers re-aligning the belt to maximize belt tooth contact

@computers, as far as an empiracal metric, thats hard to say. However, given the low tooth counts on the motor pulley, I would say that getting over 35-40% of the pulley in contact with the belt is necessary at a bare minimum. Just looking at my 15/40 combo I have just shy of 50% of the motor pulley in contact with the belt. The number of teeth engaged is what really matters.
I could say 6 teeth as a minimum, but that’s going to depend on how clean the belt is, the match of the profile to the pulley, the wear of the belt etc etc.

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When we look at different tooth styles, we see big changes - for GT2 3mm, which i believe is what boosted used, the teeth are 3mm pitch. That means the teeth on the belt are smaller individually, but there are more of them for the same belt length. So for a 15/40 ratio - where an HTD5M pulley have roughly 23/62 mm diameters, the same 15/40 pulleys for GT2 -3mm have 10mm/37mm diameters - same number of teeth in less space. So for a GT2-3mm belt, we would probably be using 30/80T pulleys – which would give us the same gear ratio and similar pulley diameters, but much much more tooth contact per pulley. I believe boardnamics was considering this change last year with the new pulleys he made , looking at GT3 spec pulleys but I dont recall if they were 3mm or 5mm pitch

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Basic rules I go on
10s safe for most VESC
12s new standard for vesc 6’s

Single drive week brakes but saves £
Dule drive is the norm

8mm motor shaft minim 12tooth 5m
8mm motor shaft normal 14-16 tooth
10mm motor shaft min 14 tooth

12mm with belts Min (any smaller I get slippage)
15mm over kill for extra powerful builds

80mm Kegel 36 tooth Much bigger will start to give ground clearance issues.
107 ABEC 40 tooth

Old standard 190KV
New standard 170K

Most people ride at 20Mph so I gear for 25mph ish is good beginner-medium riders

10/12s 3p gives a little to much volt sag but good for compromising to save space on a comuter build.
10/12s 4p good balance.
10/12s 5p+ just giving more range or excessive power

all my builds have been converted to 2wd for the better brakes
Vesc settings
6355 motor,Kegel 80mm, 12T motor, 36T Wheel, 12s 4p (this is a fast accelerating board that happy to wheel spin)
Motor+45A
Motor min -25A any more and I just skid
Just over 20Mph
Id recommended a larger motor gear for most people eg T14-T16

My comuter build
6355 motor ABEC 107 14T motor 40T Wheel 10s 3p (this is a compromise to be small deck)
Motor+40A (Setting limited by volt sag)
Motor min -35 (any more and it skids/fall off)
24MPH but I don’t go that fast very offered normal 18mph ish

New overkill build
6398motor 85mm 16T motor 36T Wheel 12s 4p
Motor+60A
Motor min -40A
?MPH it’s a rocket I don’t hit its max speed had it up to 28MPH and chickened out. These huge overkill motors could do with 5p pack to take the voltsag

VESC Battry settings
Because of duty cycle and regen I generally take the fast charge of the 18650 cell Multiply it by the P count then double it as a rule of thum then devide it by the number of vesc

Eg Samsung 30Q fast charge 4A 12s 4p

4A Fast Charge x 4P= 16A x 2= 32A / 2VESC = Max battry regen 16A

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Really like your reply, thanks

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My current build optimized for range through efficiency.

10s4p 12ah
Unity
18T to 38T on 110mm thane
170kv 6374 motors, Dual
Janux dual idler mounts with the absolute least amount of belt tension
70A per motor with 80a battery max.
-60A brakes
HFI bc my sensors died

With this setup, I get 20 miles of range and 39mph top speed.

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My advise is the middle ground as a starting point

Battry Samsung Q30 12s 4p
Dule Motor 6355 170Kv
Motor pullys 15T
Belt 12mm
Wheel 85mm
Wheel pullys 38T
25MPH

From there choose what you want to compromise
More speed change the gears
Bigger wheels smaller gears
Cheaper build single drive bigger motor
Smaller Battry 10s or 3p = more volt drop more strain/were and tear on components and more heat.

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12s
190kv
15/62
7" tires
Dual Flipsky esc

12s
170kv
15/42
8" tires
Dual Stormcore esc

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I think we’re seeing a lot of examples of how people optimized their build, which further illustrates why there isn’t a one size fits all. Optimize the configuration to your riding style and the boards purpose.

There are things about each of the ones listed above that could make them more efficient etc

This is a never ending rabbit hole

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