Hey there! Back with a very different build.
It all started when I went on vacation, and both my GF and I wished we had our eskates with us. There was a new bike lane on my hometown, and we could reach a beach we love with it instead of walking like freaking losers. One small problem though…these are our rides:
Can an eskate fit on a motorbike + everything we need to live for at least a week? Well…considering this experiment was indeed feasible, what do we already have so we don’t break the bank with a potential catastrophic failure?
- A pair of CheapFOCers2 laying around
- Our usual longboards take a pair of 5S LiPos each that must be charged separately (so they are removable)
- Shitty old trucks
- VX1s that can control several receivers with the same remote.
Missing things: decks, a pair or receivers, wheels, pulleys, motors and motor mounts. Taking into account the constraints, this is what we are going for:
- Small as humanly possible.
- Powerful enough to tackle the unknown (within reason)
- Cheap (so try and 3D print as much as possible)
The boards
Back to the question: how small can we go? As it turns out, with the described parts everything barely fits here:
Small | Cheap | Possibly uncontrollable
They arrived surprisingly quickly:
Wood seemed fine, and I’m not worried about durability on such a small board. But as expected, they were poorly finished with what I believe was a single coat of varnish. After a bit of sanding and primer, we gave them to my GF’s nephew (10 years old…incredible kid) to do has he pleased:
I absolutely loved the result!
The drivetrain
At first I thought of getting some 6354 sensored Flipsky motors, but a lucky accident (from another board that I was building for the aforementioned nephew…) got me a pair of Hobbyking SK8 6354 140kv that wouldn’t fit on caliber trucks, so I swapped them. We are absolutely not going to go fast on these things, so 140kv motors on 10S would give us more torque. I considered hubs for size and weight, but I just couldn’t find something that I liked, and I’m way too used to belts to go to a single hub that would probably be terribly underpowered.
For the mounts, I ended up designing my own from several ideas I got from Thingiverse. I did this to save money and reuse a shitty old pair of trucks. For the other one, I got some cheap Caliber 2 clones. The clamps are purpose built for the trucks, while the mounts themselves are universal. These are printed in PETG and are surprisingly sturdy (still won’t recommend them for anything bigger…yet. I wanna try Nylon!):
Motor pulleys are aluminium and wheel pulleys are again printed in PETG. I fix them to the wheels (ABEC clone core) with screws and I’ve always had great results with them even in longboards…only melted one when trying to pull way too much power from a single drive board powered by a SK3 6374.
Once the CheapFOCers were soldered and flashed, this was the test fit (with an older version of the mount):
Finishing touches
I only had one set of the purple 83mm wheels and they were way to hard too be comfortable. Despite some things I’ve read on this forum, I’ve always had great experiences with eskating.eu (Alberto even got me a replacemente OG Focbox from Enertion a few years ago when one of mine blew out of nowhere), so I ordered their wheels (97mm, 73A, less than 100€ for two sets!!). After some griptape (transparent for the missus, black for mine), TPU printed risers + ESC box, and my patent pending no-enclosure-enclosure…
The test
The moment of truth. This is all fine, but…do they fit?
Hell to the yeah! In the end my GF carried them both since it was easier to fix them to her bike. After a 500km (310 miles) trip to the northern coast of Spain, she didn’t even notice they were there. And then it was test time:
These things are little beasts! Only managed to thermal throttle the ESC (very hot day, 45/-30 motor amps, 15/40 gearing) on a really (and I mean going up to see a castle) steep hill we full throttled for a while.
They are NOT easy to ride by any means and I wouldn’t recommend going faster than 20km/h (12mph tops), but man, are they fun. They’re certainly capable of going faster, I just don’t think anyone should on such a small board. Once we got the hang of it, cruising along the coastline was incredible, and the tail is certainly useful to compensate for the limited turning radius. They got us to where we wanted to go, they sip on power, and most importantly: they are crazily portable. After the complete success of the experiment I’m seriously considering to upgrade some things (motor mounts mostly), but for the price…I don’t think they can be beat. Until then, cheers!
