I can still remember the first time I saw the promotional photos. It was a routine work day in 2019. There I was… on the clock… just staring at this image.
How could a skateboard design could be so artistic? The enclosure so elegantly traced the belly of the deck while the bottom geometry remained parallel to the ground. The carbon fiber weave was so dreamy.
I was mesmerized. But why? Probably because I had just started down the DIY path myself and could just barely catch a glimpse of how much work goes into something like this.
Then sometime later Lacroix offered the DIY kit, which was just the deck and enclosure. I wanted to jump on that so bad, but couldn’t. It was just too far out of reach for someone that could barely afford to scrape together a single drive board with a deck from SkateShred.
It was always the best day when a new Proto build thread would hit the forum. I would study the pictures and take notes on things I liked or didn’t like. Protos with thane wheels were always such a treat. I also loved builds that maintained the original Maple/CF deck finishes. Eventually an inspiration folder was birthed on my desktop where I would save pictures.
Over time my builds became much more robust and practical. Big meaty pneumatics and a top mounted enclosure just kept things simple. I didn’t care as much about the aesthetics as I first did when I got into this hobby.
In March of this year I was approached by a guy about an hour away with a beautiful Proto that needed a battery replacement. I put together a price for a battery replacement with the local dude discount and was surprised to hear that he might prefer to sell the whole board outright. I tried to talk myself out it… I didn’t really need one more board. It was just too good of a deal to pass up.
I asked the seller to send me as much info and photos of the board. Turns out this exact board has some coverage on the Landsurf website. It was used to showcase the Xcell RS-1 XT hubs. That’s pretty cool!
That very next Saturday we met up at an In-N-Out burger about 30 minutes away and I PayPal’d the money on the spot. I couldn’t believe that this board was actually sitting in my trunk.
I totally love the Prototipo, I fell in love with it the minute I saw it just like you. I built several DIYs on top of it on many variations. Since it’s not manufactured anymore , I’ve changed it to Flowstate Fishbone.
We’ve talked about this before but you are the reason i have my proto deck. I cannot wait to see what you come up with. It will only inspire me to finally complete my build haha.
Disclaimer: I am going to intentionally leave out any usernames from this post, as I have zero interest in calling anyone out. The gentleman that I purchased this board from did not build the battery. He reached out due to having battery issues. After pulling the battery apart, it was pretty clear that the problem most likely originated from the battery assembly methods. Hopefully this can be an example of what not to do.
The board included a 12s8p pack. I was pretty optimistic that I could remove the dead cells and convert the battery into a 10s8p pack for my daughter’s VESC based Razor Pocket Mod (aka death scooter). She’s still using lipos and manually balancing the pack was… starting to get old. Once I got home, I removed the enclosure to see what was going on.
More on the hot glue in a later chapter… back to the battery. I wasn’t super stoked with how the balance wires were routed, but whatever… I was going to drop in a new 10s BMS anyway.
Then I started cutting series connections so that I could inspect the individual P groups. There was no fishpaper insulation, spot welds that blew holes through the nickel (not sure about the cells), insufficient spot welding connections and incorrectly sized nickel that was folded/bent to shape.
By this time, I had seen enough to know that it would be unsafe to keep any part of this battery. I wrapped up the P groups individually and immediately drove to Staples. They graciously were willing to dispose of this battery (at no cost) despite my verbal disclaimer that this pack wasn’t safe. I was so glad to get this battery out of my house!
Thats disgraceful. I often think we get a little high and mighty around here regarding pack construction, but this just goes to show why our outrage is necessary
