I find the barking to be pretty strong if not abrupt even on the 2nd setting. I’d imagine they’d be uncomfortable in a 4wd setup on the highest setting.
For my Cruising style, even with the 2-3+ mile range reduction, I think I could keep the cloud wheels on at least for my mini quarantine brakes.
Still need to try out these 100mm tb’s but the 110’s sound real nice too.
Might not be relevant since I have a 2wd set up but how’s the range with the 110mm wheels?
I’ve been chating with @Rhinoinflight (Justin) via Email. He made the observation that with Boostedboards and Enertion both out of business, many Eskate riders may unfortunately turn to the abundance of fancy looking but less reliable boards. By less reliable I’m not only talking about product durability and lifespan, I’m also referring to models that have spontaneouls braking problems, poor braking characteristics, speed wobbles, etc.
The Revel Kit is the real deal when it comes to quality, reliability design and testing.
I own two boosted boards and I would say that the Revel Kit Build quality is close to the level of BB. BB would be more water resistant and a bit more sculpted. Despite that, I think my Revel Kit drives will out live my BB’s.
And comparing Revel Kit to Enertion, from what I see on forums and facebook pages, the Revel kit is far superior with a near zero failure rate. The product failure rate and waranty replacement cost is often what drives a small esk8 company out of business. Having such a durable product is great for both the customer and the manufacturer.
Justin and I also talked about the financial durability of the companies. Jason and Flo have managed to keep thier cost structure small enough to survive market fluctuations. BoostedBoards and Enertion are examples of companies that outspent the potential for their markets to grow. They also proliferated numerous different models and versions. That makes for very high R&D and tooling costs.
Jason and Flo have been really smart. They have build a single drive that can take thousands of different forms with different decks, wheel sizes and 2WD/4WD. They have minimised their R&D, tooling, packaging, support and distribution costs. Its really smart.
My crystal ball tells me that the Revel Kit is here for the long haul.
Yes, and this makes me realize that we should do a review on esk8.news about these bad boys. I’ll get to work on it.
I love the revel kit but I see they can only be mounted on flat decks, which is probably the main flaw in their design (we could add battery range but they can be swapped)
Yeah even with a loaded vanguard the camber makes a tiny gap between the battery and deck which I’m not 100% comfortable with but is probably a non issue.
Regarding battery range I’m getting the advertised range.
So this is only true if you are unwilling to remove some screws and re-assemble. I’ll illustrate with a picture of a top mounted Landwheel V4
And quad battery L3-x
Swapping batteries works. It is also possible to wire several batteries together in parallel. This strategy was used by many different landwheel owners. Some used several landwhee battereis. Others jumpered in inexpesive hoverboard batteries to double thier range. In the future I’d like to see Jason and Flo offer an extra battery module that made it easier to mount multiple batteries on a 2WD Revel Kit.
Below is a picture of the @uli66 L3-x/Hoverboard battery adaptation.
I’m not saying its streamline… I’m just saying its not hard to do and there are much more attractive batteries that it can be done with. I’m thinking about mounting a spare boosted board battery on the front of a 2WD Revel Kit. The boosted board battery is regulated down to 41 volts so in theory it should sustain the Revel Kit battery until it’s depleted. I’m just not sure if the boosted board battery will power down if its not connected to the rest of the boosted board and the remote.
It is true that the vanguard deck forms a tiny gap between the drive and the bottom of the deck. That gap can be problematic becasue the drive plate can slap the deck rapidly. It can create a very loud sound and a lot of vibration.
Fortunately it is easy to solve. Some people would add extra neopreen between the deck and the drive. I prefer to create a larger gap with extra risers. With just one or two extra risers, the gap is large enough to prevent slapping.
A third option is to disassemble the Revel kit Drive and rear-mount the battery enclosure (cantilevered off the back). It looks a little wierd but you get the lowest possible centre of gravity and the highest possible ground clearance.
It makes it possible to mount the drive on either a drop down or a drop thorugh deck
I like the idea of extra neoprene to fill the gap but as far as disassembling the kit the only thing I’d be slightly interested in modifying is switching it to a double kingpin set up if that’s even possible.
I’m interested in your perspective on double kingpin.
I know some riders really like double kingpins. I even bought a set for myself in the hopes of getting sharper turning on the front end of my vanguard deck. The vanguard has no kick tail and even if it had a kick tail the board is too flexible for effective kick steering. For example I could build an aluminum kick tail very easily but the vanguard would be too limp and floppy to make use of the kick. At the time I had no interest in rigid decks because the vanguard reduced vibration. My vibration concerns were based on my experience with conventional hub motors and the terrible amount of road vibration and impacts that they would translate into a rigid deck.
The Revel Kit really changed the way I thought about these things. The direct drive system absorbed enough of the road vibration that I could finally enjoy a rigid deck with a kicktail. Add the 110mm TB’s and there is virtually no vibration. So for those reasons I totally lost interest in the double kingpins. Who needs sharper turning trucks when you can kick steer. Also, I’ve heard that double kingpins reduce high speed stability because they steer more agressively and raise the centre of gravity. I hear this from evolve riders in my riding group.
So people like what they like and I’m not saying you are wrong for wanting double kingpins. I’m just curious what your reasons are for wanting them on a Revel Kit. Is it because you want an all terrain wheeled Revel Kit? Have you considered switching to a deck with a kicktail? Or is kick steering not in your comfort zone?
Show us your setup man
Honestly just wondering if it was possible. I’ve ridden a Backfire stiff longboard with a dkp on the front and for carving I felt like it really upgraded the experience.
Are you keeping track of this threas on DKPs?
They’re just not generally liked amongst the pros here, they’re also not found amongst downhill riders. In terms of setup you’d carve a lot more if you wedged your front trucks to make a 60deg angle - no need for the sketchy DKPs. The turning radius of a 60deg angle would be the same as a DKP with a lot more stability.
Interesting DKP feedback!!!
Thanks for that thread.
I’m on the side of riders that aren’t speed demons and am less concerned with high speed stability.
The cloud wheels are definitely meant for less than perfect streets not the dirt at least not with a short deck revel kit lol. Even with the pillowy Nike react sneakers the vibrations were like riding over those yellow bumpy sidewalk surfaces.
I don’t know. I only got to do one ride after I mounted the wheels on my 4WD. The weather was freezing and I was blasting away at either top speed or full acceleration the entire ride. So I hit the first vibration alert within 7 kilometers and coasted back home. Normally I would get 20 - 30 kilometers of 4WD range. I’m sure the majority of range shortfall was due to temperature, speed and acceleration.
So I have a theory on how to reduce vibration on any electric skateboard including the revel kit. Try removing the bottom washer.
I know for a fact that the bottom washer can rattle against a baseplate. It can produce a sound and a vibration that is not unlike an pneumatic chisel. While on vacation in february in the dominican republic, I brought three conventional skateboards with me. One of them was making this sound. I removed the bottom washers and the skateboard suddenly ran silent.
I’ve felt and heard the same sound on a variety of electric skateboards before… but never thought to remove that part – not until recently.
The Revel kit baseplate is wide enought that it should be fine to remove the bottom washer. The bottom bushing would have almost as much support from the baseplate as it gets from the bottom washer.
I suppose you could also place a thin piece of rubber between the bottom washer and the base plate. you could use any type of rubber including a scrap of old innertube from a bicycle.
Can a few people try this and tell me how it works out.
Sweet, I’ll give it a go… doesn’t work on Caliber / squarish baseplates though…
