I’ve just heard that having a tighter tolerance on the kingpin makes the ride feel more controlled. I did discuss it with Flo at one point because I saw the hole was so large, and he said that they were talking about it before.
Went for a ride today, and I experienced the oscillation beginning at around 20 mph. I do have my trucks on the looser side though with Orangatang orange nipple bushings. I may switch to a harder bushing in the back truck. What bushings do you use in back @pkasanda?
Or, for anyone that doesn’t seem to experience this, what bushings do you guys use and how tight are they (how many threads can you see on the kingpin)?
Just talked to a representative at riptide, they said they’re in the process right now of making pivot cups for the Revel trucks! They said they’re making molds and should be out in 2-3 weeks.
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I have a riptide krank chubby red on the board side and red venom on the roadside, then in the front, red venom board side, teal venom road side with a cupped washer. It’s all pretty tight
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Awesome! I’m in the process of finding a few sets of riptides to try out. Also, I have my front truck kingpin bolt tightened down more than the back because with the motor, it seems to naturally make that truck tighter. Do you think this would pertain to the oscillation issue/do you find any potential problems with this? The back truck still feels tighter than the front, but I was thinking the bushings technically wouldn’t be tightened down as much. Sorry, I’m still somewhat of a noob at this lol.
Yeh they’re great bushings. I have mine tightened about the same I think, but the back one should be tighter I think because of the extended weight? Not 100% sure.
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I’ll have to experiment around with it, thanks!
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Riptide 95A barrel on the deck side. Riptide 95A Cone on the road side.
But if I were to do it again, I’d do barrel bushings top and bottom.
I weigh 215 and I’ve used this bushing set-up wiht both 2wd and 4WD.
Zero speed wobbles.
For the last year I’ve been running 4WD with double trucks front and back (8 wheels total).
you would not believe the stability that you get from an extra set of trucks.
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Ya I saw the Vanguard with them in one of your videos, it looks insane! I’ve been trying to figure out the oscillation problem, it’s the same story as with Matt. At speed mode 4, I can’t get past around 20 mph without the oscillation. I use a Vanguard with 87a Caguamas and 86a orange nipples. I’ll probably have to put harder bushings in the back. I’m experimenting with washers right now and I tried no washers on the board side and flat washers on the road side. It’s hella carvy, which I love! Before, I had a cup washer on the motor truck board side. Even though, without a washer, you have much less stability, the oscillation still happened at the same speed no matter how tight the trucks were or what washers I used. Also, without a washer, it wasn’t any more intense at all, it was still the exact same “oscillation speed”. Therefore, I’m wondering If it could be an engineering mishap or issue with the motors (in this batch), or signal that the remote sends to the ESC when in mode 4 when throttling at 75%-100%. Not saying it is, but It’s just an idea. I still have to try out harder bushings to make a more valid statement.
The stock bushings are guaranteed to give you a wobble at higher speeds if you are in my 200+ Weight class. I assume the stock bushings are suitable for extremely light riders only (if they are suitable for any weight class). So the first thing is definitely to upgrade to top notch bushings that match your weight.
My Vanguard set-up evolved over a long period.
The first thing I did was to add 1 inch rubber risers to prevent the drive from slapping the deck.
Next, I sandwiched the deck between pairs of rubber risers. I added a stainless steel plate between the bolts and the rubber so that I could properly tighten the sandwich.
Both of the above improvements made the ride smoother and quieter but riding top speed required tremendous concentration and I did have a few wobbles. One thing about the vanguard that is not ideal is that the board is so flexible that it allows the front and rear trucks to twist into different steering planes. I think that contributes to some high speed instability and also results in a relativley wide turning radius.
Next, I tried double trucks just on the front. I extended the length of the deck by 6 inches on the front by sanwiching the deck between a top and bottom aluminum extension. A layer of rubber above and below the deck ensured that the aluminum would not crush the vanguard.
The handeling improvements and high speed stability improvements on the six wheeled vanguard were truely spectacular. Words cannot describe how amazing the change was. If it was not for the truely horrible quality of my ottawa roads I would have stopped at six wheels. Everything was better, even the steering radius.
Eventually, I added another set of trucks to the rear on a second aluminum extension. That change smoothed out the roads and allowed me to float over massive cracks and pot holes. However I lost quite a bit of steering radius. The high speed stability was fantastic but not really any more fantastic than the six wheel configuration.
So if you have a spare set of trucks and you feel competant to add a hardwood wood or aluminum extension to the front, then I encourage you to experiment with creating a six wheeled vanguard.
If you have no fabrication skills then you could order one of these:
Again, you would not believe the improvement from an extra set of front trucks especially at high speed.
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It occurred to me that some sort of strange left/right toggeling of motor power might match up with the way that you and Matt describes your wobbles. I have no direct experience. However, you might want to order a spare remote and see if switching remotes eliminates the problem. Perhaps ask for a special price on the spare remote since you goal is to resolve the unusual acceleration related speed wobble.
Do you live in a town with any other revel kit riders? Is there any one who would lend you a remote for 15 minutes?
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Thank you for the very detailed response! I’m not sure if I am competent enough right now to be able to do everything you said lol! I just got my kit a couple a few days ago, but I will definitely be experimenting with more creative ways to find my sweet spot, it will just take me time to actually learn. I’ll definitely experiment with risers because I did notice, at least when going over bumps, the trucks and/or hardware can rattle a little bit and make noise. At least for my back truck right now, it rattles a slight bit. I’m lucky to have better than average roads in my area with the occasional crack and bump here and there, so the “issue” (not really an issue) with noise/rattling isn’t all that bad. That being said, I still want to make my set-up the best it can be for me! I have no idea whether there are other Revel kit riders in my area (Columbus), but I have only been part of the esk8 community technically for 4 days lol, so I’m sure I’ll cross paths with someone eventually. Despite this, I will contact revel with my thoughts on it and see what they say. Again, thank you for your response!
I’ll have to try speedmode 3 and see if i get the same results, but i don’t know if speedmode 3 goes fast enough for that, because i only get the motor wobbles at high speed, everything else is fine.
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Yea, i think it maybe a contributing factor would be the head of the bolt being sloppy as well as not having a tight fit inside the hole itself. I’ll have to take off my trucks and do some measurements and try out some bolts and see if it helps.
But i think the overall issue is that the motors or something get to a “resonant frequency” and cause a feedback loop on certain parts. So idk if that means i have a bent axle, or like @pkasanda said,
Either way it’s a weird issue, and i want to feel safe going at high speeds.
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Update: I tried to hold out the oscillation wobbles as long as I could. I held it on 100% throttle for about 5-6 seconds once I reached 17 mph. The board did not really want to go any faster than 18 or 19 mph (not the wobbles preventing me, but the speedometer going back and forth between 17 or 18 and 19 mph as if that’s the top speed or struggling to accelerate further). Again, this is only speed mode 4. I feel like it should have accelerated much more at that speed, and I also feel like there’s just something wrong with speed mode 4 all together. I did some acceleration tests and it feels practically no different than speed mode 3. I did do this on flat ground. I was able to reach 19 mph on a downhill road on speed mode 3 with no problem. Any thoughts?
Also, I just tested the throttle speed on mode 4 with the board off the ground after my ride today, the top speed on the remote was reading around 23 mph (battery was at 3 bars after the ride), which seems correct for 85mm Caguamas, but at full throttle, my deck vibrates quite a bit which tells me something may not be right with the motors and/or remote signal. Is this normal for your deck to vibrate when testing this? With my last comment, I forgot to add in that I did the acceleration/wobble/top speed test with a freshly charged battery.
Whatever it might be, a remote change doesn’t seem like it would help in the slightest… It doesn’t sound like a connection issue, it sounds like a power delivery issue.
I think your problem lies somewhere in the ESC 
Where are you located Hunter? There was a v6 vesc derivative for sale today that could (hopefully) be fixed and deployed in your build… Maybe it’s worth looking in to.
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You could be correct, that seems to make more sense now that you say it. I sent Revel a message on Facebook giving all the details, they should respond on Monday hopefully. I’m in Columbus, OH.
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So never rely on the remote for an accurate speed reading. Instead, use a cell phone app like map my ride to capture your max speed (after the ride is over).
Vibration can be intense if the back plate of the drive is vibrating against the deck. This is a pretty common issue. Most people put a layer of neoprene between the drive and the deck. I recommend a large 3/4 inch to 1 inch soft ruber riser. Search this thread for “anti-vibration” and you will see lots of posts on this topic.
There is a big difference between a speed wobble and vibration – but high vibration can make it very difficult to ride. Fix your vibration problem first before trying to trouble shoot what you percieve as a speed wobble.
Can you post a picture of your set-up. Include a deck level profile shot aimed directly at the side of the drive and deck.
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