I love the design and would like to try it, but $2500 is kind of rough. There’s one motor and one esc. The deck is a bent piece of plastic and the remote is an old school diy remote. Right now I’d value it at $1500. Are you planning on improving the deck and remote?
As an aside, It just so happens that I make custom decks and telemetric remotes with military spec controls. Give me a shout if you’d like some help with those things.
Cool idea, that’a basically what I had in mind, but you need to account for temperature and pressure differential, a better, still simple idea is to use the servo to compress a spring of a certain weight. The spring’s compression is monitored via hall sensors and fed to an arduino. the arduino then actuates the servo to keep a constant spring pressure at a certain pwm value, thus the piston pressure never changes regardless of brake bite point, and also you will get the same exact brake pressure at the same trigger value regardless of outside conditions and hydraulic variations
Is it though? He is running a business
What’s your opinion of the value of a Lacroix Jaws? They start at $2499 with MTB trucks, and 3024 max watts out of a 726 Wh battery. If you upgrade to the Hypertrucks it’s $3048.
The deck is a bent piece of polycarbonate mated to 7075 aircraft-grade aluminum frame rails. The entire enclosure is a stressed member, making it lighter and stronger than a plywood deck.
The single speed controller will be pushing 148 amps to the 7000 watt 17 Nm single motor. Taking into account kV conversion, this is the equivalent of 13 Nm compared to a 170 kV motor. This is more torque than you get out of a Lacroix Nazare Lonestar. Those motors push 5 Nm each.
Plus, if you reserve now with a $500 refundable deposit you can lock in the $1999 + shipping price. Price jumps $100 on February 1. You can reserve your board at speedboard.com.
We’re testing out all available remotes, including the VX1, VX2, and Hoyt Puck. Would love to test the ones you make as well. Will have a few standard remote options, with upgrade remotes available.
Anyway, I don’t really expect to convince everyone that this is worth the price using my words. I’ll be doing a full redesign in the next few weeks before making the next prototype. I’ll focus on convincing you during group rides when I’m riding the next prototype.
Braking is the primary factor for limiting top speed. The batteries can only absorb so much energy. Plus, adding braking on the front wheel will more than double stopping force due to weight transfer. Let’s get this working. It’ll be easy to incorporate disk brake bosses onto the front axle brackets to have this as an optional accessory in production.
I was also thinking of using a spring as a buffer to create a relatively precise braking force using servo movement.
Thank you. It doesn’t do any of us any good if I can’t pay the bills. Besides maybe SpaceX, if they think my electric skateboard case study qualifies me to run their Mars Personal Transport division, if I can’t sell enough speedboards to make a living on my own.
Seriously, though, I am putting a ton of R&D into developing this into a class-leading product, and I am not cutting any corners for the production boards. These are not cheap to build, but the end result will be more than worth it.
My words are meant to be kind. I apologize if I was too critical. I run a business too and one of the things about it is finding the sweet spot for your pricing so that you can optimize volume and profits. My complaint, I guess, is that I’m not convinced that $2500 is the goldie locks price. Also, it still looks like the prototype of a product that may someday be worth $2500.
Just wanted to reiterate that I did not mean to be rude, and you certainly don’t need to convince me of anything. It’s a good idea and a nice design. You just lost me at $2500.
Why don’t you add up the numbers. Don’t think David is going to be able to even profit more then $5k . And certainly has 600 hours plus of his time into it already.
It’s a fair price. Anyone can make one. We just don’t want to
I think 2.5k is a fair price for this tech. I do hope down the track you do offer DIY kits as well for us DIY junkies.
Hey man, that’s alright, I appreciate all constructive criticism & feedback. Trust me, if I were able to create the product I want to bring to market and sell it for $1500 I definitely would. My last prototype could probably be made very similar to how it is now and sell for $1999 long term.
But I want my first product to blow people away. I want there to be serious eskate envy on every group ride where someone is riding a speedboard. I want my customers to open up the box and see a work of art, where every component is optimized and beautiful. I want there to be power and torque for days.
There is literally no way I could do that and charge $1500. And as a lurking member of the Lacroix Facebook group, seeing all these new members posting “just ordered my Lonestar” and “my Jaws arrives in two days!!”, I want to be at that level, where the product is clearly worth the high price. And riding my prototype with multiple Lacroix riders, this last prototype is already almost there.
Once I establish that I can produce an amazing product, I’ll work on the next iteration that will be smaller and cheaper. But this is my flagship speedboard. This is the speedboard that will create that first lasting impression. And I’m willing to have fewer super-dedicated, enthusiastic customers to do that.
If I wanted to make a lot of money, the eskate space is the last business space I’d enter. The only worse business to create would probably be a restaurant. But if I nail this, I should be able to create a decent source of income that lets me fly around the world creating content, meeting new customers, and developing the most badass eskate products in existence. That is the dream.
But please, do not be shy with feedback. I am an engineer at heart. I have no ego in this. My objective is truly objective optimization & performance, and I need feedback from the community to be able to provide that. So keep it coming.
There are many of us that think your concept and price is on point, we just want to see you nail the execution, especially the all important battery build. Nobody wants to get onboard a fire waiting to happen.
I am very excited about this now that one of my mates has jumped in on the kickstarter 
Also glad to see you are going with bigger motors and have to choose an alternative ESC to the focbox that was your original plan. I felt that those components would have been maxed out and had limited lifespan.
Your ability to take all criticisms constructively is admirable and I hope that your product benefits from it.
Good luck with the next prototype! Looking forward to seeing it 
The fact that he takes community feedback and is willing to experiment with things that people ask for makes me think this may be the first “production” board that I would make very minimal changes to. I’m willing to offer any kind of mechanical/structural analysis as that’s my expertise to see this board come to fruition.
hands-free technology
not a competitor at least 
Can you say something to the difference between the 6380 and the 6396.
More power?
