SYL-08 mods, tips, tricks, advice & experience 🛹

[Fab]

Hello everyone

I saw there isn’t a thread about SYL-08 mods. Before making this post I was warned that many experienced eboarders don’t like cheap chinese boards and will be quick to rush to judgement and criticism. For those who do, I’d like to ask which country your board was made in/ where were the parts made? For the rest, constructive criticism is very welcome.

For many eboarders just starting out this is a cheap entry level board with a lot of power which can be upgraded into a decent or even high performance mountain board which will perform better than many other brand name boards out there.

I got this board a couple of years ago and I wanted to upgrade the stock LingY ESC into something more reliable but without soldering anything together. That plan failed massively after ordering a FOC Box Unity which came with the wrong connectors on all sides.

After months of ordering individual parts online (many of which didn’t fit) I managed to solder all the connectors, upgrade the ESC and somehow I managed to fit everything inside the stock enclosure, even the volt meter. The board rides amazingly well and there’s a community of people who all ordered the same board and managed to do different upgrades to it.

Had I known everything I know now about electric skateboards I don’t know if I would still get the SYL-08 as my first board but so far so good.

Battery pack: 10s4p.
Range: about 12km
Charge time: 7h - 8h(officially 5h)
Top speed: around 40kmph
ESC: FocBox Unity
Motors: 190kv - TBC

Hoping to change battery/ wheels to increase range on my next mod.

If you have a modded SYL-08 feel free to post your mods below.

Here’s mine:

Would love to hear from any other SYL-08 owners out there. Not looking for a fight, just looking for a constructive thread.

Happy riding everyone!

[Oldguy]

Doing this right now! I bought it like most did, as an upgrade platform to use stock until something inevitably busted and then start the process.
One of the best threads I’ve seen on it is on the old forum…this guy took it to task and even if you don’t plan on doing anything as extensive as he did, there is some good info on there.

Ninestep/Diyeboard/L-FASTER 8'' mountainboard/trucks/electronics review

Hopefully it is not verboten to link the “other site”. If it is I apologize.

[Oldguy]

How do I edit for spelling? - I sound illiterate.

[Oldguy]

As for my personal experience, I took delivery of mine about 3 weeks ago. I paid about $460 for it. While there will be plenty of arguments that for that for nearly the same cost as this board and even a basic set of upgrades you could build a better quality project starting from scratch. They are probably right, but this is the route I decided to take.

In part because my requirements for a “mountainboard” and exceedingly tame. I am an older guy who built my first esk8 from scratch almost 5 years ago. I am proud to say that she still runs to this day!

Since then I have gotten even older and on top of that I suffered a pretty traumatic injury a couple years ago (NOT esk8 related) that left me with a calcareous that has been screwed back together. This means I can’t do anything super stupid or very athletic. As such all I require is a board that will roll comfortably on the sidewalk, with a top speed of about 15 miles per hour. That’s seriously it. I use the limiter on the remote at 50% and typically “cruise” at no more than 10-12 mph. This means that at 15mph I have some headroom to get out of the way of something if I have to. In addition to that I live in SoFlo, which means the only hills we see are in the movies or on TV.

[Venom121212]

@Oldguy

Hopefully it is not verboten to link the “other site”. If it is I apologize.

Not at all! We share knowledge here, we don’t suppress links to other sites to be petty.

@Oldguy

How do I edit for spelling?

You should see a little pencil next to your post. Click that if you want to edit the original.

[Oldguy]

I FULLY expected the problem to be with the cheap-o one-piece, non-programmable ESC but after swapping my phase wires around (and verifying good connections) I observed that the problem stayed with the same motor no matter which “side” of the ESC I plugged those wires into. So I ordered a set of FlipSky 6354 battle-hardened 140kv motors. I was happy to sacrifice speed I would never use for torque (to conqueror that dead-flat dying grass for a minute as well ass the sidewalk racks) so that made my decision easy. After sharing my plight on the Noob question thread (just yesterday!) the guys there cunningly talked me into buying a Maker-X DV6 as well. Of course, that means I need an anti-spark, so I ponied up for the FlipSky 280A Plus on top of everything else. All told, about $350 in parts that will end up replacing everything that runs on DC current in my board.

It then occurred to me that I actually had, buried in my old parts box from 2017) a similar one-piece cheapy ESC I snagged off eBay when I was considering a 10s hub build. So tonight, just to really, really test the assumption that I had a motor problem, I swapped it in. I made sure there was a consensus that so long as the version I bought was set up for 10s, the fact that I had specified HUB motors instead of outrunners when I ordered it wouldn’t matter as the only practical difference were things like throttle curves and such.
I took it for my first test ride about 20 min ago and right off the bat it accelerates WAY better than it ever has before. I plan to ride it around like this - keeping an eye on that motor, until parts start to arrive (C’mon Maker-X…I’m counting on ya…) and then installing the upgrades regardless of how well it runs with the replacement ESC (It was a very brief test as it was getting dark - not enough to state anything conclusive until tomorrow when I can put some miles on it).

I’ll let you know how it comes out.

[Oldguy]

No little pencil for me…so I deleted and reposted which is a bit clunky. Maybe because I am new ( at first I couldn’t post hyperlinks either but it looks like I can today)…

[b264]

@Fab

SYL-08

It’s a breath of fresh air, that the motors aren’t inside the wheels.

[Oldguy]

I suppose I should mention that somewhere between posts 2 and 3 I documented a problem with one of the motors cogging and/or losing power randomly. Always the same one and it always comes back on after a full stop and restart. This was about 2 weeks after I took delivery. The only change I had made to it at the point was to switch the bindings to goofy.

Sure smelled like a power delivery problem, but connections were secure.

[Dinnye]

Was it only at startup? Or did it happen at higher speeds too? If the cogging was only at startup its likely a dead motor sensor.

[Athrx]

Ey, happy to see you on the forum!
@Halbj613 @Geo_Engineering_FTW another guy to ride with right here.
@tinp123 i recommended you a bit earlier to him, he needs a better battery

[Fab]

@Athrx thanks man!

[Oldguy]

It would almost always start up fine and shut off after I got going (maybe 7-10mph) The other motor could continue to push me if I kept going. Once I stopped it would almost always come back to life but the longer I rode for the more likely it might just cog or not start at all. It never got really hot (the old esc was thermally pasted to the large metal enclosure which acted like a very effective heat sink).

[Oldguy]

I’ve swapped out the esc now for a duplicate so I am going to pit some miles on it and see if it reproduces the problem. Parts are on the way either way for both motors and esc replacement. That leaves me with a cheap battery that will limit my performance but in truth the stock battery is capable of more performance than I need anyhow.

[Athrx]

Btw, for new wheels, probably the cheapest change is rockstar 2 hubs, any tyres/tubes in the 8 inch range and the plastic pulleys mbs also sells. It will still pass £100 easily but these are parts to keep even when changing builds, and the mounting pattern is compatible with a lot of other diy parts. Just make sure your axles are 12mm thick

[LuuktH]

Nice thread, hope more people come here to share their experience with this board and modding it.

[Dinnye]

Could be the ESC or the motor, its not the sensors then. Let’s hope it was the ESC

[Halbj613]

you wanna meet up sometime this week? we can all meet up maybe as i have study leave the whole week

[Athrx]

I’m currently pulling my hairs out trying to find a decent house to rent. I’ll technically be in the area but really busy i’m afraid

[Halbj613]

ah good luck man
hope you can find something nice in the area you want