For wet snr usually it’s just jacey on eskate because he is absolutely insane and im here for it. Dude rides in poring rain and just hammers all his boards as hard as possible in every condition and all year. For no particular reason 4 additional esk8s added to his constant presence.
One dude on cloud wheels who i havent met before but was hanging in there pretty well - was impressed as getting through downtown streets on cloud wheels takes some serious focus and skill. Let alone on wet streets. Pics were all blurry so hopefully ill catch him on another ride as he’s not in the telegram group yet one of us, one of us
I’m still waiting on a replacement motor from propulsion . They sent me a bad motor. Also Im having trouble getting the vx4 pro remote properly setup with my solo dual esc. I also my tynee stinger gear drive doesn’t necessarily fit my flipsky 15.22 inch trucks . Getting spacers made would be the cheaper route in solving that minor issue. If not gotta break the bank a little bit more.
If you can 3d print something it’s good for prototyping and spacers. Im going carbon fiber for my brackets and thinking i can do longer motor mounts in cf also to drop weight and get better tooth engagement. Above is the mold im working through for the v8 brackets with integrated -5° wedge.
Ive got enough tow to do it or chop. Going to do a 60/40 mix of chop and long fibers on the long axis. I should be able to get it in, wet, and compressed in 30 minutes i think. 1 hour on the outside. Unspread epoxy in the cup is still flowing until about the 1:30hr mark so hopefully it will work out. Also got some surfactant to try from @Venom121212 (thank you) so hopefully will wet out a little faster too to improve my margins and ease of compression
Oh man my struggle with fusion to get this mold was weeks of frustration culminating in learning that holding down p (profile projection) turned my brute force attempts at forcing it tondonwhat i want in 100 steps into 3. 3 fucking easy steps
The test print turned out so well im gonna try it while i wait for the full strength parts to print. If the mold dies it will be ok and a good test - if i need to modify something it will be quicker down the pipe. Excited to see how much lighter it will be - the steel ones are going banana after just a couple dozen curbs and drops and these SHOULD be about twice as strong as i think ill need.
Yeah fusion struggles are real, but I really enjoy a fusion session, its one of those things that has grown on me. I love being able to imagine things into reality, its like magic
this is such a fun project, i’m kinda impressed that you are willing to diy such a critical component!! Godspeed!
Edit: Have you planned on any sort of heat treatment/cure?
Ya and its a l bit of vibe engineering too. Im not an engineer, i can overbuild and trial and error this but i cant really math my way to a solution. I can take a known solution, measure and compare, then add some safety factor. That’s how i got those banana brackets except what i wanted (14.6mm thickness) and what i could source (12.2mm) wasn’t good enough. Close but not close enough
The 304 can’t be heat treated in a conventional way - so the ones from scs are a bit if a dead end. The aluminum options aren’t any better and the cost of having them cnc something for me was astronomical. Just too low volume to justify a big enough run to make it viable.
After some clever lies to myself and creative accounting I convinced myself that i will just need to get a cnc that can do 7075 . The composite version is fun to do but i have an exit strategy. Makera will be here this spring. Should be an interesting journey. If it works it works. If it fails the failure mode of cf is what im most worried about.
Sorry I should have been more clear, i mean using heat to cure the resin! I would feel much more comfortable using a critical component like that if I knew that it was FULLY cured
Post curing epoxy is a topic i need to know more about.
I had thought it only benefits specific epoxies designed for it.
i had previously found that if my regular laminating epoxy did not get 95% cured within the first 8 hours it never seemed to fully cure.
It has a 60f minimum and if it fell to 59f or less within that first 8 hours it would forever after seem to be softer and more flexible and sand weird.
Ahhhh ok, haven’t run into any issues yet but maybe ill saw it and check. Ive taken pucks of this west system at about 3/4” or near 3cm thick and split them to check the core but not with fiber.
I just used the “does it sand well?” Test to check if it cured properly. Not sure if that’s good enough.
I plan on mounting the bracket to my work bench leg with some plywood at about 4” off the ground - then putting some scrap 3/4 plywood on it and trying to snap it by jumping. Cant get much closer to than that as far as simulating the stresses on it. Ill try to get my brother to video it - incase it’s hilarious
So got the mold looking good, three coats of mold release on it and hoping it’s enough
Mold is printed 8walls and 60% cubic infill - when i got to clamping im glad i went so heavy as it took some serious force to get the excess epoxy out. Much less would have blown out for sure as the “piston” part of the mold was definitely deforming if i applied pressure unevenly.
Strong and pretty is the goal. 150.4 cm^3 of volume for the part, so at 1.44g per cubic cm that puts the part at about 210.56g total. Ideal mix is 60/40 so 126.3g of fiber and an excess of resin to aid in losses and compression im doing 150% batch of 144g of epoxy (rounded to nearest dose from my metered pumps.
Im also going to replace 25g of the chop with long fiber tow to add strength to the long axis.
Measured out all my chop and tow for both brackets - let’s do this:
Epoxy was mixed in two batches and i made a little Lincoln log pool area under the plastic to pour out the epoxy flat on the table. I didn’t want to risk it cooking off fast and not being able to clamp it. Added .5cc of the tween20 surfactant to hopefully help the surface tension break a bit and get it to squeeze out of the fiber and mold a little easier.
Painted the mold then dropped in a layer of chop and stipled it down as best i could, put in about half the chop in layers this way making a huge mess and added the tow. I made sure to get the tow on both sides of the inserts i added then put the last of the chop layers on top. Careful with scrapers - popsicle sticks - and fingers i got everything wetted out and feeling kinda evenly distributed and generally in the bottom of the mold.
Then started compressing. The piston part slid in well and the through bolts lined up perfectly for the inserts - using a mix of bench vice and giant c clamps i was able to slowly close the mold over about 20 minutes. Give it a squeeze, wait, another 1/4 tuen, wait, until it closed fully. This was to give the epoxy time to flow out of the fiber and out of the thin mold parting lines. Seems good - now to wait and let it cure. I think ill give it 6 hours before I crack the screws back and a full 48 before i demold. Definitely need acme screw clamps and a vice. No way the bar claps could generate enough force
The holes are all the way through and have brass inserts, it’s definitely my first thought and it m going to beat the crap out of em first thing to see how they fail. Hope but verify. Has big version 1 vibes
one of us, one of us
) so hopefully will wet out a little faster too to improve my margins and ease of compression
