Aye, same. Gave me a heart attack when I noticed their voltages
Took a day and WFH to monitor their slow discharge.
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Not having a proper BMS and charging straight to the battery terminals with a “dumb” power supply
Oh dang sorry to hear it dude. I used 3 toolkit M6D chargers and a server PSU to make a 6 channel charger setup for relatively cheap. About $200-$250 to build it. Might be an option for you.
I can get all 6 9500mah lipos charging at 9.5amps individually for the most part. Sometimes it thermal throttles and shuts off at 9.5amps if the ambient temperature is higher. But 9amps has run consistently well for me per lipo. So 54 to 57 amps all at once.
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I was wondering what you did when you went from 12s and the icharger x12 to 16s.
oops. glad you had no fire.
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Cool setup! Super slick, I love pelican case projects. Especially ones as clean as that.
I want to a be able to charge my batteries without having to pull them out(like a normal board). Was able to do it for a couple months, and it was awesome. Don’t think I want to go back to needing to pull them out every time 
Thanks for the suggestion tho
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Yeah not the most fun process each time. Pros and cons of its design for sure.
Today’s issue: ESK8CON Prep
Wait, esk8con already happened! Like a month ago!
Yeahh… took me a minute to get to this writeup 
Front box revamp
As mentioned before, I avoid doing anything with the front box it if I don’t have to.
However, It reached the point where it basically needed all of it’s parts repaired or replaced, so my hand was forced into doing something.
Off they come!
First step, bend the metal back into shape
Return of the hodgepodge metal break
“But won’t it just get bent back out of shape again?”
Good question, metaphorical reader.
New footstop
In the current design, there’s nothing to take transverse (side to side) loads on the box.
When I first installed the 3D printed footstop, it was designed to be a barrier between my feet and the G300s, not a structural member. Because of this, it was only 1.2mm thick.
Engineering Forces Tangent
It’s basically a 4-bar mechanism(where the pivots are at the corners of the sheet metal), so it’s not surprising that it gets bent out of shape. (This is why we use diagonal pieces and triangles when designing buildings and whatnot)
This is reflected in how the part breaks. It broke at the layer lines of the 3D print, but only between where it connects to the box
What happens is it takes up a transverse load, but it’s not strong enough to resist it. This shear load breaks the middle of it into a bunch of little bars, which “slide” relative to eachother, letting it part flex and deform, reliving the stress. (This is represented really well by the permeant deformation in the picture)
I printed a new beefy version that’s 4mm thick and solid plastic. It should definitely be able to take the transverse loads now.
I have the slots for the sides extending into the 4mm front so I don’t give up any more valuable deck space, and there shouldn’t be much force going through that section of the part. Most of the stress should flow through/around the interior fillet.
New Spine clamp
This part clamps the box to the frame of the board, transferring all the forces directly to the frame instead of going through the sheet metal deck.
Fixed it.
New nut retention
While I was re-assembling, I took @BenjaminF’s suggestion of a captive nut plate. This made reassembly massively easier, thanks for the suggestion dude!
If you were eagle-eyed, you migh’tve spotted them it in a earlier photo.
All of these improvements means the box is much stronger then it was before. 
Tires
I wore through my front BRPs, but I didn’t have any replacements on-hand (until receiving new set from @MoeStooge at esk8con).
@HAIRYMANJACK had a spare pair of wides that he let me use. Ended up having enough tread to race on them at esk8con, even! Thanks dude.
^Artwork curtesy of @Lyfe_Of_Jimmy, feat. Reggie Thomas
Busted Batteries
Woke up for work one morning, and felt the need to check the battery in my stooge.
that’s… suboptimal
guess I’m WFH today. I started discharging the packs 4 at a time using my iCharger x12 at 50W. Took all day to bring them all down below 4.2.
I definitely did some damage overcharging them like this. They’re all slightly puffed now, and their internal resistances shot up. (When they were new IR was 0.1~0.2mOhm)
I removed the two packs that now had the dead p-group, labeled 'em appropriately.
I then drove to San Diego for our weekly track night and did 8 miles on track 
So I’m back to running on 12s for the time being, unfortunately. I could buy two replacements for the dead p-group packs, but I’d be warry of running new packs in series with damaged ones.
Fortunately, I still had the old balance harness and hardware from before I upgraded to 16s… Popped that back in how it was, and I’m still able to charge without opening up my bellypan, but I’m back to charging with my iCharger x12. I’m waiting to receive a zBMS in the mail, the only BMS that can fit in the restrictive space.
Once I get it installed, it’ll let me go back to charging with a single plug. Can’t wait.
Brake light
(go to the quote to see the video I previously posted, pretty happy with the aesthetics)
Aspiring to make these code updates before eks8con, I plugged in the Arduino to my computer. I proceeded to corrupt it, or something, idek, it didn’t even register in device manager after I tried to upload code.
These things can happen with arduinos. Though the magic of buying two of them, I had a spare microcontroller. While I was swapping it out, I figured I could make things better. The first one was just a quick prototype- it was little more then a microcontroller with some wires soldered to it(and covered in heatshrink).
So I spent a few hours making a more proper breakout using perfboard, connectors, and crimping matching connectors onto the harness inside the board. Much neater.
Unfortunately, even though the pinout was the same, it’s unable to register the PWM signal from the receiver. 
Esk8con was growing closer, so I cut my losses and figure it out later. I put kapton tape over the newly crimped connectors on the board and moved on.
It’s more of a break light, amiright?
Stickers
Honestly, I’ve unexpectantly grown attached to my silver bellypan.
However, it was a bit plain, so I covered it in stickers at 2am before leaving for esk8con
Shoutout to all of the incredible, awesome people that makes this sport fun, both on and off the track
Photos from @Lyfe_Of_Jimmy and @MarioChacon
Packed and ready for esk8con
And to think I thought I could fit a second person and stuff in here
To be continued in a future edition…
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This thread has been dormant for months! But this board has been anything but idle.
I wrote a lengthy update post a few months ago, but then fat-fingered the save draft button and deleted it 
if you thought the other update posts were long…
Races!
I’ve raced Ankle Wreacher in bunch of races in the past couple months.
- Esk8con 2024
- Electrify Expo Phoenix(Pro)
- Electrify Expo Long Beach(Pro)
- Electrify Expo Long Beach(Pro)
At esk8con,
I fell got launched in my second heat race(skill issue), and missed making it to the final by a single point 
On the positive side, I got the sickest onboard video I’ve ever recorded.
I also have to share this video from Tilo of our thane race. Was the most fun part of the weekend (sound on)
Tilo Zhu-Dollenbacher on Instagram: "thank you @tuckjohn37 for the most fun race of the weekend, and apologies to @davidpilny and @vasekhruby for losing our lead 😅"
At EE Long Beach (Pro),
I took 1st place in the saturday race! Hoping that it’s the first of many.
Also, on the unlikely chance you haven’t see it yet, Electrify Expo hired a documentary crew that’s been filming the race series. They’ve been doing a good job with these first episodes.
Following esk8con, I took a recovery break from esk8 racing.
I adopted an adorable pair of cats. I love these buggers.
Getting back into it, a lot of my attention was pulled away from Ankle Wreacher as I built myself a “not-a-raceboard”.
Nothing Fancy’s build thread here;
If you’re curious, I wrote up a comparison of what these two boards feel like on the track, specifically comparing 3-links with Duality Trucks. #204 over there.
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Now for the technical more exciting stuff!
At EE Pheonix, I clipped the apex while battling with @Ruxx
Beleive it or not, I got back on and rode it across the line like that.
Super fortunately, @MoeStooge was there an had a spare hanger that I could buy off him. Before I could even recover from the race he had it switched out 
I spent wayyy too much time trying to make a pretty puck shell.
I modified the PPB shell design into the PPPP shell, adding a little pinkie holder. Relevant thread here;
To manifest it, I wanted to use some dual-color filament. When sanded, they give a cool effect, like a petina. The only stuff I could find was in PLA, so PLA is what I used.
However, I had so many issues with layer adhesion. Something about my printer? idk. I spent weeks of time and hundreds of grams of filament trying to get a functional print.
Ended up asking a friend to print a couple for me with his fancy new Bambu. It turned out fantastic.
I started at 80 grit and worked all the way to 7000. It took forever, but was totally worth it for how it catches the light. Just PLA here, no clearcoat or paint.
So smooth that it was grippy.
Until it fell out of my pocket and got run over by a car.
Probably for the best… the PLA was really brittle. The internals were already starting to crack apart.
I printed a replacement shell with my material of choice(PC) and gave it the same sanding treatment. Also did the same for my backup pucks.
Masked and painted my armor with Team ARD Teal
May 19th, Tire Change
Just the rears.
Look at all that dust
Went pretty quick with his help
May 31st, Bushing Grinding
I race without a binding. Because of this, I’m very sensitive to bushing setups. I wanted my bushings to be lighter on the extremes of travel, but didn’t want to loosen them more then there were (which would cause me to loose the center)
TLDR; I wanted to remove the “cup” from the bushing nut.
To prototype this idea, I did this very carefully with a dremal.
Left done, Right to go.
Wasn’t perfect, but instantly made a HUGE difference. It dug into the bushings and would be a medium-term problem, but I knew I was moving in the right direction. This is what it looked like after some track time;
Some EE Long Beach pics
June 9th
Changing out another two tires, I noticed something odd. Looked like one of the bolts was bent?
Oh… 
Then I touched it and this happened
So… that suboptimal.
Contacted Moe about this, and he said (basically) this can happen if the nut isn’t engaged onto the part of the bolt that doesn’t have the hex head.
The hubs of Wide BRPs are slightly thicker, so this became an issue when I switched to them. It pushed the nut just enough to start fatiguing the bolt.
Moe sent me some replacement bolts
I swapped out all of the bolts in my hubs, I haven’t had issues since.
June 15th
Forgot my skate shoes, so I zip tied my shoes together. Worked way better then it ever should.
Adding stickers to the bottom of my board was such a great decision
Mandatory Cat Intermission
Catermission?
June 20th
Someone broke into my car and stole all of my safety gear.
Helmet, armor, kneepads, gloves, etc.
Fortunately It was mostly covered under insurance and I had some money saved, so the loss was mostly sentimental.
I really liked my bionic action v2 functionally and aesthetically
Great photo from @Lyfe_Of_Jimmy
…so I bought a new one. Had to go through the process of painting it… again.
My partner in CADime CATime crime
July 27th
@MoeStooge Hosted a bunch of us racers at his place for some FIRE BBQ and do boardwork. Was a ton of fun! Looking forward to the next one.
On the docket for me was making Nothing Fancy’s steel corner plates and swapping over Ankle Wreacher’s bushings and nuts.
Thanks Brent and @gtonthat for the help swapping these over. Much appreciated.
Swapping over the bushings was an ordeal and a half. This is the second time I’ve done it.
The result was worth it. Upgraded to locknuts and flat washers. I CANNOT understate how big of a difference this made to the board.
After a built Nothing Fancy, I stopped bringing Ankle Wreacher to track nights. It just wasn’t fun to ride in comparison. After this change, I wanted to ride it again. It’s more stable, predictable, and controllable into a turn. So. Good.
While we were changing the bushings and nuts, I also added an extra collar on the axles, as you can see in the picture. They’re for… future expansion 
Aug 8th
Another month, another two tires.
The two new tires were in the front. After riding them, the board was nearly unridable. The front was on a railroad but the rear was more slidy (worn tires)
I swapped the fronts and rears, and this went away. Super interesting phenomenon.
Somewhere around this time I solved an issue with the power delivery. It had a “drag brake” at low throttle(like 0%~8%). It made moving through the transition between braking and throttle uneasy, and feathering around the corner very risky. Usually wasn’t much of an issue at race-pace tho, so I had just been dealing with it.
At a track night I played with some vesc settings, and it completely disappeared. HUZZAH! What a difference. Like getting a rock out of your shoe.
Aug 14th
To test out an upcoming project for this board, I made myself one of @Tomblarom’s CAN adaptors! Tested it by plugging it into the plug for my Megan. Super cool.
Got a Racebox Micro on the board now! Conveniently still have a plug with a 5v output where my brake light used to get power from. Easy. Couldn’t have been an easier install.
It feels weird to have this be part of the board, as it’s kind of redundant with my MEGAN. Both devices have high-frequency GPS and onboard logging. However, the MEGAN’s software doesn’t support setting a track and timing laps like Racebox does.
@janpom I’d love if the MEGAN was able to do the job of a racebox
EE San Fran
Finishing Saturday’s Pro final was wild. Jack caught up to me on the final lap and literally jump scared me.
For the last lap, I was struggling to make the corners. I was scared so bad that I thought it was just nerves, but one of the linkage collars had come loose. Re-locktited all my collars that night.
September 15th
FINALLY installed the zBMS I bought from @Skyart ages ago. Kinda embarrassed it took me so long and that it took me getting covid to finish them.
I’m so tired of dealing with my dsub balance plugs. I built half of the harnesses months ago, and they’ve been sitting unfinished on my workbench since.
Tada. Finished balance harness
Upon double checking my work with a continuity checks, I wired literally every single plug reversed polarity.
Had to chop them all off and re-crimp.
Look at that. An hour of work and you can’t even tell the difference
Two more harnesses. An extension to the external charge port;
and one to connect to the power bus (Rear G300 terminals)
The only space that the zBMS will fit is between my batteries and the frame. It’s tight, but it fits!
I’m a little worries about the bundle of wires straining the zBMS JST-ph connectors (causing the wires to fray and short), so I tied the bundle to the neighboring battery to alleviate strain.
Incredibly happy with the result.
Stole Snagged a Pelican 1770 case for $100 of facebook marketplace. Fits the board with literally mms to spare.
Strongly considering shipping my board and going to EE New York. TBD.
And that catches us up to the present day! (Might do a grammar pass on this post later).
Whew. Thanks for spending your time scrolling through, I love documenting and sharing the history of this board with y’all.
I’ve got some super exciting stuff in the works that I’m excited to share…
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Super cool updates!
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4WD torque vectoring, eh? 
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I was wondering if we’re gonna see some sort of active dampening or something with the extra collars he added. Either way excited to see what comes, such an epic build @tuckjohn 
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i’m tempted to try this, found out that my axle is bent slightly in the rear and i’ve been needing to change bushings on my rear truck
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I may also give it a go… curious as to how it could make the board feel more stable. I understand the compression being more linear.
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With the flat washers, the board doesn’t stiffen up at the edge of travel as much.
Because or this, I’m able to run the bushings with a higher preload/compression for the same “turning stiffness”. This allows the center of travel to be stiffer (when compared to an equivalent setup with cup washers, that are tuned to the same stiffness at the edge of travel).
Hopefully that makes sense
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in that case, i’m definitely trying this. side note, imma probably have the same issue as nothing fancy with the edge of the enclosure scraping lol. what size washers did you get? did you just grab some random ones from home depot?
Mcmastercarr, yeah, pretty much.
Only thing that matters is the ID matches and the OD is as big or bigger then the bushing
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YAY!! Another V5 update! Are you coming to I2S? We miss you Tucker!!
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Hasn’t been that bad tho. Actually been one of the reasons I found time to make this long post and have been getting so much board work done 
Hoping to be back to 100% in time to get a couple sessions in before the next race
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Is it a boy or a girl?
Hope you feel better dude
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