Hey everyone, it’s now been two years that i discovered Eskate,
i’ve been through a lot of reaserch and i finally got a build i’m proud enough to show off here,
but more than just one build to show off, it’s a lot of time reasearching, modifing learning and improving, and at the end it was two builds… or three ? four ? i’m not even sure how to count.
So this post could be long and i won’t waste the time of them who wants facts and/or pictures, so i’ll try to to get this in different rubrics :
I came here for the story
introduction
So, all this start when i moved out to a new place:
most of my life, i lived in a place where you can go anywhere with the metro,
never got a driving license,
Also i was addicted to rollerblades, but those stuff are hard to throw in a backpack,
and weights a lot, so i had to let them behind.
Then someday, i was talking with someone saying i was sick of getting stuck in the traffic with the buss, and this guy answered me “hey, you should buy an electric scooter, those stuff are great!”…
My first reaction was “iiiirk”… like seriously, those stuff are lame, it looks lame, it doesn’t look safe at all, and seriously, it was a big nope.
But… he wasn’t totally wrong, the idea off electric stuff was nice, then i started to think about it more and more “what could be the funniest electric stuff”, and yeah, that was it, electric skateboards !
So before i started inventing the hot water by myself, i started googleing it
at first I rode a lot of crappy commercials and review of cheap boards, then finally i found the “old” forum, started reading, quickly got amazed,
but i wanted to have some basis to start with, and was reluctant to spend money,
so i decided to bought one of those cheap completes
after maybe six month of frustration because nobody wanted to ship me a complete (customs and li-ion battery) i took advantage from a trip to my familly in france to buy a 200usd “helvei” board, which basically was a 2wd liftboard
yup, this one
So now i have to get it back home…
The big idea was to talk my way in at the airport,
even now i’m sure i would have succeeded if i didn’t let someone convince me to send it as luggage.
The battery was in the limit of the legal, and nobody new about esk8s at the airport
The security woman scanned it, said it was ok but she had to ask the flight company anyway, so she got them on the phone : it was all right until she said that stupid sentence “yeah, it’s kind of like an hoverboard” and then we heard the guy on the phone back off…
anyway, i left, and the board got back at my parents somehow,
So basically i ask my father to open it end send the esc, battery and drive train to me pieces by pieces every time someone was travelling to my place.
Took three more month and i got all the electronics here, meantime i got a cheap local store longboard to get use to it (and it was cool, i had no experience of skateboarding except the 20 bucks board i bought six month before when i started reading about esk8)
after some reading about bms, li-ion and so on, i managed to got the drive-train, esc and battery to work on my cheap board, the whole thing was holding in tupperwares; with a bit of insulation foam and some crappy velcros
excuse me sire, you call this hugly thing a build ?
So it was fun until the esc started to go full throttle without reason, and i started to feel the lack of power of the 6s4p and the dual 5055 speedrunners.
i even tryed to 3D print TPU sleeves to feet around the thanes to get more speed: wasn’t totaly a fail, but definitly too stiff
So i broke the bank for the first time and got a beautiful unity (i new it only later, but it was probably one of the last officially sold) and ordered some crappy supposedly “samsung” unmarked cells from alliesxpress 
gladly enough, the whole thing took enough time to arrive for me to read more about escs, voltage and motors,
that’s how i understood the folly of trying to put my (learned it afterward 270kv’s) unbranded motor with no known specs on 12s
So (i was not yet over my “cheap” phase) i ordered the new and last kit on the flipsky site, which was actually a rebranded maytech mtb kit.
Had to change some loosy springs, but all together it wasn’t such a bad buy.
Also the shitty battery arrived more or less at the same time, so even bad quality 12s with those 6355 190kv maytech, the channel trucks and off course the unity, it felt like an other world.
It’s around this stage that i started developing a conscience and get ashamed of going around with those tupperwares…
I decided to stop cheapping on basic stuff, got a descent full face helmet (demon podium) armored hoodie and kevlar linned jean’s, and decided to put in use the 3D printer i was using for another non esk8 related project to upgrade my board.
i found a nice model on thingiverse, modified it a bit to feat better my bulky battery and letting me more space to play and improve.
I didn’t found this guy on the forum, but i definitely how him a beer.
here is the link to the original enclosure :
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3443800
and after many days of headache because of the 3d printer running in my small studio, here it is printed with carbon fiber infused pla and pla+
( i’ve run out of the first one midway) and tpu for the flexible parts and seals
Also i understood that those battery were really lame…
getting only 12km range on a 12s4p pack was not normal, so i found some genuine HG2 cells and made a new pack out of it,
also i used power booster i had around and the old battery to make an external charger, that actually worked.
It was all good and nice but i wanted more power… i got a pair of sk8s 6375 195kv, and upgraded my bms to a bestech one (already had to change all the mofset from the aliexpress one, and didn’t wanted to rely too much on it)
So i had a 80A capable battery and motors, which gave me concerns over heat dissipation, so i installed a huge-ass dissipator for my focbox.
Worked amazing, barely got over 35°C full charge
sk8s comparaied to the maytech ones
sk8s compaired to the 5055 ones
all that gave me a board that was really nice to ride, and i started to feel better about it
that’s a bit better, sire
Then i got rolled over… wait actually i didn’t, my skate did, well one of the wheels.
The whole board was alright, safe a wheel…
.
I’m really glad about it, but seriously, from all the parts, and alu hub wasn’t the part i was expecting to broke… so i ordered new wheels, and with the covid i had plenty of time to wait form them
it was about time i started getting preoccupied by aestetics.
a lot of scrapping
a lot of polishing
a lot of painting
a lot of varnishing
more orange 3D printed parts
some fine rubber griptape
oh, and a stupid idea for cable management : we’ll talk about that more in detail in the “bloody” section…
and i was good to go !.. except i still didn’t receive my aliexpress replacement wheel…
out of curiosity i took the opportunity for buying a set of TB110 hopping they’ll arrive faster (and so they did)
but meantime i needed to commute to work and i had a shit tone of spare pieces around
that’s how was born the Pumpkin (or so called it the lady)
1wd 6s2p, flipshit esc4.12, it’s a lot funnier to ride than i thought, i mean i doesn’t feel safe at all, and it isn’t fast, but well… you get some shivers going 25km/h
it’s a bit like flying your nephew’s 20bucks quadcopter without stabilization, when you’re use to fly a 20k dji matrix for work
And i get more than 10km out of it, so it’s fine to go to work.
Also passing from 25ish kg to 5 is not so bad.
Main issues : well no adherance because of crappy wheels, not much stability, no space for your legs, and obviously the flipshit esc goes full throttle without reason when it gets hot…
Then i received my TB110 ! and behold the Urban Panther :
did cut and dremel the broken hub’s spacer to make speed rings
I rode it 10km the same day, was like a dream, the wheels feels amazing
Took it on a longer the next day, with more space for accelerating, and… well, that brings us to the bloody section …
I came here for the builds
the Urban Panther :
12s4p HG2
2X SK8s 6375 195kv
Focbox unity
OP cheap longboard deck
10" aliexpress hub+wheels / TB110 thanes
Maytech Matrix 1’s clone + mounts
3D printed double stack enclosure (carbon fiber PLA+)
The Pumpkin :
6s2p HG2
1X unbranded (liftboard) 5055 270kv 1200W
Fesc 4.12
OP reaaaaly cheap basic deck
80mm unbranded thanes
3D printed low profile enclosure (TPE)
I came here for the blood
Basically, if you have been reading the story part, i bought a cheap deck like two years ago, when i was not yet convinced of buying only quality stuff (and didn’t have a decent job yet)
i used and abused it with different configuration and it finally died on me the other day, not long after i upgraded to TB110
I was in a park on bike lane, around 40km/h, took a turn a bit too fast, the new thanes lost their grip and the board started to drift, it was all good until i felt something weird and went flying.
I had my protections and some good reflexes and there wasn’t much “actual” blood, just some scratches on my forearms.
So it’s about skateboard blood here.
what exactly happened :
while i was drifting, the bottom of the deck cracked, and my dissipator went eating the asphalt.
why ?
as you can see in the side picture : the layers of the deck lost adhesion
my guess is it’s partly due to the cheap quality of the deck itself, and partly due to my own stupidity
i did cut this deck, sanded down the sides and even engraved the motor leads path on the wood,
lesson learned, won’t be doing this again
didn’t expected it to take so much momentums
For now i’m glad i’m all right and all the expensive components as well,
i seat, with tears in my eyes, looking at my empty wallet and waiting for my trampa deck and eboosted enclosure to arrive
After a long time reading, it’s a pleasure to be writing here.
, awesome learning experience. I had a somewhat similar experience and it’s awesome to see somebody else doing weird stuff 
! I hope your next build will be even better !
i’m sure i could feet 12s6p in there, that would be nice