------The Purple One------14S9P-------4WD--------Red Ember 44-------

[abusfullofnuns]

Righto Cocks (pretty sure that’s how this is supposed to start)

This is going to be long, somewhat detailed, and rarer than hens teeth. I’ll most likely never do another build thread and I probably will keep the builds a little simpler moving forward.

Bare with me. I am not known as a good writer and I am sure this will be a difficult read. I supplemented with a shit ton of pictures to make it up to you.

This has been the worst build for me to date. There was nothing but road block after road block. So much so, that I finished two other builds while working on this one and threatened to quit bi-monthly.

This all started 2020 in June. I got started in the hobby in early COVID and decided quickly that I wanted my next board to be a Red Ember 44. I contacted @jamie and he was kind enough to get started on it pretty quickly.

Pretty soon after I placed the deck order, I ordered the enclosure from @eboosted. I think it was one of the first ones after the first batch for the boys in CA.(Thanks for getting that done guys)

At that point @Skyart got started on the cells I had sent to him. He built the first two batteries for me and at that point I didn’t think I was going to get into welding batteries myself.

I lost motivation countless times and had to be convinced to keep going multiple times. Shoutout to @BillGordon and @wandagoner for walking me back off the cliff a few times when things were looking bleak. This build really was about an old dog learning new tricks. I learned how to skin a deck, do some fiberglass work, 3d Print, and a tiny bit of CAD.

Ultimately, the board was finished and it looks alright.

Red Ember 44
14S9P P42A
LLT BMS
Stormcore 100D x2
Reacher 173KV 6385 Motors
Boardnamics 270 hangers
Rey Adjustable Baseplates
Boardnamics M1 GD
FreeSK8 OSRR
FreeSK8 Robogotchi
HoytPuck
Infinity Wheels/Metro MB155s
Black TB110’s 72A for days when I’m feeling frisky

Don’t forget to click the arrows.

Show me the Deck

The deck is nothing special beyond the normal magic coming out Jamie’s shop. He added an extra layer on the deck to withstand my girth surplus.

He got started pretty quick and kept me well informed through the process. I was pleasantly surprised that my deck was delivered in less than 6 months.

Here’s Jamie keeping me informed.

It’s arrived! If only I had known the path I was walking, I should have burned it then and there.

I’m starting to notice the W may affect the battery space. FORESHADOWING!!

Apparently at one point I was thinking about putting one Stormcore up top. Damn, that would have been so easy. FORESHADOWING!!!

[abusfullofnuns]

Lets get on to the Skin Job

Soon after getting the deck ordered I reached out to a Southeastern custom deck artist. Good conversation ensued and I was able to get a famous artist that I like on board with the project and willing to sell me an artwork for use on a deck. I followed up a few times on the deck skinner side, but it was radio silence. I don’t know what that was about but it was for the better in the long run. I was too embarrassed to reach back out to the well known artist, so I was stuck without an image. With some encouragement from friends, I found some images and went to Fiver and was able to collaborate to get an image in just a couple of minutes.

Big shout out to @rosco for taking the time to do the first write up. That gave me some confidence in making this happen. Once @glyphiks did his tutorial, I knew that I stood a chance if that convict could do it drunk. When @PedroMcJimenez had success, I was determined. I’ll just say that it’s harder than it looks the first time.

Most of you know I am a big Grateful Dead fan, so that was the inspiration for my imagery.

Show me more of that Deck

I knew I wanted the stealie to be incorporated but I wanted it to be a little different than the standard. I took this image

and this image

And went to Fiver to find someone to help my old ass. We ended up with this 15 minutes later.

Two weeks later the fabric showed up for the first time. FORSHADOWING!!!

Time to get started on the skin. Obviously, I had already installed the inserts at this point. Used sex bolts and was filling with epoxy.

Laying on those first coats of epoxy.

Fighting bugs in the garage.

I told you it was harder than it looks. The practice that I did prior to the deck didn’t make perfect and I fucked up trying to lay it down my first attempt. It turns out a design that needs to centered on a wavy board is hard as fuck for your first one. Not to mention, that it wasn’t dry enough for proper tack. Pro tip from Oz- have a spare piece going through the same process. You can check that one for proper tack without fucking up the main piece.

Back to square one and more fabric on the way.

Here’s the part where I keep it real. I don’t think I could have done this without @glyphiks making fun of my mistakes and @PedroMcJimenez cheering me on. Seriously, those guys are awesome. Pedro and his wife made a twelve minute video to help give me the confidence to try again with the placement.

Ended up nailing it on the second attempt. Thanks Pedro and Steph! And probably need to give thanks to my wife and oldest daughter for each taking a corner. They kept it tight while I yelled and cussed at them.

About right here I was ready to jerk off. Full stiff.

Shake it like a polaroid picture. Used fine frit at a few times in the drying process of the last coat of epoxy.

I used some Unicorn Spit Sparkle for the rails.

Some Spraymaxx 2K and it was time to hit the enclosure.

[abusfullofnuns]

Battery

The battery that I’ll always owe @Skyart for doing for me. I’m pretty sure that he told me not to go this big, but he didn’t try too hard.

The enclosure was not near deep enough and I really think it should be a good bit deeper. That would have saved 6 months of working around the fitment. Gasket, fiberglass, and BMS modifications had to happed to make it fit.

We ended up with a 14S9P our of p42A cells. The layout is a little strange as you can see. 2 P groups are made as flat 9 packs and lay on top of the stormcores on each end. There is a layer of fish paper between them.

LLT BMS that has already saved the day. More on that later.

[abusfullofnuns]

On to the enclosure that just wouldn’t stop giving.

With the battery choice I made, this project was doomed from the start. By the time I got around to building, I had forgotten that I was going to mount an esc on top. I also knew that I really don’t like extra shit on top.

It was about here when I knew I was fucked.

Huge gasket in the works.

Enclosure Headaches

Decided to go ahead and get the enclosure and deck drilled for the inserts.

It turned out pretty nice.

Used some brads to keep it all aligned and make sure it fit.

I decided that I wanted the gasket to be adhered to the enclosure. It ended up being harder than I thought.

I tried a host of adhesives, but automobile window weatherstipping cement was by far the best. Seriously, I use it to mount esc’s that don’t have a heatsink now too. Super strong but messy.

Cut some holes for the heatsink and when it came time to assemble, I realized there was an issue with layout. I had to make my first fiberglass repair. FORESHADOWING!!!

Once I had the enclosure repair sorted, I realized I could gain a couple mm’s of space if I externally mounted the heat sinks. Yeah, you heard that right. Externally. It was more work than it was worth but was sort of fun.

Also fucked up and put the charge port on the wrong side of where I wanted it. Decided to fix it.

Primed the inside and out. Turned out better than I expected. It was a ton of work to get it to look nice. Lots of sanding.

Here’s another part about an old dog learning new tricks. After being peer pressured by @Scepterr I got a 3D printer somewhere during the build. It was a hot mess.

I had some small victories.

And a LOT of failures.

And then got convinced to upgrade it,

Only by the miracle of Jah(and Max) did I get the damn thing functional again. Once that was going, I turned my focus to a panel mount. Figured I would just use the one that @SeanHacker made for us. WRONG! The 44 is too narrow on the enclosure at the end.

I decided the best step forward is learn to design my own. I tried quite a few before I landed on a size that worked for me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t consider the enclosure was very sloped on the ends. This caused the panel mound to point toward the ground.

Learned some more new tricks.

Installed them into the enclosure and primed the area.

Some purple paint and it looks pretty damn good.

A little view of the charge port and power button

[abusfullofnuns]

Drivetrain time.

See where I'll mount my rubber

There were just as many bad decisions with the drivetrain as there was with the enclosure and deck. For some reason, I was set on a polished drivetrain. Once I got the M1 set up from @ahrav , I got set to stripping and polishing.

Oven cleaner. Don’t tell my wife. I don’t think it was organinc.

Once you’ve got the outer layer off, it takes some work to get the scale off too.

And then it’s just progressively finer sandpaper. I started with 320 and I ended with 1000 and 3000 with water.

And then just some dremel time with a tub of Mothers.

At one point planned to use Bergs, so I stripped and polished them too.

The motors are a shit show, but good performers. They are Reacher 6385’s. The wiring that they use is pretty crappy and the attention to detail is poor. Loose set screws and dangerous phase wire protection. The batch we received did not have the correct motor plates to be able to have matching wire angles. VERY ANNOYING.

I ended up taking them all apart and reinforcing the phase wire exits. During disassembly, I found that about 50% of the shaft grub screws were loose. I used a couple of layers of adhesive lined shrink and heated them at the bend they needed to exit nice. Pumped it full of silicone at the exit too.

The worst part of the motor deal is that one of mine came with an incorrect tolerance in the shaft hole. The whole stator wobbles in the can. After much back and forth and A/B part testing, Reacher hasn’t done shit. For the price point, it’s a STRONG AVOID from me. Plenty of videos to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.

So there I was again…another roadblock. I have three motors and no where to buy a fourth.

Luckily @PedroMcJimenez stepped up and sold me his pair. He got lucky and was able to get rid of his set of cockeyed motors. I guess I got “lucky” too.

The drivetrain assembly was pretty straightforward. I used @rey8801 baseplates to get my angles asymmetrical.

During the drivetrain assembly, I received the Infinity Hubs. I was able to make them work with M1 but it took some non-standard spacers. Not certain that they will be a long term solution. First two rides have been fine.

Also polished and with mb155’s mounted.

Finished the drivetrain off with some of @Savage1 antisinks. They are very nice and polished in no time.

[abusfullofnuns]

Assembly

From here it was pretty easy, so this will be mostly a picture dump.

There’s some nice work in here and some that’s questionable. You be the judge and don’t use me as an example.

Can't believe you're still with me

I’m going to start with the BMS. *Kids, don’t do this at home.

The bms is sandwiched between the rear esc and p-group. It’s offset all the way to one side but still sandwiched. In order for it to fit, I had to remove the heatsink and remove the connector for the temp sensors. I ended up soldering the temp sensors directly to the pcb and cut off the corner of unpopulated part of the PCB. Yeah, you read that right.

As far as protection …I have a layer of shrink wrap, then a layer of fish paper, and then more shrink wrap. It’s only slightly smaller but every mm counts. Right @poastoast ? I have one temp sensor between the stormcore and the battery, and the other in between shrink and fish paper on the bms. I’ll be watching the charge and balance cycles very closely.!

IMG_1670.HEIC|375x500

Once the BMS was “fixed”, I put an lp20 on the charger I had and charged it up. Watched it for a while and ended up passing out Everything seemed to be going great until I woke up to find a fault.

With Artem’s support, I found the problem pretty quick. We were both very surprised. He wanted me to ship the battery back and let him inspect the welds elsewhere. Everything I could see looked great except this one cell. He offered to send me the supplies to fix it and that was what I opted for doing. I would buy another battery from Artem in a heartbeat. I’ve got 214 cells in my garage that he welded and wouldn’t blink at another 200.

The interesting part is that I had a very hard time getting the weld good too. Nickel to nickel was ripping like a champ, move to the cell, and no penetration. Took a bit of playing with it to be happy. Have heard reports from others of random p42’s being difficult too. Either way, it’s fixed and closed up nicely.

From there it was just assembly. It took a lot of planning with this one and I think it worked out nicely.

Power button and LP20 installed and wires glued down. Getting the phase wires length nailed down.

Robogotchi mock up in place under the future BMS.

Stormcore epoxied onto heatsinks on each end. Mock up of placement for Hoyt Puck receiver. Changed it a bit from here but it was coming together. I like the grey paint on the interior, and I’ll probably paint them all moving forward.

Hoyt receiver final resting place on the side of the enclosure.

Charging circuit and fuse going into place. Future BMS balance leads looming above and threatening spare space.

BMS bluetooth adapter side mounted above future Robo. It was removed in this pic while awaiting the new revision.

Used a zip tie to get the sensor and phase wires in place on the Riptide tunnel risers. I needed the height and they worked well. The ziptie made the job 10X easier.

Angles set and wires in their home.

Good looking remote! Thanks @skate420 and @DerelictRobot

OSRR receiver as the main and Hoyt receiver as a back up.

I ended up using black RTV to put a really thin coat around the mating surface of the gasket. It smoothed it nicely. I’ll try to grab a pic when I crack it open the first time. I got a little excited and forgot to take one.

All in all it was a fun build. It was a chance to learn a lot of new skills and to check some boxes. I added a new hobby with 3D printing and light CAD.

First couple of rides have been short. I needed to turn down the acceleration from my normal 2.5X and brakes from my normal 1.5X. The 4wd effect is real.

I’ll get some logs posted once I have had a chance to put a real ride together. The early sunset and weather has been blocking me constantly.

I couldn’t have completed this build in it’s current form without the help of a few key people.

In case you missed them in the thread:
@Skyart was a huge help and let me bounce ideas his way
@glyphiks and @PedroMcJimenez were the deck skinning hero’s we all need.
@Scepterr @Zach baby walked me through 3D print education
@PixelatedPolyeurthan and @ducktaperules answered elementary questions on Fusion360 CAD
@BillGordon and @wandagoner for being my moral support
@DerelictRobot for consistently naysaying the usefulness of a non carver street board.

I probably need to tag another 50 people for their input and help along this journey. The 3D printing and CAD chats were invaluable, as was our dick drawing chat. If you know, you know.

[deadpirate]

Beautiful deck. Dead 4 Life

[Battery_Mooch]

Awesome…thank you for all the work you did getting these posts together!

[eBoosted]

Did you use an offset or straight layout on the DS battery pack? I wonder if I should add more depth on the enclosure and if everybody is having the same issue as yourself.

Congrats on the build looks like a keeper for life

[rusins]

I M P R E S S I V E !

Next time someone goes “I know how to get build of the year! I’ll just custom skin a deck, go 4WD 100Ds, put in an oversized battery, use the latest and greatest motors, 3d-print custom connector panels and customize the color of some parts” – I’m going to link them this thread to show what a fucking pain it is to go all out like that. @Halbj613 also tried going a similar route, so he’s aware as well I bet

Well done! You saw it through in the end!

Now what kind of range are you getting?

[Venom121212]

Very nice.

[sleepless]

@abusfullofnuns

Some purple paint and it looks pretty damn good.

Your attention to fit and finish is incredible! Huge props for the depth of effort on this build. I feel like plenty of people would’ve slapped parts together just to get riding, and no shame there.

This pic of your enclosure and heat sinks caught my eye - do you putty/primer all the up to and over the edge of the sinks?

That seems like it would really reduce their ability to shed heat. It might be as easy as cutting out the ends of the channels to increase airflow into and between the fins, rather than only over top.

[Nacho]

@abusfullofnuns awesome build bro
I still want to see more pics

[BillGordon]

Looks fucking tits, Tom. This might finally be the build that quenches your thirst for power and speed.

Great read as well. This beaut has BOTY contender written all over it!

[DerelictRobot]

@abusfullofnuns

@DerelictRobot for consistently naysaying the usefulness of a non carver street board.

I don’t remember this but it sounds like me.

[PedroMcJimenez]

@abusfullofnuns

cut off the corner of unpopulated part of the PCB. Yeah, you read that right.

Love the determination

You found your way through many trials and tribulations on this one, I’d have ptsd, way to see it through

Great work dude!

I’m with @Nacho, we need more finished pics

[DEEIF]

BOTY

HELL YEAH TOM!! This is a beast

[rey8801]

Hell of a work but really nice polish finish and beautiful build.

[mr.shiteside]

I was just gonna highlight this picture as well because I’m gobsmacked. Had a similar idea in my head with the adapted angled 3D printed panel but this is next level

[abusfullofnuns]

Thanks for the kind words gents. I’ll reply to everyone later today. I’m out and about with the family today.