What do you want out of a Gear Drive?!?

#1

Hello all!

I have always preferred the ability to change the dynamics of my board with gearing, and I know that recently geared drives have become a bit more common. They are efficient, durable, maintenance free solutions to power transfer that are used everywhere; so why doesn’t everyone in esk8 have one?? Let’s see if we can figure that out.

With that being said, I am interested in developing a gear drive for esk8 in a similar way to how I designed the lights I sell; with community input, testing, and collaboration.

I am going to run a poll here with questions regarding what people want in their gear reduction options (belt, direct, gear, etc) including features, fit and finish/material, and other things.

Please take the time to answer this poll if this is something that you find interesting!

What keeps you from buying a gear drive?

  • Cost
  • Complexity/Installation
  • Lack of gear ratio options
  • Noise
  • Other (comment below)

0 voters

What do you want to see in a gear drive

  • Lower price
  • Premium materials (stainless steel, aluminum, etc)
  • Compatibility with various trucks/wheels (other than caliber/abec’s)
  • Interchangeable gear ratio’s
  • Other (comment below)

0 voters

What is the ideal gear reduction?

  • (1.5:1) to (2.0:1)
  • (2.0:1) to (2.5:1)
  • (2.5:1) to (3.0:1)
  • (3.5:1) to (4.0:1)

0 voters

As always money is a big factor; this is not a trick question, and selecting the price you are willing to pay is more valuable than selecting the lowest price possible.

How much would you spend on a dual gear drive that meets your expectations?

  • 100-175
  • 175-250
  • 250-325
  • 325+

0 voters

If the price is right, are you genuinely interested buying a US based Gear Drive?

  • Yeah!
  • Nope!

0 voters

Thank you for taking the time to go through the poll! If you have any more questions or comments regarding this topic feel free to comment below!

2 Likes
Vulcan Gear Drive development thread
Gear Drive Discussion
#2

Bump, thanks for those who have voted so far! As suspected price is the biggest hinderance!

3 Likes
#3

Commenting on why I picked “other” for “what keeps me from buying a gear drive” –
I’m just waiting for moon’s drives. The other gear drives on the market aren’t compatible with either the trucks I want or the wheels I want :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#4

What wheels/trucks are those by chance? I can see compatability being a big challenge and as I go forward with this I plan on making it capable of mounting to various setups. The hardest part is finding what setups those are…

1 Like
#5

For me the wheels are Bergmeisters, and the trucks are HeXL trucks, which have the same profile as Surfrodz TKP. On the other hand, Boardnamics now makes precision caliber style hangers, so those might soon be the new king of street trucks. Moon’s drives are going to be modular enough to be compatible with pretty much everything, so that’s how he’s solving the problem.

2 Likes
#6

Tkp surfrodz/ tkp hexl (psychotiller nee trucks)
Are the same profile and trucks im most interested in.

4 Likes
#7

Ok great, modular truck design is cake. The hardest part is making sure the gear ratios you have work with larger wheels, as they are obviously very different between pnematic wheels and normal wheels. Glad to know those are the commong setups.

2 Likes
#8

Not gonna happen. They look nice. Much better than cast. But im 100% sure both surfrodz tkp and hexl will ride better.

4 Likes
#9

I have a set of surfrodz tkp trucks i can probably let you borrow when the time comes

2 Likes
#10

I think it’s impossible to make a gear drive with a gear ratio suitable for both AT wheels like Bergs, and street wheels. I think the market will be covered quite soon in terms of “always being at least one gear drive available, no matter your desired combination”, so I don’t know how to help you out :confused:

1 Like
#11

What the market is missing though, is a cheap RKP direct drive :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Edit: better yet, a single motor direct drive, for those really on a budget :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#12

This is about gear drives tho.

1 Like
#13

Yeah you can make a drive that fits 80-150mm wheels. and 150mm-whatever

not both

4 Likes
#14

Yea, my design would have adjustable center distance holes for two different ratios. The challenge is that I would need two different plates, an AT plate for larger ratio’s and a smaller plate for the normal wheels.

Either way, the design remains the same, but the plate size changes. That’s semantics and not challenging at all. The challenge is making it affordable without cutting too many corners. I am experimenting with tualmann bridge nylon 645 3d printed spur gears that effectively have higher strength than injected acetal. People hate 3D printed things, though, but also want stuff to be cheap. It’s a tough balance.

As for the market coverage; I am not here to compete, I am here to provide a quality product with input from the community as always. I am US based, and many gear drive developers are not. Shipping and customer support is a consideration. At $16, first class international is the cheapest I can get packages to Europe and it takes ~1-2 weeks. That’s 2-4 weeks downtime in a perfect world. It’s up to other’s to determine what they want.

I just know that I have been wanting a gear drive and right now the prices are too high for my liking. If I can solve my problem, maybe I can solve someone else’s :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#15

I wouldnt trust printed gears

2 Likes
#16

I generally wouldn’t either, but I’ve used bridge filament to great success in the past with gear drives at my work. The issue is life vs cost. If a printed pulley costs $5 for ~1000 miles, is it worth charging $20 extra for an injected/machined gear? When the time comes to narrow down gear ratio’s i’ll be calculating fatigue life cycle and safety factors with modified Goodman yield theory and showing the calculations so I can prove i’m not crazy if I go that route. I just want people to be comfortable with what they purchased; years ago in high school I made a homemade motor mount out of 1/8 aluminum that snapped going ~20 and I ate shit so hard I decided to become and engineer to make sure it never happened again. Just kidding. But I do know that if it works well, is safe, and is cheap it makes a good solution.

1 Like
#17

The main issue I see is how is the failure mode? I can’t think of a single one that would be acceptable in a eSk8

1 Like
#18

Fatigue. I would never design something that is on the bleeding edge of catastrophic failure. Assuming a gear fails, plastic gears are actually safer than metal though. Metal gears can lock up in failure, whereas plastic gears typically deform. It could be the difference between someone crashing or the gears stripping and continuing to rotate. That difference matters, imo.

1 Like
#19

The teeth usually snap and you eat shit.

6 Likes
#20

^^^^ has definitely done alot of gear drive development.

1 Like