Are DIY Electric Skateboards Cheaper? | The False Economy

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Warning: This article was meant to be a generic overview of the cost of building your own electric skateboard & it was meant to be short!..but it turns out its a fairly complicated topic because it deals with business ethics, manufacturing, over engineering, the false economy, psychology, customer satisfaction & expectations and the intricate details of the emerging DIY electric skateboard industry. I also had to make reference to my business Enertion Boards for real life examples so what was meant to be extrospective now might seem a little introspectiveā€¦

If you want quick answers here they are:

YES building your own electric skateboard can be cheaper than buying one in a box. NO a self built eboard probably wonā€™t be as good or better than a bought one if you buy all the cheapest hobby gear available. YES a DIY-e-SK8 will be better in nearly every way, including reliability, top speed, torque, range, aesthetics & charge time if you build it with quality & custom made electric skateboard parts. NO Just because you build something yourself doesnā€™t mean it should be cheaper then something pre-built. YES You will waste money blowing stuff up if it is the cheapest stuff you could find on the internet. The cheap DIY eboard build quickly becomes the hole in your pocket!

If you have time to read a semi-rant that goes for several pages please continue!

Often people will comment on The Enertion Boards YouTube Channel about the cost of building a DIY electric skateboard using enertion parts VS just buying a ā€œboosted Boardā€ or any of the other ā€œin-a-boxā€ solutions.

The comments usually go something like this:

ā€œYour parts are too expensive & I also have to assemble it myself so it should be cheap, why donā€™t I just go by a boosted board / zboard / marbel / inboard / ā€¦ etcā€¦ etc??ā€

Its a great question! & The answer is actually fairly complicated

Now donā€™t get me wrong, I am the first to admit that not all Enertion parts win the prize for being the cheapest available and really thatā€™s not my objective in business! Go to hobbyking.com if you want the cheapest junk electronics you can find (note: they also have premium stuff too that is expensive). Or go buy a piece of shit complete longboard from amazon if you think our trucks & wheels are too costlyā€¦ Our mission is to provide High Quality, Affordable & Purpose Made parts to make building a High Performance, High Quality, Reliable, Electric skateboard at home Quick & Easy.

So itā€™s true some of our parts arenā€™t the cheapest on the internet! However the stuff we sell lots of (ā€œlotsā€ is a relative term - I run my small business from my garage so packing 20 or 30 orders a week is what I call ā€œlotsā€ but its really nothing in terms of manufacturing economy of scale) such as the motor mounting hardware & pulleys are actually very competitively priced with little profit marginā€¦ So to all those internet trolls please go & do your homework before you blurt out your ridiculous comments on public forums, such as ā€œthat too expensive, blahā€ it makes you look uneducated! & you are probably the perfect candidate for falling into the false economy TRAP! So beware!

Itā€™s also worth noting the Motor Mounting parts we are selling cannot easily be made yourself at home without very specialist tools & prior knowledge. They are custom made parts, manufactured in small production runs. So yeah a motor mount & pulleys and a drive belt is probably always going to cost over $100 for at least a few more years until our company or some other big name player does a run of 10,000+ units which is when you can start to get parts made very cheaply. For instance instead of CNCā€™ing parts from aluminium billet you would cast everything in molds then polish it upā€¦ & its probably half the price! But not as strong!

If you do want to prove me wrong though please go ahead, I now offer my Enertion Motor Mount designs free of charge through an open source license for you to make at homeā€¦ or maybe go get a quote from your local CNC shop to make one setā€¦ then you will understand how much it costs. Download files

Anywayā€¦

Lets talk Electronics, The custom made electronics components are the products that most frequently get perceived as expensive by the novice eboard builder, Such as the Enertion S.P.A.C.E Cell Battery, The Enertion R-SPEC Motors, VESC (An advanced open source motor controller) ā€¦ Yes this stuff will very likely seem expensive in comparison to the common parts that most first time DIY Electric Skateboard Builders source from hobbyking.com. Its because they are better parts & they are custom designed to give you a better build quality, better features, easier assembly & superior reliability.

So why does everyone always look at buying most of the parts they need from the online hobby retailers when all this awesome custom made eboard stuff is now available? There are two main reasons.

  1. The parts from online hobby stores are super cheap & people love cheap!
  2. Itā€™s what they have been told to buy by the majority of DIY electric skateboard builders on the online forums for the last few years, mostly because until recently there were no other good options, such as the items I listed above.

So if the hobby stuff is so bad how come more people arenā€™t complaining? People are happy to document their build and show off their handy work, but rarely will people completely and publicly document and discuss when their self built pride and joy caught fire during a catastrophic motor seizure that catapulted them 20 feet through the air into a pile of stinging nettlesā€¦ Maybe it is the fear of being wrong or feeling like your building skills are not as good as othersā€¦ Donā€™t get me wrong, from time to time you will hear stories of how someoneā€™s DIY electric skateboard build failed, But for every story you hear there will be 10 more stories of product failure that you donā€™t hear about on the public forumsā€¦

I know about this topic wellā€¦ I have been building electric skateboards for people since enertion officially launched about 16 months agoā€¦ When I started out I also only used hobby parts & Flier ESCā€™sā€¦ Hence the reason I stopped selling a lot of electronics kit on my websiteā€¦ Reliability was terrible! Failure rate at one point with Flier ESC was about 2 in 10ā€¦ That is really bad for business, which I will discuss more below! The 6S Lipo Batteries I was getting from hobbyking.com where also terrible and would commonly get puffy or have bad cells, not to mention a pain in the ass to chargeā€¦ One of my customers nearly burnt down a house because he left a faulty LIPO battery on charge at a mates house (thankfully it was outside on the deck) and went to the pubā€¦BAD IDEA!. The cheaper battery chargers where also shit, I think I had about 3 or 4 faulty units in one batch! & the motors where hit & missā€¦ That is when I realised if the DIY electronics skateboard industry is going to be legitimate industry we need to improve every part! we will need better quality everything!

I realised if the DIY Electronic Skateboard Industry is going to be legitimate industry we need to improve every part! We will need better quality everything!

In this paragraph I will focus on reason #2 from above: When I first started to research how to build an electric skateboard I had no prior knowledge of RC hobby electronics, I didnā€™t know what an ESC was or what 6S LIPO meant! So like anyone you start reading what other people use, I spent about 3 months doing solid research. This opens up a can of worms, as everyone uses lots of different stuffā€¦ But the common thread is that most of it is purchased from the online hobby stores. So you assume that it must be ok stuff (like I said, people rarely report failures publicly), so now all you need is comprehensive list of the parts to buyā€¦ and fortunately in the online forums eventually people made these lists, some folks were even selling this info because it was actually not available in a concise format anywhere. Eventually the info became freely available in a digestible format. Here are two of the most comprehensive ones:

> FREE Step By Step 6S Electric Longboard Build Guide > How to build an Electric skateboard tutorial

Both these lists are amazing because they are a blue print on how to build your Eboard & What parts to buy & whyā€¦ This would have saved me a huge amount of time if they were available when I first started researching my first build which was probably 2 years ago nowā€¦ Before these lists were created you had to compile the knowledge yourself from reading 100ā€™s of different user ā€œbuild threadsā€ and asking heaps of stupid questions.

So if these list of what parts to purchase are so useful, whatā€™s the my point? The problem is the lists where made just as business like Enertion Boards were being born (and DIYelectricskateboards.com), There was no VESC, there was no custom made 18650 Batteries with BMS and simple one port charging (no one was even talking about 18650 for eboards), the where very few custom made motors with modified shafts & keyways, there where no custom made compact remote controls and there was only one place (Alien Drive System) to buy a motor mount and it only was compatible with one truck type.

Over the last two years if you wanted to build an electric skateboard you were told to buy your motor, battery & esc from the online hobby stores & if you wanted a ā€œbetterā€ quality ESC, or a ā€œdual motor escā€ to consider buying one manufactured by Flier (A Chinese factory who make various ESC) sold by Alien Power System & previously Enertion, DIYelectricskateboards & Bubble Gum Boards (who no longer trade, mainly due to reliability issues with cheap electronics)

Well I am sorry to say but all this information is now out dated!

NOTE REGARDING THE FLIER ESC: Originally available only from Alien Power Systems, eventually word spread that the supplier was a Chinese company called ShenZhen Flier Electronic Co, These ESC actually use to have a very good reputation and I still have some that work fine, but something seriously went wrong just under 12 months ago and the reliability turned too shit! I have a feeling that some of the parts they where originally used may have been substituted to lower grade components to save money, also I think changes were made with the firmware that caused lots of problems. When stuff catches fire it is bad for business, so now I refuse to by from them.

The fact of the matter is, in this game you get what you pay for! So maybe enertion electronics are a bit more expensive but that is because we have had enough of the rubbish hobby grade gear! When you buy enertion you are buying the next level up, so there is plenty of reason to pay a bit more initially to save you hassle later. It is in our best interest to ensure the board you build with our parts is extremely reliable & far better then the ā€œin-a-box-solutionsā€.

It is extremely important for our business that our reputation remain unblemished, So let me explain further some reasons why Enertion went the ā€œpremiumā€ to ā€œsemi-premiumā€ route (There is always more expensive stuff we could buy and try to sell to you but there is actually a point when there are diminishing returns - just like the old saying ā€œdonā€™t gild the lillyā€). As I mentioned, Basically I got sick & tired of bad quality electronics, its impossible to run a business if you have product failures. Yes, things will always break it is impossible to guarantee they wonā€™t that is why we have a warranty. The problem from a business point of view, with cheap stuff that fails frequently, it is exponential in the negative effects it has on a business & brand reputation and word spreads fast when business donā€™t deliver what they promise.

This might sound counter-intuitive as I just finished ranting on about how people donā€™t talk publicly about product failure as much as it might actually be happeningā€¦ Well there is exception to this ruleā€¦ If the person buys the parts in a kit from a specialist retailer (such as enertion) who claims to have quality custom made parts that make building a high quality reliable electric skateboard quick & easyā€¦ well now they would have much more reason to publicly vent about how shit the gear is from enertion if it was actually failing. In comparison If it was the board they built with various parts they sourced from hobby stores and combined them together in an ad-hock way they wonā€™t tend to complain out loud from fear of being held responsible due to bad build quality, or being an idiot! no one wants to look like an idiot in publicā€¦ and even if people did complain out loud about the hobby grade gear that failed on their electric skateboard hobbyking.com doesnā€™t give a shit! they will not try to develop a better product.

Anyway this is not meant to be an article about consumer psychology, but the point is itā€™s our responsibility to make really bloody good quality stuff that works reliably and is easy to install. By doing this it legitimises the DIY eboard industry! Also, It gives less ammunition to the crowd funded electric skateboard companiesā€¦ They (or their customers) should not be able to criticise the DIY electric skateboard industry by claiming that their products are more reliable or have better qualityā€¦

Visualise this for a moment, you pull up at the traffic lights on your DIY rig, right next to a guy on his brand new top of the line boosted board, you both look each other up & down then finally give the nodā€¦ signalling to each other a DRAG RACE will commence on green!.. the lights turn green andā€¦ You either leave the guy in your dust or your board starts smoking and fails miserablyā€¦ it all comes down to whether you have a quality build or notā€¦ no one will care if your rig was $400 cheaper because it didnā€™t get even off the line!

A person looking to own an electric skateboard, whether it be DIY or not, should not have to ask themselves the question of whether it will be good quality & reliable or not. The buying decision should be purely based on whether they want to build it themselves and have a faster & overall better electric skateboard or just get one in a box already built that goes a bit slower or offers less torque & range.

When you really think hard about it there are actually four types of electric skateboards one could own. What one do you want?

  1. The ad-hock DIY electric skateboard built from scraps & retro fitted hobby parts that could catch fire at any minute?
  2. The Premium Self Built Electric skateboard made using custom engineered high performance parts & Tuned perfectly to your riding style that will leave the others in the dust?
  3. The out of a box ā€œCrowd Fundedā€ options from brand name companies such as Boosted Boards, that have slow top speed and terrible range?
  4. The out of the box ā€œno-nameā€ Electric skateboards from china that look like shit with 100 year old Lead Acid batteries technology?

So hopefully now you should understand why we focus just on premium custom made gear! We realised trying to be the cheapest when it comes to electronics is a lose - lose situation. However this can be confusing for people looking to build electric skateboards at home.


So youā€™ve decided you want to build yourself an electric skateboard!

So for those stubborn readers out there thinking ā€œIā€™m building it myself, surely it should still be cheaper to build my own skateboard!ā€

Lets be clear!.. A self built electric skateboard can be really cheap, or it can be really expensive, or it can be the same cost as the in-a-box solutionsā€¦

For example if you build a 4WD eboard that has a top speed of 60km/h and goes 100km on one charge with a carbon fiber deck. How much should it cost? Should it be cheaper then a Boosted board just because you build it yourself? NO! of course not! It will cost much more because it is much better!

That is the beauty of a self built electric skateboard! You can decide what it is you are creating!

I think it is fair to say that most people when they set out to build their first ever electric skateboard at home have a tight budget & donā€™t want to spend too much coinā€¦ Because for most people the only reason they went the DIY route in the first place is because in theory it can be done for much less than what the brand name boxed solutions cost. Makes sense right?

Common sense says, Why build something when you can buy one for the same price? This does not just apply to Eboards, same goes for everything in life.


Once you have decided you want an electric skateboard most people then start working out how they can get one put together for the lowest possible price! These are the common questions that one asks.

  1. Whats the Best & Cheapest Motor?
  2. Whats the Best & Cheapest ESC?
  3. Whats the Best & Cheapest Battery?

These items above are not things that you can easily make, so the price you pay should be directly proportional to the quality, features & performance. The better stuff will naturally cost more.

So how can you actually save money building your own E-board? It basically comes down to how much work you want to do yourself and if you have the tools & expertise. For instance if you decide to make your own motor mount & machine your own pulleys in your workshop you could save anywhere from $100 to $200.

Some people also make there own deck, another saving of $100 or $200.

There is an ā€œinstructableā€ article written explaining how to build an electric skateboard from scratch for $300 >HERE< I actually think that this guide is a bit misleadingā€¦ tools & equipment cost moneyā€¦ glue, screws, sand paper, drill bits all cost moneyā€¦ & also time is moneyā€¦

The Problem with all this talk about how much can be saved is you may end up cutting corners! Just like I did on my first ever build:

Donā€™t laugh too hard!.. Basically I built it using stuff that was laying around & Second hand parts. I used my old skateboard, some aluminium angle & a milk crate! The result is you end up with a Frankenstein build! As you can see the battery was very exposed & when one of my mates took it for a ride he jumped down a gutter and tore a hole in my battery! There goes $120 worth of battery down the drainā€¦ The irony is that I was complaining about spending $30 on a proper components housing!..obviously I should of spent that $30! FALSE ECONOMY TRAP!!

So please have a good long think about what you want to achieve!

Do you think the deck you make at home is as good as one made in the factory? For some people the answer is YES! I certainly donā€™t back myself to build a quality deck. I also donā€™t think I could machine the motor mounting parts and get a quality result. So in many cases you may be able to justify buying some parts that are ready made to save time & get a better resultā€¦

The same common sense that told you to only build an electric skateboard yourself, if you can do it for less than a store bought one also plays a role when the decision is about building a complex part over the course of several days, in your workshop using raw materials VS buying that complex part and paying a higher price and having it delivered to the door.

There will be many tough BUILD IT vs BUY IT decisions that you need to make during the course of your eboard build. Especially now as there are a few dedicated business that specialize in selling nearly every single part you need for building an electric skateboard at home.

  1. Enertion Boards.
  2. DIY Electric Skateboards.
  3. Alien Drive Systems.

So this is where it gets confusing!

You want to build an electric skateboard because you know you can build something that is better then the store bought ones, but you donā€™t have the tools or expertise to make any of the parts. You also want the best quality parts to make the build easy, reliable & awesome!. So you add up the cost of all the parts and realise it now costs more then the store bought one!! How did this happen?

Arenā€™t DIY Electric Skateboards meant to be Cheaper?

Because you canā€™t build any of the things yourself & you want all the best parts your DIY eboard may actually cost more then a shop bought one! This is when people start to get nervous! This is when you risk falling into the ā€œFalse Economy Trapā€ You go searching for cheaper parts at the hobby store & maybe save a few hundred dollars, cheaper battery, smaller motor, cheaper charger, cheaper ESCā€¦ Now your board is $150 less than buying a boosted board & your really happy! & If your lucky nothing will ever go wrong & you live happily ever after!

BUT: What if one or two of those parts fail prematurely? your savings just went out the window and you now regret building your own in the first placeā€¦ This is the false economy. You end up spending more in the long run then if you just built it better in the beginning.

This is what all the big brand names want to happen to you, they want your crap parts to fail so that you cut your losses and go buy the pre-built solution from themā€¦

I personally have not ridden a boosted board, or any of the ā€œsoon-to-be-releasedā€ products born from successful crowd funding campaignsā€¦ However I have heard many complaints, the biggest complaint you get is that they are too slow, the donā€™t have enough batteryā€¦ not enough powerā€¦ these are all legitimate complaintsā€¦ Most of them unfortunately are very mild in the performance departmentā€¦ Boring!.. that why I build my own!

I added it up the other day, from the 6 most well known crowd funded electric skateboards there was approximately $2.47 million dollars raisedā€¦ these are Boosted Boards, Inboard, mellow, Bolt, Stary & Marbel

Only Boosted has got product out there for purchase, Maybe Marbel! & many of them are not actually available outside the USA anyway.

The biggest problem with these crowd funded solutions is they lack the performance that most DIYers can easily achieve with a self built electric skateboard of the same price. When I say performance I mostly mean these three primary attributes:

  1. Top Speed
  2. Range
  3. Torque (acceleration & hill climbing ability)

NOTE: If you have never ridden a skateboard though, these in-a-box solutions will probably blow your mind!

Let me summarise!

If you decide youā€™re going to build an electric skateboard make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, donā€™t just do it because you think its going to be cheaper, because it might not be in the long run. For me building an electric skateboard is an art form. The end result should not only be beautiful, it should be a professionally finished master piece that you can proudly announce you made yourself. It should out perform anything on the street and also look better too. It should feel better. It should be over engineered and designed to last you many years.

The self built electric skateboard is a legitimate solution, the self build eboard movement is growing stronger each day, knowledge is spreading, we are leading the way in technology & performance, its happening now, it is the futureā€¦

17 Likes

Good read and agree 100% on all the points you bring up, especially about the false economy.

Myself, am happy to spend a little more money and build things at home, just for the simple fact that I get to build a board that specifically suits me rather than a board that suits the majority.

One thing to mention about the diy companies like your enertion and DIY electric skateboards, is that it is pretty effin convenient to be able to have a chat with the business owners about there products, rather than an answering service. Being treated as a human when making an exchange has a certain feel good quality you just wont get when you are just another number in a profit margin. If possible will always support the little guy much for this reason, even if it costs a little extra.

Thanks for doing what you do mate!

5 Likes

I would just like to point out that when comparing to Boosted, going DIY can in fact cost you less money while giving you something that goes faster, further, and does so more reliably. Provided you donā€™t cut corners on crap parts and do your research.

Because for about $1300 you can build something that whips the shit out of boostedā€™s $1500 model, and for $900 you can build something that still whips the shit out of their $999 model and their $1299 model, and probably even their $1500 model. Without machining parts.

Thing is though, people hear and see DIY and think ā€œmake stuff out of junk you already haveā€ and want it all for under $500.

And no matter what the price point is, if you want it polished with matchy colors and custom boxes youā€™re going to have to get your hands dirty. Fabrication can get pricey, but there are ways to keep the cost down without sacrificing quality or aesthetics. It just takes some creativity and determination.

My initial kit purchase to have a complete 6S board up and running was about $1200, and that was last year. I could probably get the same spec parts this year for a lot less and still kill the commercial competition performance wise.

3 Likes

I do 2000 miles a year on a $620 short board setup. To me the DIY savings is all about being able to swap and change generic components as they wear and having your choice of deck. I started with a zboard, lasted 8 weeks and the replacement parts like the esc were expensive and very unreliable. The customer service was terrible, not to mention the weight and crap form factor. I see so much cost in other builds going into double ESC, smaller motors and lower profilesā€¦ At the end of the day i feel thatā€™s all aesthetic not performance related. Performance = lots of AMP avail form battery/ESC, high quality wheels, good motor and solid stable motor mount. A 63mm motor might look bigger in form factor but its smaller and lighter than 2 x 50mm and only requires one mount. My board out performs Boosted dramatically in every way except profile an prettiness but iā€™m a Mad Max influenced guy and i like my board looking and performing like it came out of Fury Road.

4 Likes

So I take it you quite like my first eboard designā€¦ man that thing was coolā€¦ it fucking hammered tooā€¦ it was built during the time NTM prop drive and Flier Electronics where reliableā€¦

I agree with a lot of what you have said. My first build was an exercise in making a board as cheap as I could. I burnt up my first ESC because it was very poor quality. so I ended up buying a slightly more expensive ESC that ended up being more reliable. it was only $20 or $30 more but because I was trying to get the cheapest stuff I ended up paying a bit more. and my 2nd and 3rd and 4th builds all used the same ESC that I had upgraded on the first board. (because though my mistakes I had learned)

however the 2nd and 4th boards had less success, both frying ESCā€™s very quickly. worth a note that the 1st and 3rd builds are still going strong with the same ESC. I can only guess that the quality control isnt great on those ESCā€™s so its a bit hit and missā€¦ but the good ones are indeed good.

hereā€™s where I donā€™t agree: I understand that you are running a business so you are always going to say your stuff is better. fair enough. It is. I agree. I love the parts you offer. but I donā€™t like that way that you more or less say that all hobby parts are crap throughout the article. sure they arenā€™t as refined as your solution, but they can still be used to make a really solid e board on a budget. Iā€™m happy to share my failures and wins. to say that all hobby parts fail and people cover it up is a tad conspiracy theorist. Also different people have different needs and will tackle the same problem different ways with different resultsā€¦ there is no wrong way to do it. the spirit of DIY is to get out there and experiment. try different things. donā€™t just follow the crowd, try something new and discover.

5 Likes

Thanks for the honest feedback, maybe I went a bit hard on the hobby stuff! Itā€™s not all bad especially if you are willing to make some mods or maybe get the more expensive option. I think the problem is people just always buy the cheapest option thinking it will probably be okā€¦

For instance:

  1. Donā€™t buy the cheapest motor, spend more & get the bigger one.
  2. Donā€™t buy the cheapest battery charger, they are crap!. Get a really good quality one because you will use it a lot!
  3. The cheapest LIPO are also hit & miss. PUFF PUFFā€¦ Maybe buy the premium ones.
  4. The cheapest ESC they sell is asking for troubleā€¦

So I definitely did mention that the hobby stores do sell more expensive, better stuff!

One major problem that I didnā€™t delve into with the hobby stuff is the warranty, I remember feeling like I had to invent a story about how my motor failedā€¦ because in my mind I was using stuff that was meant to go onto an RC plane - Not on an electric skateboardā€¦ I was scared that simply admitting the application which I was using the parts for would automatically void my warranty. The parts they sell technically are not meant for electric skateboards! So if they break when using it on an ESK8 the chance of getting a replacement is minimal.

Overall It is hard to articulate my point of view in a few paragraphs, We probably would need a dozen beers and a several hour sit down discussion, I guess what I am trying to say simply is for a reliable esk8 it is important to over engineer everythingā€¦so buying the cheapest items tends to end up meaning you have a system that is more likely to fail, or you cut corners which result may increase the failure rateā€¦

If someone had of sat me down before I built my first board and told me that the way I am planning on building my board will result in destroying 2x $120 lipos, burn out multiple motors at $50 each and burnout a $150 dual controller I would have wanted to mitigate that risk.

Butā€¦ In the spirit of the DIYā€™er I will admit that I would not have learned much without making mistakes!

The discussion needs to be about how reliable you can build something - not how cheap!

So overall I think the more information that we can generate, that deeply explains the ā€œmeta of the eboard buildā€ the better! There are lots of people who want eboards and donā€™t know about RC gear & know nothing about skateboarding. So hopefully they can read this & learn rapidly about all the options & the risks and save some time & money by building a uber reliable rig.

Thatā€™s why this forum & its members is so awesome!

Knowledge is power!

I totally agree with the aboveā€¦IF performance is your be all and end all. Leave some room in your growing community for new riders/builders put aesthetics and practicality before performanceā€¦without sacrificing too much of the latter - thereā€™s a minimum! All your torquemonsters are damn impressiveā€¦but I want a board for convenience and daily use, not just drag racing. For me, that means under 6 kgs, and with no external battery, motor or wires, and a minimum of bolts, zip ties and straps.

Iā€™m not aloneā€¦I believe that those same two specs are sought out by the backers of Boosted, Marbel and Inboard, but not so turned on by Evolve or any other production board with fat boxy external battery. Mellow qualifies barely: although its sleek black and blue box has a look only a German could love, the fact that can literally mount it on anything probably appeals to riders who like to customize their ride right down to the color of their bushings. Sorry to be superficial, but hey, I think even most DIY controllers are hella uglyā€¦

Back to looks and DIY: Torqueboards fat green hub motors (with endcaps), BadWolfā€™s controller and any variety of hollow board are a step in the right direction. (for me)

Nowā€¦weight. Iā€™ve only lurked on the forums and online, but never hefted any of the components physically, so I need your advice. Say with a decent-sized not crappy board (>32"ish)ā€¦what kind of performance and price would I be looking at if I set 6kg as a weight ceiling?

1 Like

This is a double kicktail deck with what could be perceived as extra wood that you probably donā€™t need. Also, its a dual motor setup with a 6S battery. It weighs in at just under 8kg and looks very polished.

drop the second motor, ESC, mounts, and pulleys, replace the 50mm motor with a 63mm, and replace the deck with something shorter in total length while providing a longer wheelbase, toss an 8S in there and fab a lightweight box slightly longer than this one and you might hit 7kg or maybe even slightly below.

So yeah, might be possible to hit 6kg. Its definitely possible to get close enough to be happy.

3 Likes

Nice double kick, I too prefer to ride larger double kick short board, the ability to ollie is a benchmark for me. My last build was pretty much exactly as described above and it was a fraction over 6kg on 6S, 4 miles range. I had some problems with battery stress and the box was annoying to work with, very crammed and had to remove truck for access. The build i have now is ugly to say the least with two 6s in parallel and two enclosures but the power and hill climb ability is pretty impressive for 8kg (Iā€™m 210 pounds 6ā€™4"). I use welded trucks with a 63mm mount.

1 Like

Hear hear for the double kick tail. Thatā€™s not something you find on production boardsā€¦Probably want to their preserve their electronics by preventing you from doing tricks. Nice build thoughā€¦ I like where this is going.

Is waterproofing an issue in DIY builds?

iā€™m only 150 pounds so this little 10Ah 6S takes me up to 12 miles while riding at around 10mph or it can take me up to about 30mph for about 5 miles. I generally fail to notice slight inclines, and actual hills it seems to handle quite gracefully.

waterproofing has been an issue for me personally. When i went from a fully enclosed metal box to the lid as seen above, i got water in the case. I have since started using clear latex caulk to seal the lid to the deck. It doesnā€™t stick to the paint very well so it just peels off, and its cheap, so you can re-apply anytime you have to get into the box. Since I have an external charging port, i donā€™t have to get in there unless something is wrong or i want to poke around.

You could also fashion a gasket at the time of box creation out of a thin rubber mat of some kind. That would probably give a more polished aesthetic, especially if you could match the color to the board. It would also make working on the board easier as you donā€™t have to mess with sealants.

I have not tried to ollie this board but i can tell you that tail slides and launching off of curbs as high as a foot tall are absolutely no problem. Doing a nose manual while hitting the accellerator and letting the wheels spin is also fun to watch. I can pretty easily do a 180 tail slide too and totally change direction on a momentā€™s notice, giving me a much smaller effective turn radius which is handy in urban areas.

welded motor mounts are probably where i go next. @torqueboards has some really nice ones on Paris trucks and honestly i feel like the fewer screws and bolts involved in a rig the better.

Also forgot to mention: Enertionā€™s motors are treated to be waterproof, but honestly iā€™m running NTM 270s and they have been splashed to hell and back and even saturated without presenting any issues at all. YMMV.

Why doesnā€™t someone build a lid insert for the ABS for water proofing? Also how does one keep ESC cool in ABS? For welded I buy the mount from DIYelectricskateboard ($30) and have it welded to Paris trucks ($10 at a local welder who is cool), so for about $65 i get a pretty light and very strong mount and truck. I find the hardest thing about tricks is not squeezing the accelerator as you ollie, itā€™s natural for me too flinch my hands as I go into the ollie.

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[quote=ā€œCalhoun, post:8, topic:165ā€] For me, that means under 6 kgs, and with no external battery, motor or wires, and a minimum of bolts, zip ties and straps.[/quote]

This build is only 7kg. It feels really light. Most of my previous builds have been over 8kg. For some reason 7kg feels like nothing.

It also super neat & tidy.

The heavy part is the battery and motors.

If I used a small battery and single motor it could be closer to 6kg. Maybe under.

These hub motors are about 880grams each. A 6355 satellite motor, mount & wheel is about 1180grams.

I donā€™t think a single hub motor is suitable. Unkess you weight 60kg. So you would need satellite config.

Like this. But just one motor.

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those are some really sweet looking hub motors. and the deck too. im really looking forward to seeing some street testing on this thing.

Man! That is a sick setup onloop! Have you put many kmā€™s on jacobs hubmotors yet? Wanna try them out sometime down the road.

@Airlocktechnics No problem keeping ESC cool. On this build I mounted the ESC with the fan housing on the enclosure.

3 Likes

[quote=ā€œWanderer, post:17, topic:165ā€] Have you put many kmā€™s on jacobs hubmotors[/quote]

Not Jacobsā€¦ these Enertionā€™s.

Have not done much testing. Just trying to fine tune the vesc to get optimal resultā€¦ but i donā€™t know what any of the vesc settings do :frowning:

They work well so far.

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Ohhhhhhhh!!! Fucking rights mate! Happy to hear that you are focusing some resources to hubmotors! Can you share any details as to how you have had them designed, or is that still on the down low?