Specs:
Deck: Loaded Vanguard - Flex 3 Trucks: Caliber II 50s Wheels: Orangatang Kegel Enclosures: My own design, beautifully made reality by @Eboosted Battery: 3x 4s Lipos (Possibly an 18650 pack in the future) VESC: 2x Phoenix VESC (vesc.co.uk) Motors: 2x 6355 190kv 16-36, from UK group buy Motor Mounts: @JuniorPotato93’s design made reality also through the UK group buy Remote: Mini remote (good reputation, super reliable) modified Bluetooth: @rpasichnyk’s BT module and iOS app.
This has been a long time in the making, I have been having a ton of fun riding around on my first build whilst perfecting everything on my second build. Everything I learnt from that build I have built upon and improved for this!
Like a lot of people I imagine, my inspiration for building an electric board was the Boosted Board. To begin with, I just didn’t want to pay the Boosted price, but soon found that actually, I could build a board that was superior (in performance anyway) than the Boosted.
I still really believe that Boosted have the best looking pre-build on the market, so I have been heavily inspired by the V2 (Read: shamelessly copied). Also, I’d like to give shoutouts to @okp, @squad, @eboosted, @denton, @JuniorPotato93 and a ton of others for the inspiration and/or help!
Although altogether a bit of a faff, I can’t fault the parts I got through the UK group buy. The motor mounts designed by @JuniorPotato93 are rock steady and look amazing, the one piece design looks so much neater than the 2 part I had on my old build. The CNC Kegel pulleys he designed also work amazingly and work without a retainer on the outside, meaning the green cores are visible on the rear wheels. This makes me happy!
I designed and had printed some belt covers for @JuniorPotato93’s mounts. Which you can get here.
I also designed some risers with built in bash guards for the Vanguard and with phase/sensor wire management, inspired by @okp. You can also download these here.
For my battery enclosure, I looked around at some designs out there and played around with the idea of thermoforming ABS over a shaped wood, but finally came to the conclusion that I’d design my own. I used Sketchup (Horrible for this kind of thing, have since learned Onshape, much better) to draw up a design and posted it on here. Luckily for me, it was adopted by @Eboosted who modified (and made it bigger and therefore better) and made it into reality by 3D printing it and adding a fibreglass inner layer for strength.
Testing for fit when it arrived, PERFECT! As is the fashion, I routed out channels between the two enclosures with a Dremel and laid in 10AWG cable. (Didn’t take any photos of this part though, was bricking it),
I added a rubber seal around the inside, in an effort to minimise road dust coming in. I doubt it’d be waterproof but I think it should be at least “splash proof” for the occasional puddle.
The layout in the battery enclosure consists of 3x Zippy Compact 4s 5000mAh Lipos, an anti-spark switch with 40A fuse, BMS and a voltage regulator to run the power switch LED. I originally planned to integrate @raphaelchang’s Battman, and had plans for all its smart features (Like mounting a Neopixel in the switch for State Of Charge indication and other stuff) but I missed the Beta!
Rats nest…
LED Switch and charge port installed.
For the rear enclosure, there wasn’t a great deal of room for the dual VESC, receiver and bluetooth module along with all the wiring. Looking at Boosted’s internal wiring, and having seen @squad’s solution, I came up with something similar.
BRAAAAINS…
First spin up!
Some beauty shots!
With the remote, I didn’t have a lot of choice. I really hate trigger remotes, they are super unintuitive for me and that restricts my options somewhat. The Nano remote gets super bad press (although my first build uses one and it has been great). So I looked elsewhere and picked up a Benchwheel remote, this seemed to have good backing and good reliability, although this wasn’t the case for me unfortunately. Mine was really unreliable, sometimes not even connecting at all. I decided to pick up a Mini remote, which is really reliable but uses a trigger control.
What I like about the Benchwheel remote: Form factor, rechargeable. What I like about the Mini remote: Reliability, instant connection.
So, basically, I decided to put the insides of my Mini remote into the Benchwheel case!
I utilised the power switch and joystick from the Benchwheel and connected them to the mini remote PCB, I also used the Lipo (with a 3.3v regulator) and added a micro USB charging board. I Sugru’d the connector where the original port was and built a low battery circuit which will flash a red LED when the voltage drops below 3.2v. I rerouted the 4 LEDs for Power, Charging, Fully Charged and Low Battery to the original holes in the remote.
On my first test run:
Thanks for reading!