I know that that Flywheel clones are cheap and clones come in different colors, but they typically have really bad urethane and no chemical bond with the core. They also represent a slap in the face to me and my company who designed the first series of Flywheels and Flywheel Cores back in the year 2000. We did all of the design work, testing, racing, tooling, marketing, and advertising, and the Chinese just knocked us off without having to do any of the heavy lifting. Argh. But I’m not here to whine about the clones, I’m here to let you know that there will be a number of “non-green” Flywheels made right here in the USA in both our Classic and Reflex formulas. We’ve started to co-brand genuine Abec 11 Flywheels. Metroboard is doing red wheels with black cores (and possibly black wheels in the future), Carvon will be doing blue on black, and soon Evolve and others will be bringing out even more colors.
Perhaps even more exciting, Abec 11 is planning on making some new wider “SuperFly” wheels in our exclusive 74a Reflex Formula urethane, They’ll be lime green on orange cores, but other companies may co-brand them in other colors as well. The sizes will include 83mm, 90mm, 97mm and 107mm, and the inside edge will be 100% compatible with all existing flywheel pulley adapters. SuperFly’s are wider to the outside and therefore “offest” instead of centerset. They are a bit like our popular HD wheels, but with the Flywheel core. They have a much wider contact patch and a more flexible outside lip than the “Classic” Flywheels. I want to also provide 32T, 34T, 36T, 38T, and 40T wheel pulleys that you can slip into OR bolt into Flywheels with or without a pulley bearing. We’ll be testing these out in a 71a durometer to see how the hold up. The 74a is already butter smooth, but we need to know how soft Reflex can go.
I’d encourage all the eSk8 companies to co-brand some Abec 11 Flywheels in order to get great urethane in more colors out there. I’ll do everything that I can to support the electric skateboard industry with wheels, trucks, bushings, bearings, pulleys, and motor mounts - the mechanical side of things.
Sincerely,
Chris Chaput
Abec 11 Genuine Flywheels, proudly made in Huntington Beach, CA *** USA ***
That’s not true. The king right now is VTC6. HG2 are also “better” than 30Q because they can withstand even higher currents. The reason to use 30Q over HG2 is their price.
Since my job is basically testing batteries all day on high end equipment and engineering battery packs, I figured I could give some input on the HG2 vs 30Q vs VTC6 vs Basen argument. Note the links I post will be to our website, hopefully that’s OK.
Since the end of 2016 HG2’s have been worse after LG Chem retooled manufacturing, so you have to be careful of the results you look at and when they were tested. Despite LG’s higher 20A rating, the 15A 30Q and VTC6 perform better at both 15 and 20A. HG2 is still an awesome battery but it’s outshined by the 30Q and VTC6 now after the HG2 changes. The VTC6 is the absolute best of the bunch, but pricing is high on them. Personally I recommend the 30Q to most people as it’s very close to as good as the VTC6 but at a much lower price.
Here’s a link to all the batteries above since this forum will only let me put two links in here, remember that all of these get quantity discounts for buying in bulk: 3000mAh high discharge batteries
As for the Basen 4500mAh, it’s a great 26650 but it’s a little affected by what I call “Chinese Ratings Syndrome”. Really it shouldn’t be used above 25A or so, and if you’re using it at high current it’s closer to 4200-4300mAh. If you absolutely want a 26650, the iJoy 26650 is the way to go as it can comfortably go to 30A. It’s phenomenal. But even that I think the 30Q is usually going to be better on both a performance/weight perspective, a performance/size perspective, and a performance/cost perspective.
In summary, if you want the best of the best, go with the VTC6. If you want very close to that at a much lower price, go 30Q. I wouldn’t recommend going 26650 at this time unless you have a really good reason to.
New 20700’s are awesome. Unfortunately the two really good ones, the 20700A and the Samsung 21700, are impossible to get at the moment. We do have the iJoy 20700 3000mAh and the Panasonic NCR20700B 4000mAh which are both very solid cells. The iJoy would be the better one for this application, the NCR20700B is more of a high capacity long lasting cell so it’s more at home doing 8A or less with quick bursts up to maybe 15A. The iJoy can do 30A with no problem. Actually if you have the little bit of extra room and the extra budget for it using iJoy 20700s in place of 18650s would be pretty cool. Probably not worth the cost though.
@ChrisChaput Very exciting stuff! Can’t wait to see what you guys offer in the future. With the scarcity of the highly praised 75A’s it’s encouraging to see that you’re looking at doing even softer durometers! Can’t wait for the 71A
@jon-liionwholesale That pretty much confirms what we’ve seen in past discharge tests comparing the 30Q and HG2. Even with the lower rating of the 30Q it consistently outperformed the HG2 in voltage sag and at a lower price!
Yes, I have data supporting it. I’ll put that on the list for potential blog posts in the future but it would be a lot of effort to put it together and publish.
First test rides went fine with one exception: although I filed the hanger round the mount just wouldn’t stay in place, no matter how tight it was. So I got some Steel Epoxy and glued the APS truck adapter.
Well, first of all they ride really well, and I haven’t tried those cheap clones but the bad reviews made me change my mind. And second, they had an offer when bought with ceramic bearings: ~90 GBP for both is not actually that expensive.
After a few hundred km on the board: it’s really awesome! I live in Berkeley and was worried about plenty of things:
Terribly rough roads: I got to say the flexy deck and the soft wheels pay off. On top of that I added shock pads, and now it’s OK. By now I know the area well enough to avoid the worst of the worst. One of the worst is unfortunately the road to my apartment…
Then there is tons of stop and go (millions of students crossing everywhere, tons of 4-way-stop-sign-crossings. Seriously, California, why do you do this??? As a German this annoys the crap out of me!). But the brakes are plenty strong and on average I recover about 25% of the energy, which is way more than I hoped for!
Another thing is the REALLY steep terrain around here. I’m glad I didn’t cheap out on the motors, and that I went with the wide belts! Yesterday I put it to the test and rode up Grizzly Peak:
and it was a cake walk for the board! The only things slowing me down were traffic and the road quality! (Awesome route by the way! If someone lives nearby, go through Tilden Park!).
On average I ride at 9.3 Wh/km (15 Wh/mile). Even though I didn’t ride the board super fast so far, I think this way better than what most people get, especially considering that I ride in constant stop and go and on rough, steep roads! I guess this is thanks to: big motors, (fairly) low KV/high gear reduction, and super loose belts! I’m glad I went with the 15 mm belts. They are floppy as hell, and my board rolls so nicely, I could easily push it (not that I ever ran out of battery). And I’ve never had them skip! Even the killer steep climb above I had an average of 11 Wh/km!
So conclusion: I’m glad I read up on ESkates on this forum before I bought some crap on ebay (which I was seriously considering at the beginning). And thanks to everyone on this forum for sharing their experience!
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