Full DIY Custom Electric Caster Board | Emax GT5345 | Maytech 12S ESC | 10S 10Ah Lipo

I think that bigger wheels would help a lot, they would generate gyro effect like in bikes for example, converting or building something like dirt surfer would be a better option in my opinion, this will remain a kind of oddity vehicle in my collection :smiley: I’ll try to learn how to ride it better tho!

I’m not an engineer, just speculating, but it looks like your caster design is flat. If you look at something like a yiiboard or rip stick you’ll see that the caster is located under the axel in a way so at rest it wants to center and straighten the wheel. I feel like with your interesting caster design, if you pitched the mechanism up that would lower the board (may have to adjust for clearence) but it should make the board want to go straight and make it more stable

I was hoping this thing was going to perform a little better. Vertigo never wrote much about performance. Maybe it’s like a snowboard—it takes a while to learn, but then it’s awesome (hopeful thinking). In Vertigo’s ride vid, it looks pretty rideable. That vid is what convinced me to make it. ('m sure you’ve seen it. Just posting for others.)

I’m wondering what would happen if the front axle was moved further back. (Would require creating new blocks, plus you will soon run out of room and hit the deck.) I’m guessing it would be more stable but less agile… always a trade-off. Vertigo wrote about building some adjustability into the design. Some way to slide front axle back or change rake angle, etc. would be interesting. Sounds like you’re looking for more stability at this point.

Maybe grind down the struts where they are hitting the ground on turns for more clearance?

Probably not too hard with your skills, to make it into a scooter, if needed.

Keep us posted on your ride progression and post some vids! I’m still waiting for shoulder bolts from China.

Thanks for the R & D!

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Good observation. I believe it has a 15 degree rake (assuming OP went with the same numbers as Vertigo’s). Maybe it could use more? Or maybe the axle could be a little further back, effectively lowering it more.

Anyhow, how we ride a bike and what makes it all work is still very mysterious. Good article here about it: http://www.nature.com/news/the-bicycle-problem-that-nearly-broke-mathematics-1.20281

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Yeah I went with the same geometry Vertigo did, I think that it’s just a matter of this steering design, angle is 15 degrees in my case too, after all I WAS able to ride it after a few tries. I just scaled it up a little bit to accommodate 24mm wider deck (longer links), that might not helped (but that would be exactly opposite as I thought, I lowered center of gravity and moved front axle a little bit up). I’ll take another test ride today, maybe that just was a matter of my stance, with feet perpendicular to long axle of the board, I see vertigo placed front foot more parallel to this axle

If this won’t be ridable I was thinking about converting it to something like dirt surfer, with 16" wheels, they would allow to get more clereance, and dirtsurfer seems super stable.

It would be a shame to waste such beautiful and sleek deck with integrated battery compartment :smiley:

that’s so freakin’ cool dude

Ok Guys, today I took second test ride and hit that throttle a little bit harder, and this thing became rideable. With speed this vehicle gains stability, it has to do with wheels gyro effect, it’s quite interesting to ride at 30-40 km/h. Anyway, video is worth one thousand words :smiley:

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Nice man! That’s scary though, not for me haha

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I don’t know this stuff very well, it’s just my random thoughts, But I don’t think adding more speed caused it to be more stable because of a gyroscope effect. I don’t know much about the gyroscope effect but I thought you need a good deal of mass to be spinning for it to work and these wheels seems small. (bikes have small mass but big wheels so the weight is far from the pivot, motorbikes has heavy wheels) I think it’s more path of least resistance. You adding more velocity in a forward direction, made the front wheel want to be pointed forward because there is less resistance.

I guess we’ll never know for 100% :smiley: Anyway it’s clear it gets more stable at speed.

I just bead blasted parts, decided to anodize them as I have new motor mounts for my longboard ready as well and company that’ll do this for me wouldn’t take such small comission.

This two wheeler is fun to ride it fast on nice road and I intend to use it for pure entertainment :smiley:

Very nice! I can see as you’re riding it that it does not seem very stable. But you are showing it is ridable. I wonder if it’ll get easier to ride with time or if that’s as good as it’s going to get. You’re also getting what looks like good performance from that single motor. Well done. Thanks for posting.

Thanks! I think it’s a matter of training and getting used to this board. I’ll probably try lengthening front wheel mounting block, thus moving front wheel a little bit more back, and then test if this will improve performance or not.

It’s definitely an interesting concept that Vertigo showed us all, and something “different” among all of those electric skateboards :smiley:

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Cool… just saw this on your Instagram. Epic…

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Looks awesome. How does a two wheel contraption like this handle fast turns? Seems kinda scary without a handle of some kind :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s impossible to turn fast and sharp on this thing, rather smooth carving at high speed it’s limited by ground clereance.

I didn’t say it’s practical commute vehicle :joy: It requires nice straight smooth road where you can hit that throttle and go fast!

Hi, I finished this build, received parts from anodizing and put all of this together, here You can see the results. Board ready to ride weights 9kg.

Here’s closeup of drivetrain, 12/60 ratio #25H chain, real top speed 45 km/h, the faster the more stable board gets.

And here is clean battery capacity meter I mounted from underside, drilled holes are filled with hot glue

I’m pretty happy with the result, although it’s more like unicycle, it can be ridden but it’s not very practical :smiley: It’s nice workout for my metatarsus, it needs to be rock solid while riding :joy:

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masterpiece !!!

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45kph sounds crazy :smiley: dont you plan to install footrests/bindings of some sort? Wouldnt that help with maneuvering?

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holy hell that’s cool.

Actually bindings sound like a cool idea and might even improve stability, but my only concern is that they would make bailing out more difficult, also starting riding this thing is tricky because I must give myself a push with left foot (I’m goofy) and then placing this foot in a binding, in my opinion would be impossible. Only something like freebord bindings seem reasonable.