I feel really sad for mellow boards!

I beat the gt easily going up hills and of course on a flat. DIY allows us to have machines that can do that. I think many of us would get readymade boards if they could perform as well as DIY and the prices were good.

great misleading marketing through Kickstarter or whatever has most people unaware of DIY power and low cost. I run into people all the time who had no idea.

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Both points are valid.

The key here is to understand the customer needs: some want convenience and speed, others want spec & satisfaction; whilst others are driven only by price.

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The guys at mellow have high prices because they are

  1. in debt. No company that has 2 years of research, prototyping, and advertising without sales is in a good place financially
  2. making high quality products. 2 year warranty is pretty goddamn generous!! They back what they sell, and that’s honorable in itself

Innovation is doing something that has never been done before. Calling ripping someone’s hard work off and selling it for half the price is not innovation - it’s being a greedy asshole.

Finally, this is a DIY forum. We are here not because we think that our boards are better than mass production (a decent amount are though and this has been proven a multitude of times) but because we love to do things! Yea sure a machine can do it 10 times faster but the work is half of the fun! There’s no doubt that in building a board you will feel much prouder of your work than clicking a few buttons and dropping a thousand dollars on a production item.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me - this defeats the point. I like to do it myself - even if someone else can do it cheaper/faster - i get pride from doing it myself. I learn how it’s done, and i feel confident re-doing it (repairing, replacing, upgrading) those components when i did it from the ground up in the first place. I almost never save $ vs a pre-made, but i get a ton of enjoyment out of doing it myself. And any actual $ saved is usually put into another thing i want to learn (like vacuum forming or Carbon Fiber/epoxy).

As a consumer i get what you are saying, but as someone who has taken apart fully functional devices - breaking tamper labels and voiding the warranty - to upgrade or just poke around - before even powering them on the first time… it’s something you either like or don’t. No shame in buying a polished product like Boosted or Marbel (i have a Marbel, buddy has boosted - both are great), but so much fun to build your own.

You don’t have to build your own motor to be DIY. That’s silly. Next you’ll want me to sift the sand/silica to melt down and make my own PCB’s for an ESC - because i’m not doing it myself if i buy one and configure it…

I also am able to build a esk8 on a deck of my choosing - not like many others (not necessarily unique - we copy what we like and others have made). With the motors i want, with the batteries/range i want, the wheels i want, the trucks i want… A real drop deck setup is pretty rare, and i want to re-create my own e-GBomb (just better). Custom foam core Subsonic deck made to my specs… not something many (if any) will have besides me. But folks are welcome to call Scott and have him make them one too!

Different strokes for different folks - not sure we’ll see eye to eye on this one. Off to modify a perfectly good skateboard w/ a router and carbon fiber… which isn’t DIY i guess. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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and who’s fault is that but their own? 2 years of research and boasting about something that isnt ready at this point. They are slow and inefficient.

How would you know something about the quality since they havent delivered a single pc to state an objective review?

Considering that they are asking 1600€ for this damn thing, how is that generous?

oh cmon, this concept of a drive system was pretty much inevitable. If it wasnt Mellow, someone else wouldve come up with it. Besides these companies that compete with Mellow had to build theirs from scratch aswell, or do you think Mellow sent them a sample?

and what else are you doing by buying ready components? Most of you havent got a darn clue about the stuff you are plugging together, you are just babbling about something others tell you is cool. Welcome to the consumer noob club. I’m just not as delusional about it.

For those of you reading this who love these kinds of things, pull out the popcorn gifs.

It’s not slow an inefficient if it’s building up suspense to a product. The longer you make someone wait, the more they tend to want it.

They have several prototypes out there that people have reviewed, they say that it feels and acts high quality. That’s just the prototypes, and everyone with a brain knows that German manufacturing takes it up a notch.[quote=“cantstopme, post:66, topic:2173”] Considering that they are asking 1600€ for this damn thing, how is that generous? [/quote]

It’s generous because it in itself guarantees high quality batteries, which are nearly impossible to find. 2 Years is a VERY long time for lithium ion batteries to last without any problems. [quote=“cantstopme, post:66, topic:2173”] oh cmon, this concept of a drive system was pretty much inevitable. If it wasnt Mellow, someone else wouldve come up with it. [/quote]

Hub motors, true. But you are missing the other BIG features of their product. For one, they still brake on full charge. You can sync up 2 of them for a 4 wheel drive system. INNOVATION.[quote=“cantstopme, post:66, topic:2173”] Besides these companies that compete with Mellow had to build theirs from scratch aswell, or do you think Mellow sent them a sample? [/quote]

I don’t think mellow sent them a sample I think they took one look at the schematics that mellow showed to prove there design and said “hey, we can rip that off and sell a crappy, unreliable version of it to make a few bucks!”

I know exactly what I am putting together. We don’t babble about it, we help others with less knowledge learn about the things that they are putting together. The whole point is to spread the movement of doing things yourself to learn about it instead of blindly buying a product. I’m not a fucking noob, I know exactly what I am buying. Also, you are completely off your rocker assuming that we buy everything. People are building decks, controllers, motors, and more. Look at this topic. Think we’re all noobs now? I guess you probably do, since you’re too delusional to even realize it.

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Maybe Mellow Boards outsourced some of their parts? Outsourcing components is completely natural for companies. Also, a majority of electronics are already produced and manufactured in China. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Chinese electronics, especially when there is an automated assembly process.

well I don’t get it. If you are a passionate DIY guy, why would you so passinately defend this rip-off consumer product that Mellow is? Or what else is it, but an overprized complete board -deck? So we are not talking thousand dollars, but 1600€. Is that more to your liking, spending even more money? So I thought you guys know how to build this kind of specs yourself and cheaper. So why defend it, tell me?

Because mellow is an honest company who put in time and work to make the best product. Also, they are willing to help the scene and contributed to our forum’s knowledge of German Esk8 laws. They could have been on second or third gen by now, but instead focused on making their product the absolute best. Anyone, DIYer or not can see that what they do is the most honest work there is.

wow, miss your meds today or someone piss in your cereal?

I get your passion, just feel it’s a bit misdirected. DIY is not only making everything from scratch. It’s building it and learning how to build it better. How to fix it, how to upgrade it. Sometimes this is breaking apart a lipo to repack slimmer, or improving on a Boosted board design to make it your own (maybe with thinner enclosures, or more range, or better motors/power). You are doing it yourself - with your own hands. And having fun (i hope) learning as you go.

You don’t get it. That’s cool. But you don’t show respect for the folks who have pride doing it themselves. I don’t need to know the physics and have an electrical engineering degree to utilize the VESC. I’ve repaired, programmed, and supported Vedder from some of the earliest boards he released (my first two were from him). This is a cutting edge (FOC!) ESC that was built with esk8 in mind! How cool is it to talk with the guy who built it and send him some $ to help keep him innovating. Even if i don’t understand it at the EE or programming level - i’ve helped!

This forum is to help eachother. I’ve written multiple guides and tutorials, plus countless “here’s what i’d do” suggestions to folks with questions. That’s part of the community that doesn’t require you to know the difference in ripple current using triple 680uF caps vs a single 2200uF cap!

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with “trolling” but coming on a “DIY” (your interpretation or mine) forum and knocking what folks are doing is pretty much a definition of it.

Don’t like what folks here do since they are part of “consumer noob club” - help educate some folks and help or go somewhere else.

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If you are a true innovator in this community, when you see others innovate, you respect that. I think 1600 euro is too high of a price considering all the knowledge I have now. There’s 2 reason I got into diy, other than I like to build things. Because I can choose my deck (didn’t like the shape of any of the decks of the premades out there) and I wanted more power and range. If I went back 2 years ago and could have bought a mellow instead of going diy, I probably would have. I’m glad it wasn’t an option and I got into diy, and I would never go back now. But you have to respect what they did. These Chinese ripoffs are likely made from mellows designs, with minor tweeks. That is not innovation, that is theft. You don’t see them 2 years of research, because they don’t care about the quality of their product.

At the end of the day, you have to respect what other innovators are doing. You can come on here and call us a bunch of n00bs, but you just appear ignorant, because you don’t know any of us. I think we were all at that point at some time when we were putting parts together that didn’t work out, and broke. And we learned from them, and made better boards the next time. Many of us are on our second or third or higher board. Our boards perform better than any main stream product.

If you want cheap boards, go buy a cheap chinese board, ride it every day and tell us when it breaks. I bet it will be in the first 2 months. Then let us know when you get it fixed by the cheap Chinese manufacture (which will probably be never) or when you fix it yourself (which won’t happen if you don’t get diy).

You can’t just demand everything cheaper. This community did that with vesc’s, and see how that turned out? They lasted not even 2 fucking days. Now I buy quality vescs from chaka, and they don’t break. Yes, they cost a fortune, but the parts for him to build them are more than the shitty quality vescs were at it’s cheapest with markup. If something is cheap, it’s because they are building them sloppy, with counterfeit components, and bad engineering and little real world durability tests.

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the market already spoke and its saying https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rideunlimited/eon-by-unlimited-plug-and-play-electric-skateboard/description

From looking at that product as an example…the market says “we will sell way underpowered but sleek looking pictures of stuff with claims that are largely bunk and we don’t actually have anything for sale yet and you might get it in a year”

They make claim to be the only motor that goes on an unmodified truck. But they don’t actually sell it and thats what I sell at a fraction of their cost and with lifetime warranty. Yet they will get tons of bucks from people who don’t know better. And then hopefully when they get the board a year from now and find that I blast past them and then go on for another 20 miles silently on FOC, hopefully they will look at diy again.
It’s not me just trying to sell motors but that the diy stuff blows all this stuff away. I crush gts on any terrain. How much power can you put in any of these Kickstarter hubmotors? The escs and kv are so geared down its riding on a toy. They’re all slow and weak.

The dude trolling is a troll. Leave him be and his trolling will have no audience.

I think Mellow have raised money with VC’s - at least that what the picture and google translate told me. That’s how they did the 2 yrs or some of it, and it also means thy aren’t technically in debt but have sold equity, which is not the same thing. I don’t know their term sheet but most deals are equity so don’t assume they have big debt.

Lastly, any market has many players with many consumers - there is never (can you think of an example?) a “one size fits all” product. So most arguments are moot - Mellow are going after a market segment that want German engineering without the putting together part. So what? There are 15 other market segments.

Bottom line: for there to be real consumer benefit, everyone needs to benefit from greater awareness & cheaper parts. Even Audi is trying to make their parts cheaper to produce!

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Trolling!? Do you know the Eon board has 12 cells? How fast, far, or powerful do you think that will be?

You may be really into the business aspect of electric skateboards I’m into performance. it’s like the difference between a farrarri and a Honda Accord from 1990 these things verse diy

“German engineering” from smooth board or the rest of the marketing hype…put my or most any diy board against it or any of the commercial boards and they don’t perform as well. They don’t have the power. What criteria can you judge with as nothing is even available and you’re judging on a fantasy. Behind the show is weak stuff. I’m not trolling but making sure it’s put in perspective. Maybe you’re happy going 20mph and slowly up hills and a tiny range for lots of bucks. Maybe all the money goes to the big promotion because the motor materials aren’t made of anything special no matter what country it’s made in. With the cost of smoothboard I feel your paying into the socialist system. Cost to imagined performance does it really stack up? I sell stuff with a lifetime warranty, now, for a board that will crush this stuff, and for cheaper, and you’re calling me a troll for bringing attention to it

Your “bottom line” being greater awareness and cheaper parts, that’s not smooth board or Eon. Expensive and at least one of them really misrepresents. Even smooth boards flaming wheels seem empty hype once u compare it’s performance. When something comes out that’s a decent price and has power I endorse it. Raptor sounds like the best thing out there if it’s prebuilt. It has the most power and runs on vescs. Gt I’ve ridden and it’s pretty good too. Boosted I’ve also ridden a couple times. Performance counts when you’re into riding and I’d rather pay half for so much more by plugging a couple plugs in.

@Hummie dude, not you, the other guy!!! :wink:

@sl33py called it first, so was referring to his troll!

performance is nice if you are able to scale it well. I think the perfect board is something that you may ride as a beginner aswell as a pro. And with the DIY stuff the performance often does seem to come as a raw and brutal force. Maybe you laugh about that, but I want ride modes fE. Even if I get the hang, I don’t want someone to break their neck if they try it out the 1st time. So ride modes and smooth acceleration and breaking. I don’t want breaks that kick like a horse and throw me off the board. Maybe, just maybe you have the skill to program these Vescs together with the remote so you will find a decent setup, but that may take alot of time and you might still get some bad feedback at times. And bad feedback at high speed is… bad. I’d rather have a professional company behind it that does all the testing and adjustment to make it a save and smooth ride. Even if I had to sacrifice some performance, the savety and overall riding experience is more important to me than the highest top speed and hill climbing ability.

Oo sorry guys. Peace all. Got me worked up.

Different strokes for different folks as was said. I do get a bit bent when people say how great these well marketed products are as our diy stuff goes under the radar. The greatest plus of the diy stuff is related to it greater power which is sadly illegal. If we let our much greater power get too well known we’d get reeled back by the law.

LEGIT concern. And here’s how you do it. First get a VESC - best and smoothest acceleration and braking i’ve found (plus regen).

Second - don’t set someone on top of your 12s “beast” board setup… BUT if you must, there’s a couple things you can do - lower voltage. I like 3s batteries (thinner lighter and modular) since i can use 2,3,or 4 for 6/9/12s. If i’m going to let someone ride my setup i’ll remove a pack or two to get 6s - much less “punch” and safer for a newbie.

One of the Tx/Rx’s now has two modes - i think it’s the benchwheel one. A selectable button that limits it to go slower. Not sure - but might be worth testing.

It’s a concern of mine too. When i want someone new to try esk8 i hand them my Marbel in Mode 1 (about 6-8mph tops). But on DIY (my definition of it likely not yours) - i lower voltage. My GF who has never skated before, rides a simple 8s single motor setup and loves it. (200kv 6355, VESC, 8s, Kama). It’ll do much faster than she ever rides (i ride it when other friends ride my Marbel) and it can do 18+ i’d guess, but is very smooth. If you mash the power - bad stuff can happen regardless of DIY or Boosted/Marbel/etc. Helmet + wrist guards at a minimum.

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