Maybe logs everyone’s builds that have failed on a spreadsheet and from there we can see what’s happening and what is the common problem
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The most persistent issue i’ve had so far is with boxes, believe it or not. My old boxes would tear at the bolt holes after a while of heavy usage. I never noticed this in my own boards, but it was brought to my attention yesterday by my son who apparently doesn’t miss anything at all ever that now my own Scarlet has worn-through bolt holes on a few of the bolt locations which have shown up since he started riding it everywhere every day. He says i baby my boards. Maybe I do, maybe that’s why they didn’t show up for me until they were in the customers hands. He likes to keep me honest about it too, since he posted it to instagram to tell me about it. LOL
I have already started outsourcing my FG boxes and the new ones are way tougher, but on occasion they have air bubbles in them that can eventually present cosmetic flaws as the surface cracks away over the bubble. As the evolution continues i’ll likely move to another manufacturer who will do a vac bagging process using kevlar or something equally better than FG or maybe even send a deck off to have some cad work done and do injection molded boxes that conform to my deck’s profile.
One thing i won’t likely do however is move to smaller boxes, i want people to be able to add whatever crap they want to in there and have plenty of room for it. If my cell packs die and they want to fill it with LiPos or even double the 18650 count with thier own home-made packs they should be able to do it. They should also be able to add BECs and lights and blutooth trancivers for the VESCs and anything else they can imagine.
All of this is just an example of somethig i’ve had to work through.
Other things i’ve had to work through: Bad eswitches, bad BMSs, bad volt meters/fuel gauges, fried VESCs, bad remote receivers, bad remotes… oh and one charger literally caught fire. I decided to keep it instead of RMAing it so that i can try to determine what actually happened, but i suspect it was a failed 110v/220v auto-switch thingy.
The worst thing i’ve dealt with personally that wasn’t reported by a customer was me repeatedly being thrown from a board while using a winning remote. My hands are still healing. You have to go through the pairing process on those precisely or the fail safes won’t work and if it loses signal it will lock up the wheels. I don’t understand it, but that’s what happens. I’ve never ever had that happen with a steeze or GT2B or any other remote i’ve tried. If the winning is binded correctly though its fine.
Another issue i’ve learned about is with the steezes. They all seem to come defaulted to channel 1 (or maybe its 2). I’ve since started rotating the channels with each new build so that they’re all spread across the channel range. My son and I were out simultaneously testing a raptor repair and a new build i was doing and we found ourselves controlling each other’s boards. It was a weird, intermittent behavior that didn’t seem like interference at first, we didn’t really have to be very close for it to happen since the range on those guys is like 30 feet or something similar to a playstation controller, and it didn’t always behave the same way, but it did present serious issues. That could be catastrophic if two friends decided to both buy boards from me so they can ride together.
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Damn. I don’t know why I’m not suprised.
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To clarify, we found ourselves intermittantly interfereing with each others boards in a way that was seriously inconvenient but potentially dangerous.
For example, we were cruising >30 feet apart and everything was fine, but he would approach me from behind and i would slow a little to let him pass. As he was approaching my board would start to act like it had bad gasoline. That’s really the only way to describe the symptom. It was sputtering. then when he applied the brakes, the sputter got worse and graduated to a stutter with minor lurching.
We re-paired our rides and remotes, first nearby each other, then well over 100 feet apart. The problem didn’t go away until i realized they were on the same channel and i bumped mine up a channel. Then the problem went away completely and we were cruising side by side at fun speed with no issue at all.
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I feel that poor tx/rx (and physical disconnects of Rx to ESC from vibrations or similar) communication and disconnects is the most dangerous part of esk8. Since behavior varies from brakes, to acceleration, to (if you’re lucky) just free-wheeling! I’ve experienced one “blip” on my Marbel where the remote lost connection for about 1/4 second - which equaled me trying to “run it out” around 16-18mph (unsuccessfully, but slowed to a good tumble and unhurt besides a small skinned elbow), and multiple disconnects on a Kama/Wiiceiver. In a stretch along a ton of apartments w/ lots of wifi interference.
I plan to replace the kama w/ another thumb throttle option - hopefully the baby buffalo is small enough to fit her hands (her preference vs trigger), and at her slow speeds (no joke around 8mph tops) it’s never been a problem. But it’s luckily just a pause and then going again, not brakes or acceleration.
@longhairedboy - that steeze remote channel issue is terrifying. Bad enough to have interference, but to inadvertently control another board on a set channel is frightening. As more people ride and meetups w/ other esk8 folks - how many channels are there to avoid stepping on eachother?
On safety gear note, i got a new pair of riding gloves w/ pucks. No i’m not sliding, but if i do eat it riding, i consistently land palm down and usually roll (somewhat well…), so while my wrist guards are great - they are a bit more of a PITA (need to remove my watch… hot and sweaty partially up my forearm, etc.) Vs gloves - still hot, but easier to put on and protects my palm’s impact point (admittedly also less impact absorption on the wrist itself). Holesom (super great company!! Talked w/ guy to check sizing of gloves and they sent a hand written thank you note and extra stickers - just good customer service) - got their “cords” glove.
it is terrifying. Its enough to make me question everything i’m trying to do here. I’m not 100% how many channels the steeze has. I’m going to try and track down some documentation on it or at least ask Maytech to send me everything they have.
Jason posted this back in february, but i didn’t see it until i started googling shit last week:
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Wondering why you don’t use Gt2B with modified enclosures? from what I’ve been reading they are supposedly the most reliable remote/receivers.
The reason I don’t is because I prefer thumb controls over trigger.
Maybe there is a way to turn GT2b from trigger to thumb scroller, I think it could be the next evolution of the gt2b
Maybe! That’d be interesting to see. I’m happy with my current thumb controller though.
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So, i did some investigating today (haven’t touched the board since the accident) and i found no loose cables. So i went ahead and started testing all fail options while on full throttle, remote cuts out (turning it off) and wire comes off (yanking it). If the remote cuts off, the receiver keeps the last throttle for about 5 seconds and then goes to failsafe throttle, in my case coasting (probably what happened to me, i just bailed before); Now if the cable come off, thats a nasty one, the ESC goes into brake mode , not sure what % of braking it is, i just know the motor stops instantly (didnt try this with me on the board for obvious reasons).
Seems to be a problem of your ESC: in a RC car this behavior would make sense. But not on a longboard. Seems that the SW of the ESC was made for RC cars.
I had a similar accident caused by a failure where the board just suddenly stopped and I was ejected. I was wearing my full motorcycle leathers with full face helmet and still hurt fairly badly (I had internal injuries).
I think the issue here is far more than just wearing protection (which you should obviously do) - it’s a drive train problem. So long as a failure can result in the drive train locking up, thereby stopping the board and ejecting the rider, protection may not be enough.
Rather, I think the answer is to outfit the drive train with a back-torque limiting system (in the motorcycling world, this is called a slipper clutch). This would eliminate regenerative braking (and reverse, if you set it up that way), but allow the drive train to continue to “coast” even if the motor locks up. Having suffered injuries already, I’d happily trade regenerative braking for this added safety.
I’ve thought up a couple designs that integrate a back-torque limiting system into the wheel pulley, but I lack the skills to finish the design or make the part. I’d be happy to share my thoughts with anyone who will serious consider making them - I’d be the first to put one on my board! 
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I believe this is the most reliable remote/reciever ever! I have used it with TB ESC and VESC and never had any unexpected braking or accelerating. I can turn on my board jump on and start rolling down the hill and then turn on the remote and hit the throttle or brakes and it works perfectly. I can turn the remote off at any time and the board just sits there patiently waiting for me to turn it back on. Sure I have lost connection a couple times, maybe interference but when that happened the board just coasted like it was off and I just turned the remote off and back on and it was reconnected instantly. Maybe it’s the receiver. It just goes to neutral when theres no signal. diy-electric-skateboard-kits-parts/torqueboards-2-4ghz-mini-remote-controller/torqueboards-2-4ghz-mini-remote-controller/
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Due a personal issue I ran into recently (multiple actually), I’ll be taking a look into some safety measures. My day to day job involves developing software and problem solving. I think the main one that should be used at the moment is a clutch system on all the motors at the shaft itself. Why? If the remote fails and you have a Pi or Arduino or some form of processor to enable a slow and safe brake that’s all good. But how do you prevent shorted wires in your electric motor? The ways I can think are to measure values from each phase and cut the connection when something unexpected happens, but what do you do if the short is internal and impractical to have a sensor placed with a switch? You need a mechanical interface to disconnect the motor from the wheels themselves. It would work the same as an electric drill works. They have clutches on their shafts to prevent you breaking your wrist when too much torque is transferred. This does introduce a mechanical part that does wear away especially if mistreated, but is much more disposable than life itself.
That’s my first step I will be taking. Another will be to create some monitoring software that tracks anything and everything I can. To hopefully even embed ESC and ABS into our esk8s. It’s not really that hard, it’s mostly about getting the information, processing it and acting on it fast enough that you don’t create more issues.
Idk what remote you’re using, but after using the winning remote for a little I’ve noticed that if the controller disconnects at any moment whether it be it’s too far away from the board or you turn it off or battery cuts off the motor goes HAM and goes full power
hey man- there’s a fix for this. You have to rebind the remote. I’ve followed these instructions and tested fail-safe by turning off the remote while at full throttle (bench and real-world) It keeps going for about half a second then coasts to stop. Here:
I will say, I have personally experienced the sticky throttle issue with the Winning remote. its definitely just jenky/cheap construction. If I pull down all the way toward brake, then it seems to “reset” the stick and the stickiness goes away. The torque response is not constant with this remote. There must be some play between the throttle mechanism and the plastic thumb stick. I think I’m going to eventually switch to the Benchwheel controller after @jinra finishes being the guinea pig.
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To be clear, the issue I experienced was NOT a remote failure - it was multiple shorts in the electronics & motors. No amount of monitoring or rebinding would have made any difference.
The back-torque limiting system I was referring to is a mechanical design and effectively only allows torque to be applied in one direction (forward). This is why such a system precludes electric brakes (and of course, regenerative braking) and reverse. There are other skateboard brakes available though.
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we are also having problems with November 2016 Evolve GT boards (carbon and bamboo) and their remotes / drop outs, stuck acceleration, delays in throttle and braking response - I was wondering if DIY was actually better (because you can update firmware and replace the radio link yourself)