After-Accident-Analysis of my first proper crash

Here’s the setup for the whole mess. The road to our house is filled with potholes. The road surface is a mixture of well packed clay and gravel.


But, this morning there had been new gravel brought in to fill the large potholes that were present in the corner and I mean couple of them were massive in both width and depth, unfortunately I don’t have a picture what the corner potholes used to look like.

So here’s the short summary what happened:

  1. I came downhill from the main road towards the corner.
  2. Too late I remembered there had been a massive pothole on the line I was taking. Due to the gravel being new, it had not been packed in yet by passing cars and trucks. Left front wheel sank into the soft gravel and the board sharply turned to left.
  3. Me still standing on the board caused board then to sharply fishtail to the right at which point I went flying forwards.
  4. Board continued to the right and hit the streetlight pole while I landed face down on the road.


This how the board hit the pole.

The impact of the hit cracked the 3D-printed truck adapter and separated it from the deck.

Fortunately this probably saved the truck from damage, because the truck adapter breaking worked a bit like a crumble zone in a car, absorbing energy and saving the truck. I can easily print a new one.

The impact also moved the battery pack in a sideways motion. Pack was otherwise ok and this wouldn’t happen when I get the bigger pack in the board, because it will be packed in better and have more support. Everything else inside seemed ok and I did a system check later.


Personal injuries

Luckily I was wearing my new TSG Pass full face helmet, which protected my face from sanding away on the road surface.

Unfortunately my left elbow was the second thing to take the brunt of the impact to the ground and it left a decent gash on it.

[details=Blood & Nastiness Warning. Elbow right after accident and after cleaning the blood]

[/details]

Bandage was applied, which cleaned the whole thing up nicely.


Conclusion:

Rider’s judgement error, because of changed environment. Full face helmet saved my face from a bad face down flop (anybody know where to get a replacement visor in EU?). Board survived with minimal damage, due to 3D-printed truck adapter breaking from the large impact. Elbow- and kneepads added to near future purchase priority.

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Glad you’re alright, and nice play by play, haha. I’m always wary of 3d printed parts given how much stress longboards take.

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They have held up fine in the normal use I have subjected them to.

Of course If I do use printed parts for key mechanical positions, I will always test them standstill on the yard first.

glad you are okay. full face helmets are a blessing. I would never trust 3D printed parts on something that needs to hold my weight.

Definitely some places they work and some places they don’t… I 3D printed a lot of my components (controller, receiver box, VESC cover, battery cover, risers) but even being an advocate of the tech I went with metal motor mounts, trucks, and pulleys. Out of the stuff I’ve made the battery covers and the risers have had the toughest jobs and most troubles.

Risers made from ABS or some type of Nylon can be super strong even when just 3D printed (as long as infill with ABS is high enough they’re almost impossible to break and Nylon has some give so it’s almost impossible to ever “crack” it at best you could tear if you had a crap ton of force), PLA risers didn’t stand the test of time for me but worked for a few months before breaking down and collapsing.

My enclosure takes a lot of stress too since I don’t mount the batteries to the board (prefer having them wrapped in foam and not directly taking any impact). Biggest problem is delamination, if you pull apart in the direction the layers were printed things can much more easily break apart, if you are instead putting compression force on the part you are just squishing the layers (the weakest link) together.


The down sides with Nylon are it absorbs a lot of moisture from the air and so when it’s being extruded that moisture will boil out as the plastic is being brought up to 260C for melting, and the boiling water makes little steam pockets that blow out of the nozzle as it’s extruding. Also since it’s a relatively slippery and hard plastic the extruder will have a tough time pushing it through the nozzle quickly and has a higher tendency to lose grip on the filament when printing larger parts. Have been trying to reprint my enclosure with nylon but has given me all sorts of woes… I’ll probably end up printing it in PLA and casting a mold to pour out some sort of urethane version, but still fighting this battle for now.


Regarding the story (well explained and diagrammed) not sure what you could have done, but good cautionary tale for wear your gear. Glad you walked away with just some short term reminders, doesn’t look fun.

Not sure if your board has bindings But sometimes you can lift the front, or take weight off the front to lighten the possibilities of a dip bump or debris and to hop over things that might be an issue

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The way you wrote it up you could submit it to the county for assessment haha!

Glad you’re alright.

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Great breakdown of the incident! The purple stick man flailing and laid out had me cracking up! :joy: :joy: :joy:

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This is what makes this post so awesome!

@SimosMCmuffin what esc are you using, looks custom? Will we get a build thread for this board?

I might do a build thread once I get the new battery pack built. I might change for a V4 VESC temporarily while I design and prototype the next motor controller with FOC.

So, what speed were you going?

I’m guessing around 12-15 km/h, but that still leaves a mark when you land flat, face down.

Just had a crash at 29km/h in the Woods. That shit hurt like a mofo and split my Ruroc mouthpiece in half.

I was lucky, I could have landed on a rock. Still scared the shit out of me. Might never go full throttle on any e-board again.

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It’s funny how crashing gives going slow such a new perspective as well. Sometimes it’s just more chill and you forget to respect it.

Also makes you understand the importance of protection and really makes you see full face helmets in new light.

Did you get any bloody parts or did you survive with big bruises?

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While building my e-board, I found that anything faster than 15mph was waaaaay too fast for me so I changed the gearing to max out at 15mph and improve the torque and up hill climbing.

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Yeah, loosing focus for just a second will have you eating dirt in no time. What protection Did you wear? I’m thinking I’ll go with some kind of back protection if I ride again.

No big wounds, just scratches on my legs and elbows, and a big bruise on my back/ass.

No pads anywhere, only the TSG Pass helmet and normal clothes. I’m going today for little shopping and I’ll check the options at the local stores for elbow- and kneepads.

I think I rode again 3 or 4 days after the crash and it was a bit unnerving. I was constantly on a lookout for any risks and danger locations “How bad an injury would I get if I crashed here?” “What if a car comes around the corner onto the crosswalk and doesn’t see me?”

Now after a couple of times I feel pretty happy again on the board, but knowing how bad of a mark even a simple crash can leave makes me want to get padding.

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When I was racing downhill skiing and had nasty falls I was always told that as long as I was OK it was very important to take a run again as quick as possible to overcome the fear. Can’t have fear when racing like that and I think it’s a good idea on esk8 also. Everything is dangerous but you live only once :slight_smile:

I’ve yet to fall of my esk8 but it will come I’m pretty sure and I don’t look forward to doing it :stuck_out_tongue: I use a regular skate helmet as only protection now since I haven’t found any Norwegian shop that sells G-form padding yet. I know they are less effective than the huge ones but I can see myself wearing them more often since they are more minimalistic than those huge pads. Guess I will buy them after my first big fall regretting I didn’t do it before and the same goes for full face helmet ^^

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Yeah you’re right. And I don’t really have to go full speed, ooooor do I?.. :wink: I’m also looking into the G-shock knee and shinguard and also some kind of back protection.

I guess everyone crashes, just a matter of when. Keep yourself well protected and don’t get hit by a carb😬

Those carbs will kill you in the long run… Car damnit!

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