Im just starting my first eskate build. Im a big guy (145kg) that wants a reliable board to commute around my small hilly English town. After having issues finding any boards from well known brands that would officially support my weight and hearing stories of axles snapping i decided to go the diy route.
The plan is to create a cruising board with super torque. Not looking to break and land speed records here, its just got to haul my fat ass about. I am kind of aiming towards the look of the Evolve GT or some of the kaly.NYC street boards.
I ended up buying a Trampa Ultimate Street Carver. I went for the 16 ply deck with titanium axles and king pins. I also ended up also buying the 13/37 pulley set, belt and motor mount from trampa.
Its Fucking Solid. Turns super easy and has a little flex but feels indestructible. I dont think i could ever break it and i feel like i could really throw it about without worrying about damaging it.
Super hype. Time for some temporary waterproofing:
Yes . . . those are Chinese takeaway containers.
At the moment i dont have any proper batteries so im currently reusing some miniquad lipo’s that i have laying round. these are 4s 100c 1300mah and im using 3 of these in series to run at 12s. They perform surprising well and i get about 1.7 miles on a set which is enough to get me to work and up some big hills. im sure i would get much more distance on flat ground but i dont have any to test on .
I have been riding the board in its current state to work most every day and here are my thoughts:
6374 is more than enough torque for any beginner. It takes me easily up the hills i thought i would struggle with. The problem that im having with this setup is grip. 1 wheel is not enough contact with the ground when your trying to transfer that much torque to the ground. As soon as i go over wet / moss / metal covers the wheel just spins up which causes momentary lack of power. I think its time for DUAL
loving the Trampa board however as im getting more confident and faster im starting to find that it is a bit loose on he turning. To combat this i added some red Trampa dampers to my next order.
Make sure you lock-tight the shit out of everything. lost a few of the nice trampa grub screws and a few other bolts before i realised this. Even the parts that come pre-assembled from trampa like the screws that hold the springs in the trucks, you will loose them unless you lock-tight them yourself.
Switching lipo’s all the time and charging them on a lipo charger is becoming a ballache. Its worked well and it does the job but chargeing them is so much effort that i cant be bothered with.
Upgrade Time:
I Purchased a second 6374 motor and FOCBOX to upgrade to dual, mostly for more grip . . . . but im not going to complain about the extra power . Now that im running dual FOCBOX’s i guess i should make a little more effort to waterproof everything so i got some real resealable sandwich containers to store everything in. Also added antispark xt90 and made up some stainless steel support bars to go between the motor brackets for added strength.
Containers were modded to allow mostly watertight connections to motors.
Power is insane. Have not yet been able to go full throttle and the board doesn’t even notice hills any more. It accelerates me faster than i thought was possible. I dont know how any normal size rider would be able to use this much power.
I have acquired some recycled VTC4 18650 cells from a skip. The cells are pre-made into 6s1p packs which look like they will hold up well to vibration and abuse. I built a capacity tester and tested the packs to find the best ones to use. Im measuring about 38Wh per pack which seems reasonable for these cells as there theoretical max should be about 44Wh (22.2v*2000mAh). Im asuming this difference is due to the conservative battery cuttof with the BMS that is built into the packs.
I am planning on wiring these up to make 2x 6s3p packs which i can run in series to give me 12s3p total. After the capacity test i have also removed the built in BMS’s as i am replacing this with a 12s 80A BESTECH BMS with anti-spark.
At the moment i cant decide about how to arrange the battery’s under the board. Im planning to make a kaly@nyc style battery tray that goes underneath however due to the size of the packs im not to sure how to lay them out.
One row of Six :
Two rows of Three :
Im thinking the longer thinner pack will give more flex however it may be more difficult to vacuum form due to the smaller gaps and harsh edges between the packs. Also the length is concerning as i need space for 2 FOCBOX’s at the back and whatever other charging ports and power switches i decide to add.
This has 10mm between the packs but i think that it will be hard to get a good mould of this area from the vacuum former, especially if i try and use a thicker material. I could separate the packs slightly more but im concerned about weather it will even fit on the bottom of the board. Space is already very tight around the FOCBOX and BMS and i haven’t left much space for other things like charging port or power switch.
They are replacement packs from cordless vacuum cleaners. I guess they use quality cells so that they can produce enough current in higher power modes.
Over the last week i have been trying to recreate some of the Trampa and parts in Fusion 360 as i eventually plan on building custom cable risers and motor mounts for them.
Motor mounts are Still a work in progress but the plan is to lift the motors higher giving more clearance and better access to the grub-screws that hold the mounts to the axles.
Looks like a really great build so far. Make sure you’re careful with how you route wires between enclosures, I seem to recall @Eboosted having his board catch fire in a similar set-up, but I’m not sure if they ever determined the exact cause.
Why? What other enclosure is it like? I have not seen anything which is that similar other than it is segmented like almost all trampa enclosures. I would be interested to see
Yeah everything is going to get a good helping of hot glue to remove all unwanted cable movement and add some extra insulation. Also there will be stress relief Bends in wires between packs when fitted.
On the new battery, how thick are the nickel strips that you are soldering to the wires? depending on how much current you plan to pull they might not be enough and get very hot or melt altogether
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. Now that im running dual FOCBOX’s i guess i should make a little more effort to waterproof everything so i got some real resealable sandwich containers to store everything in. Also added antispark xt90 and made up some stainless steel support bars to go between the motor brackets for added strength.
