Rookie mistakes thread!

I finished my first complete build and am still fixing mistakes I made here and there even with all the careful reading I did. I figure it may be a good idea for us to post some of the mistakes we made the first time to help others avoid the same fate.

Always remember to tighten your grub screws, even if its not the one your using. They will damage your belt if they stick out. I left one sticking a bit out in my late night building and it damaged my belt.

DO NOT hold the accelerator on the remote before you turn it on. This can cause it to accelerate like mad on its own lol. At least with foc bix and nanox split ppm

Try to ride with some light tools and take it slow because your first build isnt always the safest. Shit can and will go wrong so please pad up and wear a helmet. My mistake was no pads, I had helmet on when i ate shit running Bldc… Foc for life lol

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Following this I’m a handful of Parts away from assembling my first build.

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This should be stressed, i cant tell y’all how many times I was saved because I always ride with every tool needed to disassemble my whole board… keep all the allen head BITS (not Allen keys) you need for the board and every socket needed for the board it’s really not a lot, I keep 2 ratchets, spare Allen keys (just in case) and a set of all the Allen keys needed. Oh and always keep spare belts, and if you have them a spare pulley

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I could honestly go on and on with the many mistakes that I made LOL. One I forgot to mention that I made was over tightening my enclosure… it actually ended up adding extra stress to a weak part of my board and caused the carbon fiber board to snap!!!

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I really gotta buy some hex plus Allen head bits. The sets are just too much $$ atm. I should just buy the individual sizes that I need. What are the typical Allen head sizes needed?

Yes use some threaded inserts and blue loctite, let it cure and u really won’t need to torque them down

@Skunk that really does depend on you… if you go to fastenal or ur local ace you can usually get all matching hex heads

15320494411971813188130 this Is the entirety of my hex plus Allen tools at the moment. Lol

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image

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Best advice for noobs – is to picture (in your head) yourself taking your newly-built board, picking it up, and bashing it wheels-first as hard as you can into a concrete wall for about 30 minutes. Think about what this will do to the insides. Construct the insides to be okay with this. Because this is, in fact, exactly the same forces the insides feel while riding it over bumps and cracks with your full weight on top.

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BUILD a second board right away, because your first build will likely spend more time on the bench being fixed and improved upon than under your feet.

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Man I’m just finishing up my 1st build… & you guys are scaring me…:neutral_face: lol

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That thing Jason calls the “fake economy” attracted me to the low prices too many times. And had to repurchase parts…most recently a battery pack made my someone here who is still too young to understand what good workmanship is.

Respect these machines because they can kill you (and everyone in your house) as much as they can slap a smile across your face

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After seeing some of those videos/post’s I decided to almost my budget for my board. And after 100ish km on my board and 0 issues I’m definitely happy i did.

I really wanna know what you do to your boards. lol

I use them like other people use a car. I was carrying 50 lbs of groceries across town the other day and

this happened. I actually rode it out without falling :smiley:

I can’t stress enough how reliability is more important than looks, than range, than top speed, than torque, than just about everything else. This is something I don’t think noobs understand much. This nice shiny machine you made WILL break. How it breaks and how long it takes before it does and how easy it is to fix or upgrade are things noobs don’t typically consider…

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Wow. Just happened to run into this post…

BigBoyToys May '171 Maybe our electrical engineers on the forum have learned their lessons elsewhere, but all my bulds have been taken apart multiple times. We should start a mistakes thread/look what I broke thread, if there isnt already one lol.

Things Ive screwed up:

More VESC’s than I care to admit. Jacobs hub motors. LOst side plate bolts, shifted the press fit axle sleeve at the center of the stator rippong off the phase leads, shorted the stator winding trying to use it as a 1WD, slipped the urathane wheels(not my fault). Bent axles on the carvon truck hanger. Damaged the threads in the rotor of a Torqueboards hub motor when the screws loosened while riding. Almost died learning over powered dual diagonal drive on a super short board is a bad idea. Saw white spots for hours after I shorted a battery lead to ground while trying to repair a solder joint on my anti spark switch. Ran PPM wires too close to phase wires and got intermittant cutouts Chewed up a belt or two braking from high speed without enough belt tension. Didnt use grommets on an enclousure and wore through the phase wires. Broke corners off an enclousure when a couple of fasteners vibrated loose during a long ride. Blew up a speed controller going down a long hill with a fully charged battery on the Onan X2. Had both wheels come flying off of 190kv hub motors on 12S voltage when a newb hit the accelerator while holding the board. Almost died when my boosted board cutout due to full charge going down hill. Fried multiple CAN transceivers on my VESC’s trying to get a 4WD CAN BUS set up going. Had a board stolen cjz I left it i the car overnight chistmas eve(theives favorite night). Things Ive learned the hard way:

A little glue on connectors goes a long way. Velcro isnt as useful as I thought it would be. I put shrink tube over bullet connectors to keep them together I take new parts apart to put loctite all over them. I use batteries with more current rating and capacity than I think you’ll need. VESC’s blow up if I skipped any of these steps. Found out putting your receiver behind your back for a high speed tuck is a bad idea. The CAN BUS terminal resistor needs to be changed to connect more than two VESC’s via CAN BUS. How to use a reflow station. How to brush all mistakes Ive made under the rug to make myself feel better about blowing serious $ on this hobby. Nothing in this industry was designed for super heavy people :(. Wear a helmet Dont leave $2k skateboards in your car.

RIP…

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Ugh… this is just making me more paranoid about starting my build. But it’s only so fun looking at a pile of expensive parts. Think I have everything but battery and remote.

Trying to buy good parts and I’m not hooking anything up without looking it up twice and then asking again lol. This hobby is soooo out of my price range. Been working crazy extra to make this happen.

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Don’t be afraid. If you do a little bit of research before you will be fine. I did my first build, have made a ton of modifications, changed a million settings… i’ve never had anything go seriously wrong.

Worst thing i’ve had up to this point is a couple ABS over current faults that didn’t cause any issues and went away on it’s own.

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So what have I done so far…over amped the battery max and blew a bms…disconnected the canbus and fried two focboxes…had phase wires wrong on dual hubs, spinning in different directions,(in my defense I didn’t have my glasses on) didn’t realise, shot off downhill and cooked one motor and vesc…snapped the nose off a drop through cheap deck (that really hurt)…more will probably come to mind but I will say it was all done in the spirit of learning and adventure.
Research research research Learn from everyone else’s mistakes but trust me you will make your own special cock ups that we will be only too willing to laugh about! crack on chaps there’s nothing better to do with your time!

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Haven’t finished my first build yet but I have made a mistake (probably more). When I began ordering parts, the first parts I ordered was from shops with fast delivery (eskating.eu, buildkitboards.com, diyelectricskateboard etc.) instead of ordering from China. This now means that I’m waiting for China parts to finish my board. Please order parts from china before ordering ANYTHING ELSE! It makes you save a lot of time and money.

edit: The weather in Denmark is usually shit but now it’s perfect! 25° Celsius (77° Fahrenheit), no rain, no skies and the sun is shining the whole day!