Traqpod - Street carver inspired design

that is a shame the ‘shorter form’ would be pretty agile

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The deck has a huge concave, specially at the front and back. You can very easily steer the thing by just leaning on your toes or heels, just like when you snowboard (I’ve never snowboarded, but hey, that’s what people tell me it feels like).

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Welcome to the forum dude (hola amigo!), No doubt, but with a skateboard you want most of your weight over the front wheels for control and increased leverage. You don’t need to be standing on your truck hardware all the time but with with your design you do not get a choice. On the flip side it might not matter, you might not need much leverage as the rounded profile of your wheels didn’t look to generate a lot of grip? Or do you have very powerful motors? How many watts are you putting out to each wheel?

You say you have rubber bushings? I’d seriously look into upgrading to thane, that is the single largest technology shift (development) skateboards have seen since invention. Superior rebound control to say the least.

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@Cobber Hello there. I am not sure I understand the first part of your message, so this reply is a bit risky…

Control over the trucks and general skateboard steering is achieved by shifting your weight relative to the key truck joints, but that weight is applied to them through the deck-truck connecting plates. No further “information” on where along the deck that weight was applied is transmitted, if your think about it. What I mean is that you may like to steer the skateboard with your front foot, but the effect is essentially the same as doing the same thing with your rear foot. Or in the middle, for that matter. I will try to be a bit more selfconscious of how I myself do it. I would say it depends on the day. As for the Traqpod specifically, it’s ridiculously responsive either way. You’ll be amazed.

(As for “leverage”, more or less the same. What matters is torque, therefore “lever arm” length, i.e., how far from the skateboard longitudinal axis you get to shift you weight.)

I feel more confortable with the second part of your message… The rounded profile wheels were made that way partly for looks, partly to reduce the friction with the ground, rubber hardness being another factor. The grip they generate has no effect on the steering, only on acceleration and braking. The wheels are about 105 mm in diameter and rather hollow, so their angular momentum is significant (once they are up to speed they are harder to slow down). Also, bear in mind the wheels have zero camber, that is, they do not turn like the BMW StreetCarver wheels. They remain vertical.

Motor power: not our main concern, but we will try to find a balance between power, range, speed and weight. There may be single and dual motor configurations. Stay tuned.

Rubber bushings: no and no :slight_smile: We don’t use bushings (friction parts are made with POM) and the truck balancing mechanism is spring-based actually. As for rubber parts, that’s a generic term we use but of course wheel tires are PU. Also the deck’s antislip overmold.

Sorry about the lengthy response.

Xavi

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@sk8l8r We can make a more agile version by shinking the whole thing without ruining the overboard-wheels painfully-developed design :slight_smile: But I think the Traqpod is very agile in terms of turning radius and responsiveness already. Give it a chance when you can.

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It’s the Electric Lean board. Nice. One thing tho, it’s too high off the ground

@xavigarcia. I like the concept. Stability is the #1 category of any new idea or design. When you ask people to hand over hard earned money to fund your idea, please take the time on the proving grounds. Be certain this design performance meets or exceeds current stable setups. It has to be stable over 45kph or people are gonna get hurt. Strength, if it breaks when a 113kg gorilla launches it off a curb. People will get hurt. Please properly test and be transparent before you ask for money. You can dazzle with brilliance or you can baffle with bullshit. You probably won’t be able to fool anyone in this group.

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Hey Bro, I just knocked off from work, I’ve had a couple of knock off drinks and I want my response to be as productive as possible so i’m going to edit this post and respond to you tomorrow morning when I wake up. There is a lot in your response I want to give you feedback on.

Ok @xavigarcia

Um, no. Trying to ride a skateboard at any sort of speed with your weight biased to the rear and trying to steer with your rear foot will likely lead to a rapid oscillation side to side (speed wobbles) and you will likely fall off.

Um again No. Not in my experience. Having that weight bias to the front gives you control to stop the oscillation.

It was this basic mis-understanding of “how to control a skateboard” that led to my initial comment about the board.

Watching your demo video with your jockey over balancing and falling off when the rear wheels broke lose under throttle in a turn also led me to ask questions about how powerful your motors will be. This was important to me because of the limited control the rider would have because of your inherent deck/truck/wheel design currently to me looked to suit lower power and lower speeds.

I wouldn’t want to see someone riding your design as it is at traffic speeds?

Spring Trucks? Definitely be careful and progressive testing them at speed and on varied road surfaces then. Springs alone have little rebound control and can “bounce”.

Do you know what the equivalent RKP truck angle would be for your novel design?

No problem dude, welcome once again and GL testing and developing your project.

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I’m curious if you’ve seen the Curfboard. They’re designed by one of the guys behind the streetcarver.

I’m also curious as to how the truck operates. It is just rotating on a bolt?

@CHAINMAILLEKID The Curfboard was indeed designed by the father of the Streetcarver. I missed their 2016 Kickstarter campaign but ordered after that and received it a few months ago. It’s neat and innovative but not for me. It surely isn’t an evolution or improvement in the Streetcarver, it just branches off in a different direction (which is fine). It’s s nice longboard with a special front truck that is supposed to keep you going forward by swinging and pumping. You will find plenty of videos showing the curfboard at work. Their Kickstarter video also shows the truck in detail (plus some nice views of my town).

Hi @Cobber Thank you for your detailed answer.

Unfortunately it’s hard to communicate over sensations and complex mechanical ideas in writing. It’s like that saying: “Speaking about music is like dancing about architecture”. Same thing here. The basic problem is that the Traqpod has a completely different design from what you’ve normally used and most of your assumptions don’t really apply to it, and also that your experience, user profile and expectations from a skateboard are also particular to you (and probably lots of other people, of course). And I’m not saying the Traqpod will not meet them (we will see).

There is a huge latent market out there made up by people who will value maneuverability and confort over, say, power. (Power, by the way, in only one way to control a skateboard; another one is simple mechanical maneuverability and responsiveness; the more you have of the latter, the less you need of the former.). A market of unconventional skateboarders who will use the Traqpod not for racing but to go about the city and will be sorrounded by pedestrians and other moving objects, and who, for instance, will never experience speed wobbles because they’ll never reach that kind of speed. I mean, really: what top speed can you achive on a normal pedestrian street in any city? But, again, I appreciate your comments and hope to continue communicating with you all.

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@onepunchboard It’s really not, believe me. Maybe it looks like that, but it’s very low riding for a board its size (92 cm when unfolded). Plus, it’s very flexible, so for heavier users it will be even lower (unless they choose the wood deck, much stiffer). Last week a 115 kg friend tried it and it came really low (but not too low).

I need to be able to do 30mph to ‘exist’ with cars in my city

If you look at the current specs: 36V 6,6 Ah, he´s using something like the Samung 22p with a 10s3p config. Able to do 30A max. So there will be something like 500W Motors for a lightweight city cruiser, where you will be able to slalom around crowded cities and go something like 35 km/h max.

I really like the design and you guys can´t compare this to our performance machines. This is more like the meepo or boosted but with some futuristic looks and features

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@sk8l8r If you do 30 mph regularly in heavy traffic then the problem of ‘existing’ with cars may soon solve itself. Are you an organ donor? :slight_smile:

Sorry about the joke, I just had to. Now seriously, do what you want with other skateboards, but we do not recommend using the Traqpod on the road (I mean, in the middle of automobile traffic), for the same reason you wouln’t use a bicycle in a highway (please, tell me you don’t) . I’m not even sure this kind of use is legal in most places.

We at least design our product for use in pedestrian streets, bicycle lanes, campuses, residential zones, shopping mall parking lots, and the like. The practical speed you can achive in these kind of places may seem frustrating (8 to 15 km/h), but I can tell you it’s not in our case: the specific feature that sets the Traqpod apart is what makes this kind of use and speed fun: carving. Traqpod is not designed to be used in a straight line. This totally defeats the purpose. Carving is not only fun. It’s also the feature that helps you avoid the normal street obstacles (which then become “challenges”). (But I guess we can make it reach at least 20 km/h. I haven’t really checked that.)

(Bonus: Authentic anecdote and case in point: I use the Traqpod to go to the gym, which is 800 m (half a mile) away from home. It’s rather downhill so I hardly use the motor on my way there, so I just carve away to get there, with some occasional motor thrust, and it takes me, whatever, 6, 8, 10 minutes? Who cares? It’s fun. HOWEVER yesterday I had stuff going on and had to get there before a specific time, and was running late. So I not only had to use the motor the whole time and speed up a bit, but (and this is the worst part) I HAD TO GO IN A STRAIGHT LINE to save time. The good news is I did meet my deadline. The bad news is that it was a terrible user experience. With the Traqpod you do get everywhere in half the same (vs. walking), but if you want to get there in one third of the time, man, the experience is as enjoyable as taking the bus. So I might as well do that.

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I get it, its a cruiser :slight_smile:

EDIT: I do like that its not designed to go in a straight line - unlike those meepo china boards that I find only really good in a straight line :wink:

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alright, alright fixed that

so how´s the power on your way back up the hill?

@TarzanHBK I’s a 3-4% slope and I do get back up nicely even with a single-motor configuration.

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so how about more hilly areas?

@TarzanHBK Dual-drive model would be the way to go. It will be heavier, and still based on hub motors, though. If even more power is necessary, we do have a product roadmap for that.

I mean, don’t get me wrong: we do want to empower our users to do what they want. We just have to start somewhere and this takes compromises. And not everyone lives in San Francisco :wink: