Using esk8 to sk8 kite

If you are not familiar with sk8 kiting, it is basically kite surfing using a longboard. Buy a 4m ozone access and a harness of some sort, or use a rock climbing harness, some pads and you are in. Be careful because kiting is highly addictive and once you learn it on land you are going to be spending some cash on water/snow kites:)

Anyway my question is this. I don’t have my esk8-yet so I am wondering:

Would it be bad to turn the board off and kite around for a while? Could it be bad to leave the board on and kite around for a while? Maybe I could rig something that only lets me hit the brakes, or I just carry a wrench and take the belt off? How susceptible to dust are esk8s? Could I ride a satellite motor on the playa?

Not bad at all. In fact if you leave the board on and brake while kiting you can charge your battery!

Even with the board turned off…as the motor spins it will create electricity…I’m not sure if this s good thing

Yeah, on I can see it being ok, just need to rig some device that prevents me from hitting the gas…

That’s what I was wondering. I would probably never ride it like that but where does the e power go if you do?

i don’t think it’ll generate electricity unless the phase wires are shorted/brakes are applied, at least not any significant amount.

The power needs to go someplace …

And that’s back in to the ESC…and that will def blow something eventually

This is the debate I wanted to start :slight_smile:

Do you have a vesc or and esc?

@onloop @chaka @torqueboards

You guys have any input on this subject?

Also @lowGuido @longhairedboy you guys have thoughts on this?

Have a vesc, waiting on a motor now that I decided I need pulleys for my hills

It definitely generates electricity - spin your motor and look at your VESC. Even with batteries disconnected you will see the LEDs on the VESC light up. Can do this by hand easily - now imagine gear ratio and wheel force spinning it!

Without somewhere for the voltage to go, i’d be worried about damaging the VESC (or similar ESC’s which regen brake). I would either keep the batteries connected (but not fully charged - overcharge batteries possibly?), or unplug the phase wires from motor to ESC.

Lets keep this debate going. We need an electrical engineer here:p What does a motor do when it is just spinning?

So the question now is if it generates any significant amount that would cause harm to the ESC/VESC. My guess is no, otherwise one of the main draws of hub motors (resistance-less kicking and coasting) would be made impractical to use if it’s just going to blow your controller on a downhill slope.

understood. I will ask in Vedder’s forum and see what they say. I’m guessing there will be a threshold of voltage and amperage it can handle and dissipate (likely as heat - has to go somewhere right!?).

If i get a moment i can pull out my multimeter at home or even the watt meter (small inline) to see what sort of voltage/amps it’s generating.

Good question @ekitesurfer. I don’t usually worry about it, but i do know that one of the (possibly fixed) issues with boosted was loss of brakes with full battery and trying to brake. With nowhere to go you’d simply lose brakes - where other boards just dissipate as heat.

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I would use a ‘dumb switch’ actually break the positive connection using a loop key. You won’t charge your pack but you’ll save your electronics

agreed. Doing a quick search on VEdder.se forum i saw a response from “rew” (knows his stuff that is for sure) on a similar question - basically on a bike w/o batteries connected:

[quote]the capacitor(s) will get some voltage from the motor, maybe the software can “hold out” when you stop for a few seconds. But you can’t power anything… And braking is completely out of the question: You’ll charge the capacitor until either the capacitor, the fets or the DRV chip blows. Whichever comes first… [/quote]

With batteries connected (and everything powered on) you’ll have your wireless remote and be able to brake. Without batteries i doubt your controller will connect, and without anywhere for the voltage to go it seems like you may blow something.

Now that i’ve searched for it, i’ll post a quick question - both this and what happens when batteries are full?

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in my experience you can do it, however you need to have the ESC powered on and have low charge batteries attached.

if you don’t have the ESC powered up I have found that once you generate enough power to boot up it does weird things like locking a wheel up randomly

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Hum… I was reading this thread and asking myself if this was what happened to me. The battery was almost empty and I decided to turn off the longboard and push until I arrive to the car. When I was gathering speed I heard the ESC noise and felt like the brakes were being applied.

So It seems it’s better to continue and push with the longboard turned on.

And back to my original statement :point_up_2:t2: