Enertion Raptor | First Batch Problems & Solutions

We know the CF lid affects remote range, and that all new lids will be fiberglass, eliminating that issue.

I also know (from more testing done today) that the remote settings make a HUGE difference. We don’t yet know how Jason will handle this, but we do know that good settings can be found (I’ll post my results separately). I can’t say enough how big of a difference this has made for me, and I believe every Raptor owner can benefit from adjusting these settings. So this is yet another problem more-or-less solved. (you don’t want to have to do it yourself - I get that!)

I would also add that this is not Honda Civic, or even a Porsche. It’s more like a Dodge Viper. Tons of power and no electronic nanny’s to help you manage it. And the more power you have just in general, the more control issues you will have. I don’t know if you’ve driven cars with VERY high horsepower (like 700+) but daily drivers they are not - I don’t care what the manufacturer may claim. Such cars are beasts, as is the Raptor, and they are not for everyone. What I’m saying is you can’t have a super high performance board, and expect it to behave sedately. It’s just not going to happen.

Last thought: Have you considered the Raptor Mono? Based on my testing today, I’m very seriously considering a custom build based on the Enertion mono motor/setup. The only real difference I can see is the massive torque off the line. But if you don’t need that, meaning, you don’t need to blast off the line, the dual is kind of a waste in my opinion. The top speed of the Mono is the same (27mph), and it still goes up steep hills better than a Boosted Dual+, so not sure what more would really be needed. The positive of Mono, I believe (not having tested it personally), is that it should have more predictable acceleration and control than the dual. Would it meet your needs? I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s very likely.

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I agree with all of you !!! but think about something imagine your kid look at your board and he said I want to go for a ride !! what you going to say! hold on I got a hook up the raptor to my computer first so I can change the settings and five hours later you can say to your kid OK go ahead but be careful with the break they are very sensitive !! because is like driving a viper and you can get killed !!so be careful I’m not sure if is going to break Lol !!!

When you all saw the preview of the raptor like a week or so! I’m sure in the back of your head you thought the guy who made the raptor have a lot of experience he been working for like more than a year on this project,he tested the raptor in all possible ways ??? But what happen!!! You guy almost kill yourself and you did pay him good money !!! Right!! And don’t get me wrong if I’m a businessman i’ll test my product first to make sure if safe and if it is I’ll sell it !!

So my next question is did he really test the final product that he sold you or he was too busy making money and he said this fool will test it for me ???

This is nothing personal , is because I feel bad for you guys for what happened because that guy could it be me !!!

This is the first batch. Issues are to be expected (at least in my opinion), but so far I have not encountered anything that I think is gross negligence. Jason has been very open and honest and all the details are in this thread. There are some scenarios he didn’t account for, but for every issue he has offered solutions. Some involve me doing the work, which may not be for everyone, but what’s the alternative? Send it back so he can update it? That would take a while and cost money, so in this case I’d much rather do it myself (I also enjoy learning and playing around, even when it’s occasionally frustrating).

To answer your question about kids, my 8-year old son asked me if he could try it and I said “Hell no!” I did let him try a friend’s self-balancing scooter (aka hoverboard), and he did fine with it, so it’s not like I’m a worry wart or over protective. It’s just that like my motorcycle, this particular board is not a toy and it’s not suitable for all ages. If you want an electric skateboard a kid can ride, I’ve seen some kid-friendly models for ~$160 on Amazon. They go like 6mph.

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I have several boards that my kids as well as my friends don’t get to ride. I built a board specific for my 6 year old son that won’t go faster than 15mph. That’s called responsibility. Fact is, our boards aren’t 12v ride on toys.

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NOT impossible! Proof!!!

The next couple days are SUPPOSED to be rain free, so hopefully I can get some video in a more appropriate environment (that would be OUT-SIDE) to really show it off. As I state in the video, I am literally BLOWN AWAY at how much of a difference optimizing the settings have made. The board is totally controllable and a pleasure to ride.

I don’t feel like making a complete tutorial on how I derived my settings (the method in the video Jason posted didn’t get me totally dialed in), but:

  1. One thing I will say is that I found I needed the forward motion range on the remote stick to be .55 or greater or it was too sensitive. For example, the “neutral” value on my remote was reading 1.55. Adding .55 to this results in 2.1, which is the value I used for the Max Pulsewidth. Any lesser value and it was too sensitive.
  2. I’m happy to answer questions.
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Great Video man… I really appreciate that.

I really hope everyone has a chance to watch this and make the changes. Some of you might not need to though. It Seems some remotes are way out of range & some are ok…

Hi Ermac

I fully understand this dilemma & I suppose it’s the same question everyone ask themselves before they buy anything. Can I trust this Brand/Company/Person etc… when it boils down buying/selling is all about trust.

Let me tell you a story about myself & enertion.

I am not the kinda guy who sits on his hands and does nothing… I promise you, I am not sitting at my desk counting my fortune either. In fact, in most cases there is no money in the bank. Because every single dollar that is generated from selling products has all gone back into R&D, building better products, buying larger quantities to get better deals & building a better business. It might surprise you but I don’t actually draw a wage from this business and I probably won’t anytime soon! There is too much more to achieve and money doesn’t make me happy anyway… Innovating, designing and building cool shit is what makes me happy,.

enertion is only about 20months old. The first year was really only focused on making motor mounts & learning as much as I could about the technology & the engineering… I also spent a lot of time blowing up other people electronics… learning from mistakes, mine & others, is what I excel at.

Here is the first ever board I built. It’s a piece of shit, But I learned a lot from it

This was the next evolution, it looked nice, but wasn’t good enough.

Now we are here, it looks great & performance is market leading, but some minor teething problems

So use your imagination, look at what I have achieved in 20 months… ask yourself what will be next?.

This progression has all happened because of my relentless hunger to build the best electric skateboard ever made, I am also extremely passionate about growing the “self-built eboard industry”… I now have a product that ‘on paper’ beats all/most of the competition. Yeah, First batch was not 100% perfect yet, some very minor problems & some very silly mistakes on my behalf have made the last week one of the toughest I’ve had in the last 20 months, it was gut wrenching… Do I know where I went wrong? YES!!

So do people really think I’m just going to hang up the gloves and let these teething problems be the end of my dream? No way! I am far from done in my pursuit to make the best eboard! If anything has come from this less than desirable Raptor launch, it is that good is not good enough… I need to do better… & I will. You are only as good as your harshest critic.

I also need to keep reminding myself that if this was easy everyone would have done it… Also, I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars from crowd-funding campaigns…

This image I posted on my Instagram account last year is a perfect example of what drives me… doing great things, being the underdog… I am certainly not finished. https://www.instagram.com/p/6zD_YNgWxJ/?taken-by=enertionboards

A summary of improvements to be made in the 2nd batch

  1. No pure CF lids as it block the signal. (all first batch customers will get a new lid at end of the month)
  2. Customize each VESC PPM settings, don’t copy them generically across each Raptor.
  3. Utilise the VESC Soft Voltage Limit so that the boards doesn’t shut down rapidly due to voltage sag when bat is low.
  4. Maybe reduce the motor current slightly so it is less wild on startup.
  5. Maybe reduce the brake strength so it is softer.
  6. Double Check that all the bolts are properly installed & the thread locker is set & secure.

These are all really easy things to implement, there is no extra cost or labour required.

Some near future improvements.

  1. Phone app for changing VESC settings without cable. Will have presets: beginner/advanced.
  2. IP68 rated electronics enclosure. Raptor will be entirely water proof.
  3. Battery option with 33% greater capacity.

anyway… i hope this solves your dilemma.

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Xusia !! you are a good man ! And I see that you’re very positive person and honestly I admire that ! and I’m happy that your issue with the board is almost solved!!! :slight_smile: but what about everybody else?

I know enertion will do something!!
but specifically what??? I think everybody Deserve to know what’s going to happen with the new batch of raptor??? So this is a special question for Mr. Enertion? Because hell yeah I want to ride a raptor ! but before buying one I want to make sure they wont be no surprise! Lol Is like when you bought your PS4 you were expecting to play call duty All the weekend not thinking if there is a piece of Harward missing inside the console !! I thing you all get the point :slight_smile:

so If i spend 1500$ on the raptor what i should expect from the next batch???

maybe you missed this, or i am misunderstanding your question

this is what happens before any more raptors gets sent.

A summary of improvements to be made in the 2nd batch

  1. No pure CF lids as it block the signal. (all first batch customers will get a new lid at end of the month)
  2. Customize each VESC PPM settings, don’t copy them generically across each Raptor.
  3. Utilise the VESC Soft Voltage Limit so that the boards doesn’t shut down rapidly due to voltage sag when bat is low.
  4. Maybe reduce the motor current slightly so it is less wild on startup.
  5. Maybe reduce the brake strength so it is softer.
  6. Double Check that all the bolts are properly installed & the thread locker is set & secure.
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I want to thank you for all the answers and I think is very impressive all that you achieve ! Honestly I wasn’t expecting that , but hey !! I will be probably your next customer who knows !! Now listen if you can make the raptor enjoyable like my evolve but with twice the speed !! Bro I promise, I will order 10 of them right now !! Thanks again for your time !! :wink:

Great informative post @onloop. I think it answers anyone’s questions about your plans for the 2nd batch and your brand in general.

Does this forum support polls? I don’t see a way to do it.

I’m curious what current owners think about the “maybes” (#4 & #5) from the list above. It would seem to me from @xusia’s latest video that motor current may be a non-issue. As well, I’ve not seen anyone terribly upset with the braking performance of the Raptor, or its remote. Do any current Raptor owners feel that #4 and/or #5 from the list should make it into the next batch of Raptors?

@Ermac-514 what would you like to see from Enertion that hasn’t already been committed to? Do you want a board that does 70 KM/h and is safe for kids? Honestly, I haven’t seen them ever saying “no,” or “we can’t” (or won’t) do that. Sometimes they say “give us time,” but never flat out “no.” So, what would you have them do? You’d make it a lot easier on them by saying exactly what you want. That way they could try to deliver on it. At least they’d know what you want, specifically.

I don’t think anyone who bought a Raptor in the first batch was concerned with letting children or novice e-Sk8 riders on their machines. Like was said, it’s not responsible to do so. Now, it seems that eventually there will be a phone app to potentially allow for responsible sharing of these high performance machines. That’s great! More features, I’m sure, will be welcomed.

to be honest, the raptor is already enjoyable… I have been riding one for 6 months already… the problem was I had never built 30 of them before… so stuff got missed… normally when I build a board I ride it, then I change settings if I don’t like it… the problem here was I didn’t ride any of these boards before shipping… I assumed that copying my settings across were correct… but i was wrong, each one needs to be tuned more than i expected…

anyway here is the video showcasing the product… honestly the raptor is a nice board to ride… You might also be interested to know that the guy in this video it was his first ever ride on a raptor the actual day of filming He had never ridden an electric skateboard before making this video.

This is only a suggestion . it would be a good thing to make few videos with different scenarios and settings so you can show to everybody step-by-step how you Tune the raptor properly but not the kind of video that you can barely see the screen ! I really mean step-by-step video like ((raptor for dummies )) lol and honestly that simple thing will give a lot of confidence to everyone and in the case somethings is wrong with the settings there’s no problem !! Because your tutorial is easy to follow so everybody can get back in track fast ! Also you could include the software for the pc in the box with the raptor .

I know we’ve been told to expect new lids for our Raptors, just curious for the meantime. I thought I’d add that my order number was 1343 and my S/N ends with 34 if that helps is establish a pattern. Has anyone been able to weigh their lids yet? If you don’t have a scale, maybe you can hit up your local post office or grocery store’s produce section… Ha Ha.

onloop has offed 2 paid hours of VESC customization for current Raptor owners. This is amazing and should provide more confidence than even the best made videos! It’s personalized “hand holding” for Raptor owners and their VESC / BLDC programing needs.

Considering that you can’t buy a Raptor, really, without Internet access it’s not truly necessary to provide the software in the box. That said, I have suggested a Raptor toolbox to include just that. The thread is here:

I’ve started a thread dedicated to Raptor VESC programing in the mean time. It’s my hope that this thread will become a kind of “Raptor for Dummies and Smarties” as people add there findings during their paid customization service and own trial and error. That thread is here:

Dude you are so blind smh… O well as long as your happy, that’s all that matters :smiley:

We get that someone shouldn’t have to change settings on their remote to ride at lower speeds, but at the same time, why does being a good sport about it make him blind…

I’m not a Raptor owner, but I honestly don’t see anything more Jason could have done to fix the problem- from the new lids, videos, constant replies, and 2 hours of VESC support, I think the situation has been handled quite well and he has made sure every knows that he backs his product.

I don’t blame you for being mad, but at the same time, he is doing everything in his power to fix the problems presented to him.

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Fully agree! Rather than sitting around with your poopy pants on why not just try to fix the issue. The amount of information and help that has been provided is TOP NOTCH. This is after all a DIY community.

Already tried…and it seems like everyone else is trying…oh yeah and i didnt purchase a diy setup, i purchased a ready to run setup. Don’t worry, i used to post on forums without reading the subject matter.

I dont think you do get it. Just to name one problem, Xusia’s video showed how he can go in low speed,. But not everyone realizes that he could not keep/maintain that slow speed. You can easily hear the motors ramping up, so that means he never held the board at a slow speed. Which means you would have you feather the throttle to keep a desired speed. Yes guys that means at high speeds as well. Maybe i just have high standards when it comes to throttle response, i guess safety isn’t everything. Ive driven Honda civics, semi trucks, motorcycles, and Ferrari’s, and yes they all have different throttle responses. But one thing remains the same, i am able to control what speed i want to go, and you can’t with this board!(guys its that simple). Your right Onloop is doing a great job, but listen there are terms and agreements for this Raptor that Onloop is simply not following.