First build... Let's try this | Parts I got and why

I created a thread previously on my plans, listing parts and plans to order. I’ve done a LOOOOT of research since, and refined my parts list managing to achieve just what will suit my needs best at a cheaper price! The estimated price before was $1,616, I pulled that down to a total of $1,375 and managed to add the capability to swap between street and all terrain tires :sunglasses: (Price even includes shipping costs!)

Here’s the parts I settled on:

Deck - Bustin Mission 40" https://bustinboards.com/products/factory-store-mission-40-nomad-purp-deck Sadly this deck seems to have been discontinued, I lucked out and snagged it on sale. I chose this because I like the length and flex, as well as the shape with the drop through. It grabbed my attention while searching, and I want a somewhat shock absorbing deck for the rough Minnesota roads this sucker will be cruising.

Trucks - Evolve Super Carve https://evolveskateboardsusa.com/collections/gt-bamboo-parts/products/gt-truck-assembly https://evolveskateboardsusa.com/collections/gt-bamboo-parts/products/truck-assembly-rear-gt I’ve always admired the look of Evolve’s boards, but between the 2K price tag and issues with remotes I hear about I decided I’d be better off with building my own. However, that didn’t stop me from bringing the trucks I always envied to my own build :wink: The rear truck conveniently has built in mounts for motor brackets, a thicker axle section for a pulley bearing, and both trucks are wide enough to accommodate Evolve’s 7" AT Pneumatic tires conversion kit. Probably not the most stable at speeds upwards of 30mph, but very agile and carve-y.

Motor Pulleys - Eskating custom HTD pulley (set of 2) https://eskating.eu/product/custom-htd-5m-12-to-20-teeth-steel-motor-pulley-in-91215-width-2x/ I customized pulleys that would have the room for 15mm belts but not overhang and prevent AT tires from spinning freely. I ordered 15T with an 8mm bore and no overhang as well as 2 inline set screws.

Motors - @torqueboards 6355 190KV 2500W sensored products/electric-skateboard-motor-6355-190kv?variant=712504606743 Finding a good motor that was protected from the elements and sensored for a good price is pretty much impossible. I settled on the slightly more exposed than I wanted TorqueBoards 6355’s. The durability and capability for that price point is what sold me, along with the very fast customer service responses. I’m excited to try them out!

VESC’s - @torqueboards ESC (non copyright infringing labeled VESC running motor controller) products/torque-esc-vesc-bldc-electronic-speed-controller?variant=722351915031 I originally want to run FOCBoxes, but I really don’t have the money to spend for $200 ESC’s… I just want something that runs VESC software and has FOC. This meets a good price point, seems to be proven reliable, works well with it’s matching branded motor, has a slightly smaller form factor, and has all the power I’ll really need. Two of these for a dual drive with a Y harness servo connector should be more than capable of getting me up any hill MN can throw at me :sunglasses:

Motor Mounts - UNIK Core series street/AT 63xx Evolve motor mount https://www.unikboards.com/en/boutique/core-serie-support-moteur-pour-truck-evolve-supercarve-street-et-at/ Unfortunately Evolve’s standard motor mounts were designed to hold some smaller (wimpier) motors than I wanted for this build, so I bought mounts that would fit the Evolve mounting system and hold my 6355 motors, with enough space to allow the swap between street and AT tires.

Remote - Mini 2.4ghz trigger remote

I opted for this vs all the smaller bluetooth thumb remotes due to complaints about signal dropouts and cheap quality. I wasn’t willing to spend $60 on a nicer one when I could pick this sucker up for 20 bucks. I’ll be removing the wheel to make it a little smaller, but hoping I won’t have any signal or binding issues with this!

Street tires - ABEC 11 83mm 75a flywheels https://evolveskateboardsusa.com/collections/wheels/products/abec-11-flywheels I wanted to get the 107mm or 97mm flywheels, but they were expeeeeeeeeensive. These wheels are a little smaller but still share the same convenient hollow core, soft rebounding urethane, and are a pretty decent sized longboard tire. Evolve had them on sale, and they had pretty well priced pulleys for them, so I decided why the heck not.

Wheel pulleys - Evolve 32T ABEC 11

Evolve had like everything I needed, not terribly priced, so I figured I’d get all the stuff that was proven compatible! Came with their own bearings too which was nice, just slotted right into the wheel core. No drama. These will give me pretty decent torque and a good top speed, 15/32T giving me a 2.13 gear ratio.

Bearings - Yellow Jacket skate bearings https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071D5KL2X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1GC2QO1E46AY3&th=1 Decently priced, came with spacers and washers, had pretty good reviews. Shipped pretty quick too.

Street belts - HTD 5M 265mm x 15mm

Fits my pulleys, fairly cheap, slow shipping but oh well.

Battery cells - Samsung 30q 18650

I decided on this cell because it was well priced compared to some of the other ones out there, and lots of people suggested using them. I went with these vs 20700’s due to pricing and size. I plan to build a 10s4p that will be mounted at the front of the board behind the trucks in an enclosure resembling something like the Boosted board’s battery with the other electronics in a separate enclosure next to the drive wheels. I planned on buying a premade battery in my original post, but I found a way to assemble a simple spot welder and found it muuuuch cheaper to build my own. So I’m gonna give it a go! (I also ordered some 8mm pure nickel strip to use for the connections between cells)

BMS - 10s BMS with balance feature https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073J1MG7B/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=A74ML93UP6MZS&psc=1 I picked up a 10s BMS off Amazon to manage my packs voltages when charging my board, as the plan is for the board to manage itself and me only have to plug a charger in to fuel it up. (This will be discharge bypassed as it DEFINITELY is not rated for the amps those motors will be pulling)

Charger/Charging port - 5A 42v (for 36v batteries) Lithium battery charger https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BJH8SFT/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=A1T610W9KVCSEX&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072HK1DY4/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=ABK5NCUPQ578S&psc=1 Should be a decently quick charger, with a charger port that can handle the amps and has a convenient dust cover! Everywhere I looked I saw 2 amp chargers… that seemed very slow to me. A battery with a total of 120,000 mAh should in theory be able to take a 1C charge, which would end up being like 120 amps… so I’m pretty sure it’ll be able to handle 3 more amps lol. (If you know this info to be incorrect, please correct and advise me!)

Power On/Off - Anti Spark XT90-S loop key, upgradeable to Vedder Anti-Spark switch (when in stock…) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074PTHZ3M/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A1JGQIWP459RKC&psc=1 Capable of up to 90 amps before getting hot, this should do the trick until I can get my hands on a real fancy switch. Also being used to connect all electrical components together.

Enclosure - Kydex heat form-able material https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XRAKXI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?smid=A1FWWCVO9POVQF&psc=1 Premade enclosure’s either aren’t the size I want, or are too spendy for me. I decided I’d just use my oven and heat gun to form my own custom enclosures over some wood pieces that I can cut to my liking. Gives some flex, and I can change it as I please. Also very affordable! I’m going for a Boosted board sort of look, with some slight inspiration from Evolve. I won’t have quite the ground clearance the Boosted has, so I gotta work some magic there. I’ll be figuring that out pretty soon. I’m considering running wires between the separate enclosures up through the deck and under the griptape through a routed slot on the deck that I could make, not sure if a small slot like that would compromise deck integrity though.

Battery Indicator - Percentage and battery level backlit indicator https://www.ebay.com/itm/172143986261 Capable of 36v, percentage and battery level indication, cheap. That’s about it :+1:

All Terrain - Evolve AT conversion kit/AT HTD 375mm x 15mm belts

The Evolve comes with literally everything needed to switch to All Terrain tires, minus their ridiculously pricy belts. So I found some of those on Ebay for much cheaper :+1:

I’m still waiting to order a few final parts, but the first shipments have started arriving and this is what it’s looking like! (Sorry for the mess in the background)

If you have any questions or input/advice please let me know! I love hearing from others on this, I’ve learned lots but there’s always more to learn :slight_smile:

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Love the thought that you’re putting into your first build.

For the VESCs, I’d reconsider getting the TB VESCs if running FOC is important to you. There’s a number of threads around here with people having issues and burning their TB VESCs running FOC. I’m sure there’s some people who are having success, but if you’re on a budget it might be safer to just plan not to run FOC on your TB VESCs so don’t risk needing to replace them.

Good luck!

If VESC runs as well as advertised unsensored, I won’t even turn it on! It’s something I’m gonna play with a little, we’ll see what happens. I appreciate the advice!

Does that VESC have a spot to plug in the motor’s sensor wire? Or is it just for running unsensored?

They have a motor sensor port! They’ll do sensored, but it’s not recommended to use FOC on higher voltage setups, I talked to TorqueBoard directly about that. They do however do a great job even in sensorless mode from what I can tell.

Looking good, can’t wait to see this build finished. A few thoughts:

Looking at the deck shape, you might need to shave off the tail a bit, the motors sit at the back and the deck might touch the motors during hard carving. I had the same issue on my build with a 38” DB Freeride deck, and mine seems to be shorter at the ends so I’m pretty sure you’ll have to shave the deck a bit. The v2 motor mounts from UniK are slightly longer than v1 but u might still need to shave the wood a few mm.

Second thing is that split enclosure design… I don’t think it will give you enough clearance, specially on 83mm wheels. I have a single stack 10s4p in a 25mm height enclosure (plus 3mm gasket) and the clearance on 97s was a bit low. Usable but still low. Putting 107s helped a lot (obviously on ATs is not an issue). Your design looks like it will use a double layer battery so the enclosure will be even closer to the ground. This and drop through plus double stack battery and 83mm wheels will give you very little clearance…

People might say the bms is cheap (it is) but I use the same (discharge only) and never had an issue, battery pack is always balanced. I have a bestech small bms but didn’t bother changing to that since this little white one seems to do the work just fine (never tried more than 2A charging, I have a 4A charger but didn’t use it so far).

@egzplicit Thanks for the input! The tail may need to be shaved, yes. I was thinking the same thing, and I’m ok with that. Nothing a saw and a sander can’t fix! As for the enclosure, I’ve got about 4.5 inches of ground clearance from the ground to the bottom of the deck. Boosted is measured in at 5, with their battery sitting about 1.8-2.1 inches beneath the deck. Ground clearance currently is my biggest concern, my battery and enclosure mathematically could be about 1.5 inches thick giving me about the same ground clearance, but that’s just theoretical. I’m trying to create a clean look while maintaining flexibility of the deck, but I’m kinda stumping myself on how to do it. I thought about making two separate batteries and swapping them so I could have a shorter enclosure, what are your thoughts on that? I could get a second BMS and then even theoretically be able to charge one battery while riding the board… That’d be cool. The BMS, I slightly misunderstood what you were saying, do you mean this one will do the job, or that I should get a different one?

great one man - your mounts should be on their way to your door ! love the diversity here.

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Thanks!! I’m super pumped and really excited :star_struck: