I’m sure I’ve taken my board apart at least 25 times at this point due to stuff messing up or not being done correctly the first time. Help me feel better about myself. Lol, from solders disconnecting upon assembly to connectors coming unplugged, to vesc settings to who knows what. I’ve reassembled my board what feels like a million times. I feel like I know so much about if now. Like there is nothing I haven’t inspected, taken apart, setting I haven’t programmed, or component I haven’t rearranged. It seems as though I’d be able to pinpoint any issue at this point were one to come up.
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My first board where I bought a Space Cell Pro 4 I only had to take it apart maybe 10 times, but ended up doing a lot more to tweak stuff or adjust settings.
My second board where I built my own cell-fused battery I had to take apart probably 100 times due to various things failing or breaking. It’s finally in a good place now, but I have to replace the BMS as my current one doesn’t do balancing.
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I’ve gone back and forth about the bms thing or an actual push button for power. But all the other trouble I’ve dealt with, I think I’m going to keep charging the hard way for a while and pulling out the XT90-S lol. I’d love the convenience though
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.
@Sapphirinia Im guessiing you feel better now! Haha
Ps. I have the hubs you are using too. The allen screws on the side plate go all the way through the wheel and thread into the plate on the back with only like 4 threads. I lost two screws on the first ride haha. LOCTITE for the win!
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My first board spent the first month torn apart on my work bench. I would ride for an hour or so and then find something wrong. It can be a pretty steep learning curve, no worries though :).
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I have taken my DIY off…about 20 times.
1 to 6 - I drilled mounting holes in my carbon fiber deck at an angle (with the concave of the deck instead of straight down) which caused stress in the plastic enclosure hole (eventually started cracking) I took it apart multiple times to add longer screws and multiple nuts to offset the spacing needed.
7 to 10 - I had part of the housing too tight which cause the Spacecell Pro 4 case to squeeze the mode button on the BMS so I added pieces of PVC to prevent it, tested that a few times.
11 to 15 - VESC settings back and forth to prevent killing myself as I did something wrong where the motor would brake when the remote looses connection. Scary that I didn’t test that before riding a few miles. after opening it up this many times I added an extended USB port to be accessible outside.
16 to 17 - Swapping from Winning remote to Mini Remote, this was needed as the Winning remote hit numerous dead spots within my usual route.
18 to 20 Took the whole thing apart and sold the parts. Had @barajabali re-purpose the slightly cracked SpaceCell Pro 4 and repacked it to fit a Raptor 1 deck for my next build. So when the V3 comes in, I will start opening it again and again.
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I spent a ton of time planning and testing all my components, so everything “worked” when I finally sealed it up the first time. But I’ve had mine open definitely more than 10 times since then, tweaking VESCs, cheacking for leaks after a wet ride, redoing the enclosure seal, redoing motor wire management etc. Don’t feel bad, it’s part of the fun!
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My first boards are long gone, but I can tell you they spent more time on the bench than under foot. They were always changing.
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started a year and a half ago and still taking it(them) apart, just easier to put them back together now.
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Yes, I feel much better now lol. I’ve had about 5 explosions so far due to being dumb with the batteries. One time I was just walking down the stairs with the disassembled board in my hand and the battery leads managed to short on my metal button on my jeans… And I ordered a helmet and some gear today. I can wait to do my stress test to test range and such.
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Yea, definitely makes it easier and faster to take them apart
So many times that I started stripping bolts. Finally bought a proper set of torx drivers, but only after dremeling countless bolts into slot screws and bringing out Big Bertha.
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love this thread, I have 3 boards in pieces now - waiting for new belts for 2 of them, one is minus a battery as it’s been stolen for another build. have 2 blank boards ready for parts. Oh man I have a problem. Demolished the first spacecell I bought as I didn’t like the enclosure, have had solder joints break free due to vibration, had a “oh fuck, I swore I put loctite on that !” moment. Have ubered home numerous occasions explaining the whole DIY process and how I’ll get it right in the end @BigBoyToys love number 7 on the things learnt the hard way list. Great write up.
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Earlier today I blew 2 VESCs because I soldered a connector on the wrong way without realizing… This thread has made me feel much, much better. 
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Vibration damping with something like neopren sheets and hot glue. Lot´s of hot glue! You can´t have enough hot glue!
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I plugged my loop key into the charging port twice while I was assembling my build… TWICE. Also while riding yesterday I wasn’t paying attention and went over a railroad track at 15 mph… Needless to say, the board stopped and I didn’t.
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This is why you have different ports for each. Also my 97mm wheels eat up rail tracks 
I have 97 mm wheels…
Trust me… They don’t
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i go over them all the time, the trick is to not go at them in a 90 degree angle