How much money did you burn up in parts?

I think I’m only up to some dislocated bearings and a dead ESC…but still haven’t finished a board so the ratio of boards to broken parts is kinda bad

  • 1 x 4.12 VESC (fried beyond repair)
  • 2 x VESC-X (Repaired by the wizard)
  • $500 battery was a dud form you know who, (recouped $300)
  • cracked the old spacecell enclosure over tightening at an angle too

Since your mentioned Backfire. I just got a new replacement of the Ranger X1 from them. Customer service was pretty awesome. I wasn’t getting advertised speed or range, not that I expected to, but it was way too low compared to other around the same weight. After a few videos proving my issues, they sent me a new board, took three days, even let me keep the extra charger (probably cost them $2).

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I’ve broken: A motor pulley $15 A tacon 160 $65 (burnt windings) 3s 5000mAh (really puffy so I got rid of it cuz I didn’t want a fire) $35 A Bluetooth module $15 A voltmeter $20 A vesc $100 (but I got it repaired for $45) So $150 + $45 to repair the broken vesc

My broken parts list:

  • VESC 4.x DRV fault (shorted something probing around while things were powered) $90
  • Long board deck (crashed into wall, DIY remote issues… bug has been patched) about $50 loss
  • Couple of belts, just under tensioned stripped teeth from belt when braking hard probably $20
  • Turnigy Multistar Batteries, over-discharged cell, had to ditch whole pack, decided to go down from 12S to 10S, still using LiPo packs though, loss was about $90
  • Burned up some NRF24 chips making my own remote (learning they don’t like 5V for very long) $10
  • Probably lost a year or so off my life when I vaporized a 18 gauge wire by shorting it on a high discharge battery while plugging into charger… don’t use those split cables for charging things can go bad

Total: $260 in parts sent to esk8 heaven


Edit I think I blew another VESC but I gave it to someone to get fixed and forget how it died but guess that’s another $90 if you’re really looking at sunk costs.

repaired my 4.x vescs maybe 10 times. so 10 DRV ics? killed one or two cells 18650, but thats it.

  1. what happened

  2. did you also have to pay for damages to the hotel room? :open_mouth:

Battery overcharged during charging.

Luckily I got the board onto the pool deck before it burst into flames. Didnt have to pay any damages, only an hour of work for clean up.

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That’s crazy! I assume that the battery caught fire. I hope the hotel didn’t charge you for the damage.

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:thinking::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

$8000 on 6 builds and still adding up

Nope. The crazy thing is that, it was a 15ah pack that I was charging with a 2a charger. I had been charging it all day and decided at the last minute I wasn’t going to go to dinner with my parents. 5 minutes after they left it sparted hissing and puffed about an inch. 3 minutes later there were flames shooting 3 feet in every direction.

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Couple grand

1200 and I was going for something cheap XD

I honestly dread to add up how much I’ve spent. I always buy this random little crap like screws and wires that I may or may not need. I’d say that its at least $2000AUD with almost a quarter of that being shipping. I also don’t even wanna think of all the beer I’ve gone through on those long nights trying to fix the dumbest shit

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Ive spent over 2k and broke my ego along the way.

Around $650 in parts and I’m not even done my first custom yet.

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I’ve been messing around for a year. I’m running my same two focboxes. Same battery. Same wheel pulleys. Same mounts. Same enclosure. Antispark died, just replaced with a loop key.

I haven’t burnt through anything really, motors are holding up great. Bearings holding up great. Belts tend to last forever.

I did replace my grip tape recently.

I’ve really only added, never really had to replace so far, outside the occasional consumable like that one pulley.

Am I in the minority here? It seems like it… If something broke, I’d break my ass trying to figure out a cheap way to fix it before trashing it, I don’t think I can justify dumping endless amounts of $$ into this if things were to break that easy. Thankfully I haven’t had to beyond the initial investment.

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I mostly just messed up my motor on my first DIY but wasn’t too costly to replace. Vesc’s generally fare pretty well for me too, battery issues are my constant demon.

Would it be dumb to go all out on nice parts on a first board?

no. i mean get nice parts, but u run the risk of fudging everything up.