I street test all my builds. If this kind of shit happens it happens to me first and not the customer. I have the scars to prove it.
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well thatās horrible. you can beat me for this, but I think this DIY stuff is just too dangerous. When you have a factory board, at least they gone through alot of testing and you get reviews from other users by time. I mean I do understand there is a certain narcissistic sensation in these custom builds but is it worth putting your life on the line?
Ever hear of āface plantā and the boosted and Yuneec BT board hacks? There was malicious BT setups that could either completely take over (and hit full brakes or full throttle), or simply overwhelm the BT signal at will. And i know boosted patched - but while canāt take over, nothing stopping someone from overwhelming/saturating BT to kill your connection.
Itās not DIY vs Factory - skateboarding and esk8 is dangerous. Wear gear, ride within your skills, pick the best setup you can and be cautious.
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Prebuilt boards donāt have anything that we canāt build and do better. True theyāre generally more reliable but they are using often the same electronics as us. Maybe you didnāt know. The vesc. 2.4 or Bluetooth. Nothing especially safe in their stuff. I think it comes down to more shrink wrap and duct tape honestly and making sure connections are solidly done
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factory boards donāt test every single unit prior to shipping. When you buy a factory board its fresh and clean and just assembled. Its never even seen the street. Maybe they have tested a reference model for hundreds of hours, and maybe they have tested the individual components and have done the math to calculate a tolerable rate of failure vs the profits they can make and the amount of insurance they can afford. So when they do fail, its a systemic failure and they affect hundreds of people.
I canāt afford any of that shit happening or iāl be ruined. So i ride them myself first. If i tear up my ass and palms then its time to tweak something or find a new part vendor or whatever it takes.
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I love this, not the fact your getting hurt cause that sucks. But the fact that you thoroughly test them to make sure they are working to a high level standard. I feel this is very important for the seller and buyer.
I wonder if us as the community could come up with a formula that works 100%. So you just buy the pieces, set them up and go. They would have to be very specific pieces but i think this could be one step closer to getting a reliable board. This would mean that it would take the freedom out of making your own specific board. But maybe a formula for new people who are looking to make this a hobby, we could make a starter board for them to build and learn about the parts and how they work and the dangers and safety of eboards and once they have that one built, they can use aspects of this formula to build there own custom one.
Just an idea
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Maybe logs everyoneās builds that have failed on a spreadsheet and from there we can see whatās happening and what is the common problem
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The most persistent issue iāve had so far is with boxes, believe it or not. My old boxes would tear at the bolt holes after a while of heavy usage. I never noticed this in my own boards, but it was brought to my attention yesterday by my son who apparently doesnāt miss anything at all ever that now my own Scarlet has worn-through bolt holes on a few of the bolt locations which have shown up since he started riding it everywhere every day. He says i baby my boards. Maybe I do, maybe thatās why they didnāt show up for me until they were in the customers hands. He likes to keep me honest about it too, since he posted it to instagram to tell me about it. LOL
I have already started outsourcing my FG boxes and the new ones are way tougher, but on occasion they have air bubbles in them that can eventually present cosmetic flaws as the surface cracks away over the bubble. As the evolution continues iāll likely move to another manufacturer who will do a vac bagging process using kevlar or something equally better than FG or maybe even send a deck off to have some cad work done and do injection molded boxes that conform to my deckās profile.
One thing i wonāt likely do however is move to smaller boxes, i want people to be able to add whatever crap they want to in there and have plenty of room for it. If my cell packs die and they want to fill it with LiPos or even double the 18650 count with thier own home-made packs they should be able to do it. They should also be able to add BECs and lights and blutooth trancivers for the VESCs and anything else they can imagine.
All of this is just an example of somethig iāve had to work through.
Other things iāve had to work through: Bad eswitches, bad BMSs, bad volt meters/fuel gauges, fried VESCs, bad remote receivers, bad remotesā¦ oh and one charger literally caught fire. I decided to keep it instead of RMAing it so that i can try to determine what actually happened, but i suspect it was a failed 110v/220v auto-switch thingy.
The worst thing iāve dealt with personally that wasnāt reported by a customer was me repeatedly being thrown from a board while using a winning remote. My hands are still healing. You have to go through the pairing process on those precisely or the fail safes wonāt work and if it loses signal it will lock up the wheels. I donāt understand it, but thatās what happens. Iāve never ever had that happen with a steeze or GT2B or any other remote iāve tried. If the winning is binded correctly though its fine.
Another issue iāve learned about is with the steezes. They all seem to come defaulted to channel 1 (or maybe its 2). Iāve since started rotating the channels with each new build so that theyāre all spread across the channel range. My son and I were out simultaneously testing a raptor repair and a new build i was doing and we found ourselves controlling each otherās boards. It was a weird, intermittent behavior that didnāt seem like interference at first, we didnāt really have to be very close for it to happen since the range on those guys is like 30 feet or something similar to a playstation controller, and it didnāt always behave the same way, but it did present serious issues. That could be catastrophic if two friends decided to both buy boards from me so they can ride together.
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Damn. I donāt know why Iām not suprised.
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To clarify, we found ourselves intermittantly interfereing with each others boards in a way that was seriously inconvenient but potentially dangerous.
For example, we were cruising >30 feet apart and everything was fine, but he would approach me from behind and i would slow a little to let him pass. As he was approaching my board would start to act like it had bad gasoline. Thatās really the only way to describe the symptom. It was sputtering. then when he applied the brakes, the sputter got worse and graduated to a stutter with minor lurching.
We re-paired our rides and remotes, first nearby each other, then well over 100 feet apart. The problem didnāt go away until i realized they were on the same channel and i bumped mine up a channel. Then the problem went away completely and we were cruising side by side at fun speed with no issue at all.
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I feel that poor tx/rx (and physical disconnects of Rx to ESC from vibrations or similar) communication and disconnects is the most dangerous part of esk8. Since behavior varies from brakes, to acceleration, to (if youāre lucky) just free-wheeling! Iāve experienced one āblipā on my Marbel where the remote lost connection for about 1/4 second - which equaled me trying to ārun it outā around 16-18mph (unsuccessfully, but slowed to a good tumble and unhurt besides a small skinned elbow), and multiple disconnects on a Kama/Wiiceiver. In a stretch along a ton of apartments w/ lots of wifi interference.
I plan to replace the kama w/ another thumb throttle option - hopefully the baby buffalo is small enough to fit her hands (her preference vs trigger), and at her slow speeds (no joke around 8mph tops) itās never been a problem. But itās luckily just a pause and then going again, not brakes or acceleration.
@longhairedboy - that steeze remote channel issue is terrifying. Bad enough to have interference, but to inadvertently control another board on a set channel is frightening. As more people ride and meetups w/ other esk8 folks - how many channels are there to avoid stepping on eachother?
On safety gear note, i got a new pair of riding gloves w/ pucks. No iām not sliding, but if i do eat it riding, i consistently land palm down and usually roll (somewhat wellā¦), so while my wrist guards are great - they are a bit more of a PITA (need to remove my watchā¦ hot and sweaty partially up my forearm, etc.) Vs gloves - still hot, but easier to put on and protects my palmās impact point (admittedly also less impact absorption on the wrist itself). Holesom (super great company!! Talked w/ guy to check sizing of gloves and they sent a hand written thank you note and extra stickers - just good customer service) - got their ācordsā glove.
it is terrifying. Its enough to make me question everything iām trying to do here. Iām not 100% how many channels the steeze has. Iām going to try and track down some documentation on it or at least ask Maytech to send me everything they have.
Jason posted this back in february, but i didnāt see it until i started googling shit last week:
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Wondering why you donāt use Gt2B with modified enclosures? from what Iāve been reading they are supposedly the most reliable remote/receivers.
The reason I donāt is because I prefer thumb controls over trigger.
Maybe there is a way to turn GT2b from trigger to thumb scroller, I think it could be the next evolution of the gt2b
Maybe! Thatād be interesting to see. Iām happy with my current thumb controller though.
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So, i did some investigating today (havenāt touched the board since the accident) and i found no loose cables. So i went ahead and started testing all fail options while on full throttle, remote cuts out (turning it off) and wire comes off (yanking it). If the remote cuts off, the receiver keeps the last throttle for about 5 seconds and then goes to failsafe throttle, in my case coasting (probably what happened to me, i just bailed before); Now if the cable come off, thats a nasty one, the ESC goes into brake mode , not sure what % of braking it is, i just know the motor stops instantly (didnt try this with me on the board for obvious reasons).
Seems to be a problem of your ESC: in a RC car this behavior would make sense. But not on a longboard. Seems that the SW of the ESC was made for RC cars.
I had a similar accident caused by a failure where the board just suddenly stopped and I was ejected. I was wearing my full motorcycle leathers with full face helmet and still hurt fairly badly (I had internal injuries).
I think the issue here is far more than just wearing protection (which you should obviously do) - itās a drive train problem. So long as a failure can result in the drive train locking up, thereby stopping the board and ejecting the rider, protection may not be enough.
Rather, I think the answer is to outfit the drive train with a back-torque limiting system (in the motorcycling world, this is called a slipper clutch). This would eliminate regenerative braking (and reverse, if you set it up that way), but allow the drive train to continue to ācoastā even if the motor locks up. Having suffered injuries already, Iād happily trade regenerative braking for this added safety.
Iāve thought up a couple designs that integrate a back-torque limiting system into the wheel pulley, but I lack the skills to finish the design or make the part. Iād be happy to share my thoughts with anyone who will serious consider making them - Iād be the first to put one on my board! 
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