My First Skateboard Build

Some of you may have seen my intro yesterday. I’ve been doing some research and found what I believe to be my initial parts list, and I wanted all of your opinions on it.

Motors, Motor Mounts, Belts, Motor and Wheel Pulley, Trucks, and Wheels:

Alternate Wheels:

  • Orangatang Kegel

Bearings:

  • Bones Swiss Ceramic Bearings (by far the more expensive, but least friction and longest life)
  • Bones Super Swiss
  • Bones Reds / Bones Super Reds (cheap and cost effective)
  • Bones Super Reds Ceramic

Boards:

Batteries:

ESC and Controller:

Enclosure:

This is what I’ve got so far. Just a quick side question: How trustworthy is DiyeBoard? I appear to be getting a lot of parts form there, and I’ve seen some online postings where people where scammed.

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Is there any way you could meet up with someone locally and test ride theirs? I’m thinking you may or may not like the hard feel of urethane wheels. Pneumatic tires and tubes might be the way to go depending on how the roads are in your area. Just a thought.

You mean hub wheels instead of belt?

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I mean mountainboard wheels with 8 or 9 inch tubes and tires.

Just an example and these seem awfully cheap so I’m not recommending these specifically:

And their are the airless variety but I havent read any user experiences for those. But I did notice that mounting them involves a pan and some hot water, at least for the example I saw.

Idk how I feel about the air tires, so i was thinking about getting riser pads

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From the list of parts and inexperience I would spend 500 bucks on a prebuilt off-road board and get your feet wet.

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That is what i was initially planning to do, and I was going to go with a SkateBolt. However I enjoy building these sorts of things, and my friend told me it would be both cheaper for the quality I build it and more reliable than a prebuilt.

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Not your friend.

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So it’s better just to get a prebuilt then is what you’re saying?

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Yes, just to get familiar with it. Like someone else mentioned finding a “broken” board. 9/10 times they aren’t broken beyond feasible repair and you learn a lot.

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I’m not trying to discourage you from going full on diy. But I am.

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Don’t buy from them… pretty bad stuff. Also don’t buy an amazon pack - or any prebuilt pack. It’s best to have a builder make a safe one specifically for esk8.

Just get a meepo or save for an exway.

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Or not. Haha

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My only worry is that with a prebuilt is that

  1. It’s going to wear fast or some with some issue and because
  2. I didn’t build it or have as extensive knowledge as I would if I built it, if something break I’m not going to know what to do
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Lol. You’ll learn or you won’t. Good luck man🤙

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Ty. Now i don’t know what to do, whether to build or not :laughing: LOL

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If you want to build something that will last longer and outperforms than those prebuilts, you will need like $1000+

They sell for cheaper than DIY’s because they make them in bulk and have the process well refined.

FYI, some decent parts will run you:

  • Deck: $50-100
  • Enclosure $100
  • ESC: $200
  • Remote: $50
  • Battery: $400
  • Motors $200
  • Trucks: $60
  • Mounts: $60
  • Pulleys and belts (Wheel and motor): $70
  • Wheels $80

That’s $1325, and that is being conservative (relatively small battery, small motors, urethane wheels) Don’t forget to add maybe $150 for random bits you will need like tools, fasteners, connectors, wire, threadlocker, etc.

You will want to avoid brands like Flipsky(except for battle hardened motors and remotes), DIYEBoard, and stick to companies like Torqueboards, Boardnamics, BuildKitBoards (The Xenith ESC is pretty good).

If you want the simplicity of knowing your parts will work well together, and also the experience in DIYing a board, I would recommend you go with a kit from BuildKitBoards

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Most people that cheap out on first builds end up spending more in the end after they have to replace every crappy part. It happened to me when I started and happened to many many other people.

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That happened to me when I built my first PC, and i had huge bottlenecking. So its probably better then that I go for a prebuilt so that i not only get comfortable with e boards, but also don’t regret building a bad board?

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I’m between SkateBolt Pro A, Skatebolt Tornado II, and Meepo V3

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