What are some mistakes you made in your first build that I should avoid? Thanks in advance!
Expecting everything to work the first time. Whatever your budget is, chances are you’ll go over it.
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Buying cheap, you end up buying twice
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Make sure the parts you buy really do fit together well.
Particularly important and a great source of frustration for me were motor mounts, motors and pulleys.
Does the pulley and belt fit together well and all the motor to turn properly? I bought a motor mount kit for $400 @torqueboards and the 450 belt just wouldn’t fit between the 72T large pulley and motor pulley. I tried every means possible and the motor shaft would rub against the edge of the mounting plate. In the end, I had to order a larger belt 470mm which was too loose…lol. Returned those and then ordered another set of 460mm belt. I had to also drill a hole for a tensioner because this belting solution wasn’t just perfect.
Your motors, are they 8mm shaft or 10mm shaft? 8mm is what works with many motor mount kits out there using HTD 5m pitch motor pulleys. You can get 10mm shaft pulleys but they are special order or get them from China/Ebay. The conundrum is that many vendors here are sourcing parts from Alibaba, Bang good or other places in China where they get those 6374 or 6355 motors which are RC motors for cars. They usually have a 10 mm shaft. Get the wrong size shaft… and you got motors sitting around or have to order special pulleys. This was the most painful.
Do your motors fit with your motor mount? 63mm or 50mm. How about the shaft length, key size if there is one. Again more motors sitting around the house…lol. I bought @Nowind direct drive and ordered 6374 motors and the shaft was too long to fit on one side and the motor to long to fit an Urban Carver truck. Not his fault, I was warned, but the motors he recommended were out of stock so I tried to just pick another guessing it would work. This can be avoiding by measuring before ordering.
These were the most expensive lessons I faced. Everything else is pretty OK… the VESC/ESC’s, batteries, etc… they are highly flexible believe it or not.
But the motors and transmissions… be very, very careful about fit.
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Don’t buy bad wheels. Genuine wheels are worlds better than clones and improve your overall riding experience. Go conservative with your vesc settings out the gate and trim up carefully.
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@Nix get a real enclosure and not just a tupperware box or a repurposed case. Better to spend $50-$70 and get it right the first time.
Also, get a deck that you love. I see so many people building an esk8 with a cheap deck. The deck is the heart of your build. Disclosure: I make and sell decks 
Don’t “finish” the build and go nuts doing speed runs on your first day. The first few times you take your DIYESK8 out, treat it like an experiment that might fail at any time. A lot can go wrong, and you want to identify those problems at 10MPH not 25 MPH.!
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Get proper bullet connectors. With my motor I had some cheap stock 3.5mm bullets and if you don’t pay attention to them they might get loosen a little bit and cause big short. My first 3.5mm bullet literally exploded
Now I use only 5mm bullets and they hold strong.
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Set your voltage cut off properly around 3.4volts so that you dont damage your lipos
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Tons of good advice in here. Mine would be take your time, and be patient. It’s super easy to get really exited and overlook something or break something when you’re first putting your build together because of the anticipation.
You’ve been waiting for parts for months and now everything is finally here and BY GOD THIS THING WILL BE RUNNING IN THE NEXT HOUR OR GRANNYS GETTING THROWN OFF THE ROOF.
Chill out, relax, if you run into a snag leave it till tomorrow or ask for some advice instead of pushing forward at the potential cost of breaking something.
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triple check EVERYTHING.
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Don’t decide to start your build at the start of summer.Only to watch the warm days whittle away while you anxiously await for all your parts to arrive. I’m a patient man, but that virtue has never been tested so hard as these last few months…
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Someone probably already mentioned this, but you will probably spend about double or more over your budget all in, my budget was about $400… $900 later I have a working board
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LOL’ed at that. I ride less in summer because it get hot under a helmet. I’m looking forward to autumn and winter here in Southern California.
My mistake was not drilling at a slight angle to compensate from the deck’s concave. It caused excessive stress on my enclosure and cracked near the holes. Next mistake was screwing in ALL eight screws of the enclosure again, and again, and again and again when I had to fix or adjust things. my recommendation, add and external USB port if you have the room.
Wow this is alot of shipping pain and expensive mistakes! Thanks!
My biggest mistake was to start building eskate…
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i’m gonna disagree. for me it’s not having started sooner. or having my online banking limit set too high. or both.
apart from that: -going down the lipo route -cheap electrical tape -not getting a proper enclosure -not wearing any protective gear because i just wanted to test a new feature for a few minutes… actually i didn’t want to go quick but ended up doing 25mph.
Going down the lipo route? If you do it right? Whats wrong with that?
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What sort of external usb ports did you add?
theres a topic about adding one to charge you phone
just a mini usb extension from the vesc. I think I opened the thing up 20 times before I was happy with the settings.
https://www.amazon.com/YCS-Basics-Female-Right-Extension/dp/B00IFG9FDO
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