New Builder: Evolve Bamboo GT Upgrades

Hey, everybody. This is my first time posting here, although I’ve browsed and lurked for a few months now. I’ve had my Evolve Bamboo GT since November 2017 and use it to commute every day - I’ve probably put 800-1,000 miles on it. While I like it, there are quite a few glaring problems I want to address. Most importantly, the remote connection issues are completely absurd and get worse by the week - I simply don’t trust Evolve products at this point. In order to use a different remote, I know I have to replace the majority of the internals.

I’m going to keep the stock Evolve Deck, Enclosure, Trucks, and Motor Mounts. I’ve already replaced the motors with 2 RacerStar 140kv, which might get upgraded in the future. I’ve looked around a lot for similar projects to mine, but I usually just find a bunch of battery upgrade posts. I fully intend on documenting and posting my build process once I’ve completed it. I have a few questions related to key electrical components and how I can reuse certain Evolve parts with them, since for everything else I could browse the many board build guides available on this forum.

Battery & BMS: For my battery I was planning on either building or buying a 10S3P or 10S4P. I found a CAD file for an Evolve Bamboo GT enclosure riser, so I’ll have to get that 3D printed. Can I still use the Evolve charging port and charger if I replace the BMS? If anybody has pre-built battery recommendations or has a preferred 3D printing service either online or in the NYC area then let me know!

Switch: I’d love to re-use the power button that came with my board, but I have no idea how reasonable that is. This switch off DIYElectricSkateboard is exactly what I want, but if there’s an easy and cheaper (and in stock) way to do the same thing then I’d love to hear it.

VESC: Learned a lot from this How-To on VESCs and Heatsinks. I was considering coughing up the money for a double FOCBOX build and I did find a pretty cool post on a custom Evolve Dual FOCBOX Heatsink. However, and I know this has been discussed ad nauseam, are there some cheaper, trustworthy alternative VESCs? More specifically, which ones would work nicely with the Evolve Bamboo GT’s heatsink? Maytech and Torque seem to get mixed reviews, so I’m hesitant to pull the trigger on them.

Thanks in advance to anybody willing to help me out.

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Keep everything and throw the electronics away, they are not worth it.

Get 2 focboxes, a 10s4p battery, an antispark switch a BMS for charging and a mini 2.4ghz remote and enjoy a completely upgraded board that you will love for life

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^ That’s the best advice you will get here.

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Please, I’ll pay for shipping, send them here LoL

I run a stock Carbon GT still even with all the DIY

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Thanks for the reply. I guess I just needed somebody to say this to me. I’ll just do a complete rebuild then. Do you have a preferred or recommended antispark switch I could look into buying?

I was planning on making a post here offering up most of my replaced Evolve parts for shipping cost, so I’ll hit you up once I get this project finished.

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This! Gut it. Good riddance.

Then do this: imageimage

I owe the community a write of my evolve mods. Will post soonish.

Bottom line, you can cram a 10s5p with Focs withouT cutting on carbon fiber. You can make make more space by dropping the sink with stand offs. You do not need special heat sinks. Also go buy a 63xx motor mount from unikboards. They are money.

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What you actually have there is a great tuning platform. I know its an expensive starting point but with the above changes you will have a great board. In the process of almost that same upgrade to a friends bamboo as we speak and its making me want to do my own.
If you wanted to upgrade to bigger motors, @marcmt88 makes mounts for the existing trucks too. Makes me wonder why some people can run evolve with little or no issues and others experience all kinds of problems. Must be some sort of bad QC maybe.

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I can verify this. I have DIY, Evolve, and Metroboard and despite reading about all the Evolve problems, I just don’t really have them.

I did have an issue where if you don’t push the power button HARD AND FIRM and in one continuous motion when you turn it on, it can rattle loose while you’re riding and masquerade as a remote cut-out… but once I push the power button hard when I turn it on, no issues. Metroboard is still better though, and DIY of course can be anything you want, from world-class to shit-pile.

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:joy::joy: never a truer word said! and I speak from painful experience.

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Yeah I definitely love the board itself, just sucks that I already have to replace so much of it. I’m excited about the project itself and I know a high-quality DIY is leaps and bounds better than any prebuilt, just not excited about the money it will cost.

This is good to know - I’ll look into it once I get everything else working. Thanks!

You already have a decent platform for this upgrade, so think of it as a cheaper DIY project. You only need to buy electronics and make them fit /work, and you know how the board handles and you’re happy with that. The main surprise you’ll get is the increased power, and that will be extremely satisfying !

A plus point is that what you’re doing specifically has been done before, so lots of specific info out there to refer to, not just general advice.

Should be a fun project :+1:

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I did just this, I kept the 38t gears trucks and charge port so I didn’t have to buy a new charger.

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I’d pay good money for your BMS and ESC !!

I did something similar: https://www.electric-skateboard.builders/t/evolved-diy-clone-2x-5065-2x-focbox-8s-8ah-original-evolve-parts/53365 There will be an update soon

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Every Evolve eboard will brake down sometime, every DIY eboard will break down too. You won’t be able to fix the Evolve yourself, you will be able to fix the DIY eboard yourself and ride it indefinitely, no strings attached.

I love DIY

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Au contraire, you just have a spare Evolve ESC and a spare Evolve motor and a spare Evolve deck and a spare Evolve remote and a spare Evolve battery and spare Evolve trucks and spare belts and pulleys and wheels and a spare charger

You can very well keep an Evolve in-service :stuck_out_tongue:

Just like DIY esk8 or Metroboard esk8 or a 1999 Corolla or whatevs, yo

Evolve won’t sell you a spare bms or ESC if you aren’t able to ship them the board then it’s the end of it.

beware, put a 10s4p, 2 focbox, a BMS and an antispark vedder requires serious skills in cable management :slight_smile: the original case evolve really does not offer much space. personally I already had a hard time getting everything back without BMS.

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I have a lot of experience working with tiny mITX and HTPC cases, both of which often demand some cable management black magic. However, I’ve decided to build a 10S3P w/ BMS and avoid the headache entirely. The Esk8 calculator projects that this will far exceed my daily needs.

Already ordered most of the parts I need. Just looking for a nice switch (the TB one is out of stock), since I love the on-off button I currently have.

Also, was hoping to find a Bestech or SuPower BMS from a vendor in the US, but I don’t think that’s going to happen - got to wait a few weeks extra for shipping from China I suppose…

Turns out this is wrong… Found exactly what I need. Can’t believe I didn’t notice this, since I already ordered my focboxes through him.