Project Cine Board, electric skateboards for filmmaking

ESK8 Mechanics
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For years I have used electric skateboards as a dolly to capture smooth motion shots, it gives me a superior ability to capture shots that would otherwise require a dolly track or a segway stedicam rig much faster and huge amount of crestive possibilities. I used to use a large 600w brushless single motor board with a stedicam and vest 4 years back, I now use a dual motor board with 90mm wheels and finely tuned VESC’s whilst holding a brushless Alexmos gimbal. I control speed with a nunchuck and control the camera with a joystick, I’ve experimented with both controls mounted on my gimbal rig.

A few problems I’ve faced over the years and things I’d love ideas on.

  • VESC programming and motor choice for super slow speed control with super smoothness for precise slow camera dolly movements such as dialogue scenes (replicating a large camera dolly/crane)
  • mounting a Wii nunchuck on my gimbal rig (see photos)
  • off road hub motor choice, I would love to make a 4x4 board with changeable tyres (snow, mud, road)
  • need inspiration for a deck design that features water resistance and extreme strength for rough terrain. But still has swappable batteries and must be easy to customise and service.

Here are some photos and videos of what I’ve done with this concept in the past 4 years.

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I shot the parkour parts of this music video on a Fiik street surfer with a Glidecam 4000 and sometimes a Ronin M. Could have done with much more torque, 4x4 drive and better programming.

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Cool that you take eboarding from film-maker’s perspective… this does open the eyes there are more uses than just riding the eboard :smiley:

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@Moja

I think the answer here is to use motors with hall effect sensors, aka “sensored” motors. Check out @longhairedboy’s new motors for example. For low speed control I’d ditch the nunchuck and use a gtb2 w a case mod. Also look for the biggest reduction ratio you can get.

@RunPlayBack def needs to see this thread, as the resident filmmaker.

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Yeah this is awesome thanks for sharing! I actually got into eboarding after using Cheesycam’s EGO as a dolly on a Heineken shoot. :slight_smile:

http://runplayback.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/rik-ego.jpg

Definitely a larger, offroad style board would be more suitable for my type of work. Right now I’ve just been adapting my gimbal/camera combos to ESK8 instead of vice versa.

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Nice work, a 4x4 board with cruise control at low speeds has to be the go.

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With profiles for the kind of shot your getting, like 5 different speed settings that you can launch from a bluetooth app

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Hi! Thanks for sharing your ideas. If you are looking for some off road hub motors for low speed, you should get some spare wheels from a “hover board”. You can find them really cheap on eBay! I think they are rated for a top speed of 15km on 10s (36v)

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