Hi I’m broshi and I’m looking to build my first Eboard. From New York currently live in Tokyo.
I’ve been lurking for a bit and while I’m not that knowledgeable in elec/mech engineering I’ve done some DIY stuff in the past and confident I can get it right with a few mistakes along the way Would love feedback on some of the parts that I have chosen and would be great if I can get some input.
Mainly building this board as a commuter. Weighing in at 160lbs and 170lbs geared and the steepest hill being <10%.Willing to spend $1200 ~ $1400 should be enough to get me a board that gets 10-15 miles and top speed 20mph right?
I’ve already decided on the Carvon dual hub motors with Abec11s as easy setup and stealthy.
http://bit.ly/1qiO1j0 @$700
So I’ve got around $700 left to work with. Let’s get started
■Batteries/Enclosure
Trying to keep it simple but would be down to build my own. Looking at the new enertion space cell which I can fit my dual VESCs in http://bit.ly/1W4vse6. Don’t know much about if this will allow the range/top speed I want.
■VESC
Kind of clueless here but sounds like Vedders or enertions look pretty good?
Edit Decided with torqueboard VESC since Dexter has helped me so much with the build and I’m buying other parts like the canbus from him.
■Deck
Was thinking of the vanguard since I don’t think I’ll mind the bounce that much. If I do do this I might design the electronics to imitate the boosted.
Edit throwing the vanguard idea away since the flex is too complicated, looking for non flex or small flex decks.
■Misc
Any suggestions for controllers and other materials, water proofing etc?
I don’t think the SPACE Cell will work well with a vanguard, it may be a bit too flexible. Most people have done a split enclosure design where one enclosure has batteries and the other has the esc. The SPACE Cell is a bit too long for this too work.
Any suggestions for controllers and other materials, water proofing etc?
You have a few options for controllers:
Enertion 2.4 ghz $100 USD
HobbyKing GT2B Under $30 USD
TorqueBoards 2.4 ghz Mini Remote $50 USD
Nunchuck (Wouldn’t recommend this one, it can have drop outs and cause injuries.)
Water Proofing isn’t really needed unless you intend to ride in the rain or when it’s wet. Some other guys had some good water proofing techniques, they can chime in here.
You may need some loctite, bolts, connectors or other miscellaneous materials.
Also a side question, braking on hub motors will allow the batteries to charge right?
If you have regenerative braking enabled on VESC then yes.
Most Vanguard builders used lipos and one of them wired it up to a charging port for one plug charging. You could even connect them to a bms. Or you could use a different deck.
Some people (namely @evoheyax) have run into issues with the Space Cell/Carvon hub motor combo.
Others, such as @RunPlayBack have had great experiences with the combo-
I’d maybe look at getting the Pro4 Space Cell, two VESC’s (from Enertion because they are only 89$ w/ free shipping), and something like a GT2B or Torqueboard’s mini remote.
Personally, I would have stayed away from the space cell had I known what I know now.
My problem seems to be I hit the 15 amp per motor limit of the space cell. This seems to for some reason to have broken one of my VESCs. That isn’t to say it does work. It worked quite well, until it broke.
However, I would have built my own battery had I had the option of starting over again. 15 amps for the carvons dual is simply not enough fro any thing but flat ground riding. I will be trying 30 amps per motor later this week when I get another pair of VESCs, by slightly modifying the space cell. I still don’t think that will be enough though for much hill climbing.
The bottom line, you want more amps getting to those motors, especially since those motors can run up to 80 amps each. With the VESC, 50 amps each motor which means I can run 100 amps total, instead of the 30 amps total I’m running at now. And the only way to do that is by building your own battery pack (either from cells or from smaller batteries in parallel and/or series)
I think that hub motors are great in the sense that they are plug and play. Satalite motors need to be built and constantly adjusted. You also have belts that break very easily if you don’t have them perfectly adjusted and if your not using a wide enough belt on a single drive system, belts will also break easier. There’s a lot of headaches created by the belt and pulls system, which is why I think you see such a focus on hub motors lately.
Hub motors have their own headaches though, as I am finding out. Most important, you have no gearing… This is why geared hub motors seem to be the holy grail of eskate propulsion systems. But those likely also have their own problems that have yet to be seen since starry is the only ones making these for their own board.
My point though, is that hub motors are easier for those with no eskate experience to get up and running. However, $700 for Carvons is way too much, I thought $500 was a bit high when I got mine.
I’m in Tokyo where the cops in the cities stop people on bikes with headphones. I want it to be as discrete as possible so I thought a hub motor might have been a better choice for me. I definitely understand how $700 on the hub motors is kind of expensive but taking into acount
I’m assuming you already have due to how similar our builds are, but if you haven’t already you may want to check out my build thread, and look at all of RunPlayBack’s build/blog as well for ideas on how to put everything together as he has a lot of pictures of everything going together. These should both be very helpful for you. If you want specific advice on components let me know. I’ve done hundreds of hours of research at this point Thanks to wonderful, helpful people on here I have got everything I need coming very shortly! Jerry at Carvon, and Dexter (@torqueboards) have been extremely helpful for me among many others here. I would highly recommend buying from either of them. I have a controller, 12s battery, cable, and VESC’s coming from Dexter still, but I know it’s all going to be awesome! Good luck man, let me know if you need anything.
So everything I poted is correct except hill grade. I did calculations on a hill myself. I came to 20% grade. Looking the above sea level difference map for that street, it says 7% grade. Which is right idk, I think it’s really somewheres in between, maybe really 10%, but I think I did those calculations wrong. My point is that they are ok for climbing hills, especially hills under 10% grade. But with more amps, you should have less issues with hills. And the space cell won’t give you those amps.
Since you want stealth, the vesc’s and their FOC mode will be a must. And car ones aren’t the best hub motor for stealth but a step up from a satalight configuration.
Yeah haha your (@AbrownMN post is what finally made me realize, fuck it I have some christmas cash left over and will just spend it on beer if I don’t build something awesome.
That aside, what made you decide on the torqueboards 12S3P battery? A lot of people in my thread are concerned about the amp out put of the space cell and wanted to know why you ended up choosing dexters battery pack.
Good deal! Glad I could give you the push you needed to do this! I literally just pulled my Carvon motors out of the delivery packaging, I am so stoked! I chose a 12s pack at the recommendation of Jerry himself from Carvon. He said others had experienced cutoffs on his dual hub motors with the space cell and other 10s packs, and I wanted to make sure I was getting all the power I needed all the time. Like you, I wanted the build to be solid, easy to put together and maintain. His pack is the only 12s3p pack I have seen that is all set up and ready to go. Plus, he is a great guy and has been a wonderful help throughout my build ( as you know if you read my thread) so I wanted to give him all the business I could.
@broshi I highly do not recommend with going with the same board boosted uses. The Vanguard flex. It does not feel stable at high speeds and cannot make quick turns and is a hassle to carry.
Yeah seems to be so. I’ll definitely avoid it. I guess I just test rode the boosted for the first time in Japan the other day and got excited. I don’t really skate so I didn’t know how a stiff deck would feel.
Thanks to wonderful, helpful people on here I have got everything I need coming very shortly! Jerry at Carvon, and Dexter (