After countless hours spent watching youtube videos dribbling over custom eskate builds from the last few years, for my A level Product Design project I decided to make my own.
as ive been skating for 7ish years, i felt fairly confident i could create a first build with maximum power and as little cost as possible (being a student is expensive).
in order to me to be allowed to pursue this project for my course, i had to have an innovative feature that set it apart from the rest of the crowd, as a result I will be making it Eco-friendly by implementing a solar panel into the underside of the enclosure for charging when outside with no available power outlets. now in the UK this may or may not be useless lmao, but in Australia for example where i used to live, 90% of the days were sunny and perfect conditions for going out for a ride, the smooth roads help a lot too!
anyway, so my end goal for this build it to be MORE than capable as i would like to get it right first time by allowing myself to have expandability in terms of specs without having to buy any more new parts, so ill be tuning the settings via the VESC for my desired settings as i progress in skill once i start riding.
for the battery ive sourced a company in china who have a factory and ive requested a 1 off “sample” battery to my exact specifications, which brings the cost from about £550 as sold by matrix to £260 ($333), it has a besttechpower bms (http://www.bestechpower.com/444v12spcmbmspcbforli-ionli-polymerbatterypack/PCM-D223V1.html) and is a staggered layer build to reduce height.
I’m curious on how the solar panel will work and how fast you’ll be charging? Do you have an idea on what solar panel you’re gonna use? And how is it going to work?
im yet to research the exact type / size / power output it’ll produce, its more a gimmick that lets me do this for ym project through school but if i can get it to actually work then great!
if anyone knows which panel is most efficient or best suited to this then feel free to contribute
it will be used when your having a picnic for example and are able to be sat in the sun with the board upside down for extended periods, alternatively i could try and mount smaller ones in top if i dremel out a few spaces but id rather not as i don’t want to reduce the structural integrity of the deck (seen a few posts where people have made space for batteries and hasn’t ended well)
i lived there but that was nearly 4 years ago now ;)) i live ion england now and trust me UK roads are 100000X worse than Australia’s, especially in winter with all the pot holes
There’s always the potential for that i guess, same with any enclosure though so ill try and mount a clear piece of non UV absorbing perspex in the enclosure, then the panel behind it to protect it
Take a look at solar powered ebikes, this guy are building a crazy one to go around the world just using solar power and did a lot of tests, including performance in shaded areas and how is best to configure each individual cell
You will see that he tried a configuration with a dual layer panel, one facing the sun and another the road for get the reflected light from the surroundings, if I’m not mistaken the output power was almost zero
But the bottom mounted panel could work to charge while you rest by leaving the board upside down, assuming you could fit a 0.075 m^2 panel at perfect conditions you should be able to convert 15W
Only recommendation is to run away from diyelectricskateboards VESC, lot’s of people had problem with them, unless they improved recently
EDIT: just found that the guy made a solar calculator that you can estimate your daily range based on you solar array configuration and location, really cool
Thank you so much! I’ll be up all night reading that thread if I’m not careful aha, ill be sure to use his ideas and inspiration to better my project.
yeah I realised afterwards that they’re not the best, however on my tight budget since i was paying for the single motor kit and shipping and the motor, it made sense at the time to buy one there and then, I’ve only been able to plug it into a friends upgraded evolve battery once (with some sparks) but we had a 30A inline fuse so luckily everything was fine. in the future when i add a second motor ill definitely be going for focbox unity or other newer ESC that is yet to come out.
how did your teachers fancy to the idea? mine knows nothing so hes a bit useless and these forums are all I’ve got to stop me making the wrong move and burning the school down
what grade did you get for it if you know yet?
Just out of curiosity, what type of class is this project for and does it pertain to your major? The solar aspect won’t be the event that could burn your school, just making the battery. lol I’m new to this game, so I’m still learning myself. But I really like the aspect of the solar panels. While it seems fairly unpractical just because there’s a chance of breaking being on the bottom. I’m sure there are more durable panels though. I assume you would have already researched that though. Solar technology has definitely vastly improved in the past decade. I don’t doubt it could work.
Its for my year 13 A level project, could really be a degree project compared with what my classmates are making (wooden furniture for the most part) but i couldn’t resist lol.
I’m getting the battery made in china to my specs so i wont need to worry about that being wrong thankfully. yes i agree they are very prone to breaking in their location, i could potentially build a solar charging station to keep it as a green project as it would charge all day whilst i’m out at school for example, then i could plug it into that rather than the national grid therefore still using solar to power it. But i like the challenge of implementing the panel into the board so i can charge whilst on out and about should the situation arise where i need to. hopefully it’ll work but i still need to research how and exactly what i need to make the solar charging actually work for my needs and for powering such a large battery
i lived in Perth for 2 years and then Brisbane for 5, roads in the gold coast are new though so they’re nice and smooth (at least some are)
what grade did you get for it if you know yet?