Hi guys, I’d like to share my build. Hopefully it will inspire others or help to prevent people from making the mistakes I have in the process. Hope you like it and please let me know if you have any questions.
As a kid I got into skateboarding and later on long boarding. I got into the esk8 hobby in 2017. This is when I decided to buy a Boosted Board V2, and went to all sorts of trouble to get it to Amsterdam (they weren’t shipping here at that moment in time, so I sent it to a friend of a friend in Oregon, who shipped it to me, issues with customs, etc…). Long story short, what I initially thought was going to be a fun board, that I would ride every now and then, turned out to be a machine I fell in love with. The smoothness and flex in the deck makes it a such a great ride. Soon enough I started riding the board to work at sunny days. Which is like a 10km ride.
For those of you who’ve ever been to Amsterdam; in Amsterdam cyclists are the boss. So over the years that I’ve lived an worked here the city has become a lot less friendly to cars. When I’m unlucky with traffic, the daily 10km ride into the city center by car could take me up to 1,5hours. So I started taking my boosted board more and more, as it would take me 25 minutes max (hard shredding). The boosted board is great, and I still love it, but the ride is only as good as the ground you ride on. Taking on tram rails, or the Amsterdam bricked roads is harsh, so I needed something with pneumatic wheels. Also the range of the extended range battery would only take me one way, so having to charge at the office was a bit of a pain.
Earlier this year I started looking into my next esk8 move. I fell in love with Kaly.Nyc’s work and I also love the Lacroix builds. But since both of them are situated in North America, shipment, customs issues, waiting time are what put me off from buying one. Also, I have a substantial background in competitive drone racing so I’m quite competent with everything I had to deal with in building my own.
I then started the research process. In general, for everyone planning on building their own DIY board - I have to say: research is everything. There’s so much info out there, and overall the process of making my buying decisions was super time consuming and something I definitely underestimated.
My main inspiration for the build was this build from Kaly:
Soon enough I learned the Kaly builds were based on Trampa hardware (board & trucks), which is situated in the UK and makes shipment to NL very convenient. (Note: Kaly recently started fabricating his own decks I believe).
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Deck & Trucks: I didn’t really intend to pull the trigger as fast as I did, but somehow early April I stumbled on an ad on a secondhand website (Marktplaats) with a guy from Belgium who was selling this:
This seemed like a good deal and exactly what I was looking for. Trampa Carver deck, Infinity Mini Trucks and an E-Toxx motormount. All new and in perfect condition. I ended up buying the gear for about half of what it would cost me in retail. In hindsight this wasn’t the best investment I made, because of two reasons:
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I never intended to use the Trampa Gummies, but I wanted to build a flex deck with pneumatic wheels for those harsh parts of roads of my daily commute in Amsterdam. Buying the wheels separately still made it a costly investment.
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The Trampa trucks are unique in a way that you can mount them in reversed hanger position, to lengthen your wheelbase, and lower the deck, perfect for pneumatic wheels. However, the E-toxx motormount was only made for assembling them in the position above. Initially I was afraid I couldn’t even to continue with the build because I thought I’d get wheel bite with the larger wheels and the trucks having to remain in this position. But it turned out this was no issue so I decided to move forward.
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Wheels: I decided to go for the then newly released Trampa Megastar wheels. I bought those because the silver aluminum looks sexy as hell but also because they come in an off-set option. Which basically allows you to mount the wheels further to the outside of the truck, widening your wheelbase, a look I fell in love with.
Motors: I read on the E-Toxx site that my belt motor mounts would probably not fit 6374 motors so to be safe I decided to go for 6365 170kv motors from Maytech. Really beefy motors, closed design, and since I’m more into smooth carving than offroad shredding or racing I trusted they would provide me with plenty of power (which they turned out to do).
Enclosure: Being quite competent with electronics and practical part of my build, I’ve came to the understanding that building a battery enclosure that doesn’t look crooked is a process that requires practice and patience. I decided not to build my own, but buy one from the number one enclosure shop that is out there: eBoosted Peru. I can’t express the amount of respect I have for the quality and craftmanship he puts into his products and this community. I bought the Urban Carver enclosure suitable for 12s4p.
Batteries: I ordered my batteries from Nkon.nl being a local shop for me. After some research I decided to go for Sony VTC6 18650’s to make my 12s4p pack. They out-spec the 30q’s as long as you don’t stress them too much they will continue to do so over time.
Building the Battery: I sent everything off to a friend of mine (Shout out to Bas) who built the pack for me, as I learned I wasn’t able to solder it but had to use a spot welder instead. Also I realized how little space was left in the enclosure so now some careful planning was ahead for the rest of the hardware.
BMS, I realized there was no way I could fit a high discharge Bestech in my enclosure so I decided to go for a charge only BMS: Bestech d140. I had to order it from USA as it was out of stock everywhere. Also I added some fuses for both the charge port and the discharge port.
ESC: I ordered a Enertion Unity in early April. And like everyone one this forum, I expected to receive it about a month ago, but still haven’t. As I didn’t plan to miss out on riding this summer, I had a hard time to find an alternative that would fit in my enclosure. Eventually I stumbled into the newly released Flipsky Fsesc 6.6 plus. Great product, small form factor and its holding up beautifully, anti-spark switch, etc. It took only 5 days to land on my doorstep (in fact this was the last product I needed to get building / riding).
Remote: I have to say. Coming from a boosted board remote, I realized that I was really spoiled. Most remotes in the DIY community are crappy and feel really cheap. I want that the quality of my remote matches the amount of love I put into my board. Thumb wheel control is a must have for me. Eventually I decided to go for the Hoyt St Puck remote. Beautiful and unique in design, but above all reliable in connection and how it works. I have to get used a bit to the fact that there isn’t an ‘arming’ button that you have to press to make the wheel work, so I have to be careful with not accidentally launching my board when standing at a traffic light. After two weeks of riding I have to say I absolutely love it. Not only does it work great and is easy to set up, it also has a great and natural feel in the hand and looks gorgeous.
Building & result pics below
Riding & looking back Looking back on the building process I definitely underestimated the amount of time I put into the building process. But now that my build is finished I have to say I absolutely love it and feel fulfilled that I did this by myself (not to forget all the help I got during the process from within this community). I get about an 25km range with the 12s4p pack and shredding quite heavily. Riding it is a dream come true.
So would you recommend the flipsky 6.6plus ?
Im in the same situation as you for the unity…