Update on the Hollow Wheel

ESK8 Innovations
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Hey Guys, I have been kind of posting about my Hollow wheel project on this forum. Recap: I’m very confident that I created the most comfortable PU wheel with the most grip as well. I have a lot of data and back to back (CloudWheel, TB110, ABEC 107, etc.) comparisons. I’ve put together to quantify that and also recorded some cool videos to display that exactly (see below). I’d say it is unique because it is completely hollow to A) reduce weight, B) provide superior impact absorption C) provide really low rolling resistance D) provide very high grip.

I just wanted to create an official ESK8 build post to keep people up to date. The tooling is nearly completed from the factory and it’s getting really close to the final release. I’m very excited! There are some people here that already got in the presale, but I just wanted to create one post to keep everything up to date.

Background: I’m Doug. I’ve been working on this project for the past 2 years. I made hundreds of molds, made possible by 3D printing and then cast urethane into it. I took the most popular wheels on the market and redesigned them and also drew inspiration from my past engineering experiences in engine design and also suspension engineering when I worked on a small open-wheel race car team.

Watch this video of the Hollow Wheel in action compared to other wheels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdMgsfaJH8w&t

Here is a video that I put together from an ESK8 road course event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EicXliwOA&feature=emb_title

During these years, I’ve worked with a lot of beta testers and got a dizzying array of feedback. One thing for sure is that people have their own riding style and want different things. So I took the packaging constraints and designed a system where you can essentially adjust the ride characteristics with “adjustable suspension inserts”. I don’t have a good marketing name, but it sounds fancy enough. Nevertheless, you can change the weight, the sidewall stiffness, and radial stiffness with these inserts in order to fine-tune the level of comfort, grip, or range that you so do desire.

The tooling is expected to be completed from the factory end of this week and then we have to make the initial production samples for production. I’m really, really excited. Can’t wait to share.

What is everyone’s thoughts? Any questions?

Thanks, Doug

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Heh… well, lots of delays and of course COVID is a bitch for supply chain and trying to get things done.

Here are some quick pictures of production. The wheels are coming off the line and we are dialing in many settings and doing quality inspection as they come off. Things are going well but there have been some minor issues to fix and redo. For first production, it is the small details that can hold up production and cause some small delays, but all of them solvable.

Here are some pictures of the covers:

They will be going to logo printing shortly after the rest of the batch is complete.

We had a color issue on the core in the beginning, which caused a production stop and forced us to redo the covers. In production, this is where you see your quality and manufacturing processes get tested. Sometimes you have some mishaps that require a redo. In this case, there was miscommunication and white pigment was not added to the raw material of the cover core. The cover core raw color is somewhat of a green color. Unfortunately, we had produced all of the covers so we the manufacturer is redoing the batch to correct the color. So this means we need to add an up stream process to make sure color correction is correct before going full speed production. A simple fix, but a little costly. This caused had caused a 2 week delay, but we are currently fixing it now.

The wheel halves are looking really good, but some minor cosmetic issues resultant.

Unfortunately, we ran into the same issues with the wheel halve core where the white color pigment was not added correctly. The factory had produced many of the cores already, so they are in the middle of correcting the color and remolding the cores. Again, a small process change, but still costly and a cause for delay.

Finally, we had another cosmetic issues wherein you can see the injection molding material flow lines. I didn’t see that originally because the wheels for testing and validation have always been the raw color, the same greenish kind of color that you see above. During validation, the greenish tint really hid this and so neither the manufacturer or myself saw this. However, when we started to add the black pigment to the tread, the mold flow lines could be seen.

This doesn’t pose any functional adversity and it doesn’t look quiet as clear when you have the wheel in the face (the camera exposes it more than the naked eye). The wheel circularity isn’t impacted, but it is a something that does bug me a little bit. So we are adding more of a textured finish to the mold to reduce the injection molding flow line appearance. The factory is adding the textured surface finish now as we speak.

In this photo above, you can see the wheel in the natural color and it is very difficult or almost impossible to see the mold flow lines. But it can be seen when it is black.

I’ll be awaiting new timelines from the manufacturer, but I anticipate production should be complete in the next 30-45 days, then it will board a boat to USA to begin shipping.

I’ll post new updates shortly of the logo printing, timelines, and the cosmetic fixes.

Thanks, Doug

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Looks great. Can’t wait to check these out.

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Thanks so much! A long and arduous process, but I never quit.

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Oh and I also have a ton of blog posts of all the trial and tribulations - 23 previous blog posts. Here: Development Updates & Announcements – Momentum-Boards

But I am going to be more active on this forum and posting some nerdy things.

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Interesting. Unfortunately this forum is not as active as the copy one. If you wish, i can send you to there as well. I won’t be there to see, but that’s up to you. You can continue sharing here.

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Hey Leon, the copy one? Which forum is this?

I’ll continue to update this one too!

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Sending via pm.

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He’s talking about the esk8.news forum.

When this forum was dying, many merged over to the esk8.news.

The copy/clone term usually is used by angry, bad, or banned people (Like Leon over here)

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Already explained. And no, it is a copy. Was this not the original forum before a disaster went down? I find that retarded how having a type of status dictates whether or not something is a copy or not. It is mainly defined as copied from “what came first”.

Basically this. “Something happened, and no one wanted to be a part of this one so lets make a duplicate and use that instead.”

I even said it was a copy before I was banned. Pretty much rules out the whole “anger, bad, ban” reasoning there if you ask me.

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We are all friends here.

I forgot to post this one up:

We have finished a lot of our production initial production issues:

  • Cosmetic Issue: Flow line on the outside of the wheel. - Fixed
  • Tested and finalized the logo printing - done

One thing left to do is fixing the core color - they are green. But this is coming.

The not-so-good news is that the factory has been shut down for a week so far because of the recent COVID-19 outbreak, it could take another week to start again. China is seeing a major resurgence of COVID. Let’s hope the production team stays safe over there and we can get back to work. My factory is in Shanghai and so this is causing some issues.

I will update timeline on when the batch is completed and they board a plane. It will be very soon.

Thanks, Doug

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Nice. I enjoy new things.

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Well, apparently I have two logins - dth2m5 and Momentumperformance.

Nevertheless, I wanted to provide a super brief update. Factory is still shut down. Ugh. Still waiting to hear back. Agonizing.

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We are back in production!

Fortunately, no one in the factory was injured and they all made it through the lock down.

Factory said that wheels, if all else goes well, should be finished with production and inside retail boxes on June 20th. Then they board a boat to USA to begin shipping. This includes the suspension inserts as well. I don’t have pictures of those yet, but I’ll share when I do.

I got one set and have been looking at the quality and starting to create content for the launch.

I’m proud and feeling triumphant. Thanks for all your patience.

Thanks, Doug

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Looks like great news. Great work.

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June 20th is when the production will be complete and it boards a shipping container to USA. It’s rapidly approaching and so are the wheels.

Factory is moving fast and we are producing thousands of wheels. Some hiccups here and there that cause some slow downs but nothing that isn’t solvable. dsds

All of the covers are a couple of days away from being all completed, then they head off to the logo printer.

Suspension insert mold was completed and we did a first article sample. It’s supposed to be red in color, but we just put in black to do the dimensional inspection. There is one dimension that is off and the factory and I are going back and forth on it, but I don’t think it will cause a delay for June 20th. The samples are being sent to me in CA so I’ll do inspection.

The factory is also starting to work on the thread part of the wheel and dialing in some dimensions as well, but it’s looking good so far.

Many of you have been asking for a picture of the Kegel wheel, so here it is below!

Box production is kicking off and so are all the instruction manuals. Those are easy.

This might be just a wheel to some of you, but this has been the most difficult manufacturing experience I have ever been part of. I designed and mass manufactured an 8.8L V8 and a 4.3L V6 engine for Power Solutions International in 4 years as their Chief Engineer and that felt like a cake walk compared to producing something during COVID. I founded a motion tracking fitness startup called Enflux and went thru the silicon valley tech startup journey then raised millions in venture capital for it and that was insane. But this. This was the most challenging project with twists and turns at every single turn. Usually, I would go live in China and produce the product, but obviously I couldn’t with COVID, which added so much more time in delays and inefficiency. Dealing with production issues, COVID shut downs, China to USA time difference, using my own capital, and so much more for the past two years has been the most stressful experience but the most fulfilling thing I have done.

If you’re still reading and haven’t caught up on the last update where I show the entire assembled wheel go here: Hollow Wheel Manufacturing Update #24: Back in production! – Momentum-Boards

Thanks so much for the support and patience.

Doug

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Hey all,

The wheels are on the boat and are in route in a shipping container. I’m expecting them in mid August but the tracking doesn’t really update very often. In addition, after receiving the wheels, it could take us a week or a couple to finish shipping all the orders due to the sheer volume. Furthermore, I want to inspect every wheel and package to make sure they’re dimensionally good since this is the first batch.

Manufacturing Pictures

I realized that I didn’t send pictures of all the fun at the factory before they boarded the boat. Sorry about that.

Suspension inserts: I really love the color and I hope you to too.

The inserts really make the wheels pop. The inserts will be installed in the wheels (for those that ordered). They’re a tight fit but with some will power, you can remove the inserts from the wheels.

Here you can see the metal weights that can be inserted in the suspension inserts so that you can change the inertia and as a result change the coastability. They will change the way the wheel feels and you can adjust it however you like!

Mass Packaging It’s really fulfilling to see all of it come together.

The guy in the purple looks cool.

One of a ton of pallets. Lets goooooooo!

INVENTORY STATUS: ALMOST OUT OF STOCK

In this first batch, nearly all Hollow Wheels are out of stock. It may be another 4-6 months before I can get another batch to arrive. It requires that I have to upfront significant capital as I have to meet the minimum order quantity for the vendor to start production. If you want to get a set of Hollow Wheels this year, now is your best chance while I have inventory. Prices will also be increasing as soon as I receive notice that the wheels have reached the USA shipping port.

HOLLOW WHEELS VS. HOLLOW WHEELS PRO

I’ll have more content to display in another blog post, but here is a quick comparison between regular and PRO. PRO is $20 more expensive due to higher manufacturing cost - it is imported (high shipping & duty fee), only produced in low volume, and the material is automotive grade (designed specifically for the auto industry which has much higher performance characteristics). It costs me $20 more and so I pass off the cost to you.

Hollow Wheels (regular) was designed for all-around superb comfort and grip while providing minimal range loss.

  • Super Comfortable : 50% increase.*
  • High Cornering Grip
  • Adjustable Suspension: tweak the wheels with suspension inserts to get your perfect ride.
  • Top Speed : Increases over smaller wheels*
  • Great Battery Range : minimal impact compared to 110mm wheels**
  • Low Noise : reduced due to Hollow design.
  • 1 order comes with 4 individual wheels

Tech Specs:

  • Max Rider + Board Weight: 240lbs (108.8kg)
  • Variable Diameter: 105mm x 95mm
  • Contact Width: 65mm
  • Weight: 284g (as light as an 85mm Caguama wheel)
  • 80A durometer
  • Patent Pending

*Compared to 85mm Caguama Wheels

Hollow Wheels PRO was designed for maximum grip. This compound allows for predictable riding-at-the-limit of grip, allowing you to dance around the limit of grip and seamlessly transition into board drifts (if you possess excellent board control skills). Like any high grip tire, it will wear faster than regular Hollow Wheels. The rate of wear is dependent on your weight and riding style.

  • Comfortable : 20% increase.*

  • High Cornering Grip : 20% increase over standard Hollow Wheels

  • Adjustable Suspension: tweak the wheels with suspension inserts to get your perfect ride.

  • Top Speed : Increases over smaller wheels*

  • Great Battery Range : minimal impact compared to 110mm wheels**

  • Low Noise : reduced due to Hollow design.

  • 1 order comes with 4 individual wheels

Tech Specs:

  • Max Rider + Board Weight: 210lbs (95kg)
  • Variable Diameter: 105mm x 95mm
  • Contact Width: 65mm
  • Weight: 299g
  • 80A durometer
  • Patent Pending

*Compared to 85mm Caguama Wheels

Thanks! Doug

3 Likes
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This looks awesome!

This is tough. 95kg rider here

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