Yesterday I got bored and had a stroke of genius? Or a semi dumb idea? Curious what y’all think. No ego here only a desire to learn and share.
I had a big block of that black packaging foam from a prebuilt board i bought a while back and decided to use it to create a temporary battery enclosure for a build I had all the parts for except the final battery and BMS solution.
DECK: Trampa Big Boi - HS 11… 10 in wide with the 45° front and back kickups and I think the footbed is 28 1/2 in & the deck is completely flat … Very flexible. (i think holy pro? It’s just the mountain board deck version I didn’t at the time realized they had an electric skateboard version of the deck that has some holes cut in it to make it lighter)
TRUCKS: Lacroix Hypertrucks (tall blue base kind used on the lonestar)
MOTORS: Lacroix 190 kv 6389
BATTERY & BMS: Torque Boards 12s4p, flexible pack. Samsung 30Q - 18650 cells, 60A continuous discharge, 12Ah with BMS set up for charge and discharge.
VESC: FOCBOX Unity
REMOTE: Hoyt St. Puck
WHEELS & TIRES: MBS Rockstar Rims, Kenda 7" pneumatic tires
ENCLOSURE: Black packaging foam & neoprene (mostly)
I’ve had a Deck for a couple years intended for a build. I bought an enclosure from eBoards Peru but I haven’t pulled the trigger on a custom batt pack yet as that will likely be a $1500ish battery.
(If anyone has any opinions on getting a custom big batt pack from Chi Battery Systems outta Chicago vs. having homeboy in Peru who made the beautiful flexi fiberglass enclosure for the deck lemme know…i know eBoards Peru builds batt packs with BMS set up for charge only & not for discharge i think…need to research the pros & cons of that…i digress… waay to much)
The reason for the post is this "temporary"enclosure i built.
I cut (2) - 1.5’’ by 1.5" by 28.5’’ strips of the black packing foam.
I hot glued the foam strips onto the edges of the bottom of the deck.
I drilled and cut out holes for the power switch, battery charge meter, charge port. I made the penetrations a lil undersized & not full through the foam. Just enough to fit the switch, port, meter etc in the foam then cut a slit in the remaining thickness of foam and pushed the jst connectors through the foam and connected them to the VESC.
Velcro’d the battery, vesc, bms, hoyt puck receiver to the deck. Used the TB Velcro straps for the batt pack.
Used a peice of aluminum door frame trim for the front of the enclosure “frame”. Hot glued that to the deck too.
Used more foam for the back of the enclosure “frame”. Cut slits and fished the motor leads and sensor wires through.
Used heat shrink on the motor lead connections etc.
I cut a 9.75’’ by 28.5 ‘’ rectangle of ⅜" neoprene sheet for the enclosure top.
I hot glued the neoprene to the foam “frame” edges. Then I used wood screws and screwed them through the neoprene into the foam.
Updated the firmware in the Unity using the windows vesc tool. Ran motor detection.
Set up the motors…80A motor and brake current limits, 30A discharge per motor / side of the VESC.
-10A regen current limit (that’s a bit too hight per the 4 Amp charge limit on the 3OQ cell specs…buuut i dont really car about this pack…bad idea? To be safe should be -8A per vesc connected by CAN i think.)
Set the deadband to 8%, polynomial throttle curve +20% on throttle, -15% on the brake.
0.2 ms on the positive and negative ramping time & I took it out for a ride!
The thing riiiips! Blasted me up 35⁰+ inclines in SF without blinking…
Battery got me about 9 miles before sagging and over 1000’ of verticle. Pushed it to 33ish MPH… I’m not a speed demon…i have enogh fun in the 15-25mph range…I’m 45…i ride ALOT…i out 100-150 miles week in my boards…i rode 75 miles last sunday in San Francisco (any SF riders out there wanna go in looong late night rides PM me…I’m out all the time .usually in middle of the night)
.i wear full motocross & motorcycle protection gear when i ride…skateboarders fall…pads pads & more pads for me.
Anyway the build took about 2 hours to complete and the packing foam & neoprene encloser flexed with the super flexi deck wonderfully and seems to still be solidly affixed to the deck…the hot glue held just fine…so far lol.
It was a great exercise to fit everything up on that deck and see how she goes.
I love the way it rides and it was good proof of concept for how the deck and trucks handle. Eventually I will buy or build a 12s 8 or 10p pack… Biggest pack that enclosure from Peru will fit in it (chances are slimi build it myself… doesn’t seem worth it although I would enjoy building it myself …& be a lil terrified)
Yesterdays ride definitely motivates me to start thinking about a custom battery for it and I think I might switch out the unity for a stormcore 60D… And probably up the tires to 8".
Was super fun to use packing material from another e-skate complete board I bought a couple years ago and put it to another use!
I had to be much more careful about how I kicking the board around if I turned it around not standing on the board.
When I have a hard enclosure I use my foot to kick my other big boards around that weigh 40 to 50 lb … And was very cognizant of not riding through any moisture just in case & vigilant of clearances and making sure I didn’t go over anything or off of any curbs or anything that might damage the battery pack or whatever…
but yeah that’s it.
sorry this is a pretty long post for basically just sharing a concept of using unconventional materials to make a battery and vesc enclosure.
Happy to upload more pics but I think these show the final assembly fairly well.
Actually very surprised how well the hot glue seems to be holding the foam to the deck and this deck is flexible AF which i looove.
I really don’t like stiff decks.