Wear a helmet kiddos

General Discussion
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Had my first off in three years last week, also the first time I wore my helmet this year. Nice coincidence.

Had a braking fault and went from around 18 mph to dead stop in an instant. Splat! Straight to the tarmac in the middle of a road.

Landed on my side, hand and head. The bang inside me helmet was so loud that even through the pain of my hand and hip I remember clearly thinking “wow, that was a huge head impact but I didn’t feel a thing - thank fek I have a lid on”

Been riding over 30mph without a lid in the past and it makes me shudder to think about the consequences.

Left hand sprained and out of use. Lots of road rash on hip, bruising of ribs starting to reduce (after one week). Head unmarked.

I’ve crashed motorbikes faster and my head took less of an impact…

Won’t skate without a lid ever again.

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This thread already exists, use search function kiddyfriendo

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You can’t have enough helmet safety awareness :slight_smile:.

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Instant brake is something to look at and try to fix, i did happend to me too, the fuse blew, and i was flying in to street face. Not nice, but nothing serious, if someone like to see it, i was recording a video in that moment and is uploaded to the sk8 video tread with the title blowing fuse. @RogerD what was the reason of your instant brake?

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Been a victim of instant brake myself, my worst off to date. Can’t talk about helmet safety enough.

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helmet aside, I got a really nice trick for the first 50-100km of a brandnew board: run the first belt very loose!

make it tight enough that it brings you forward smoothly, but loose enough that full brake will make the belt skip easily. that way, youll never ever have the fullstop experience until you can trust your creation! :slight_smile:

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Dual drive (hence great brakes) and cheap fvt escs. Brakes are a bit harsh if you are not careful. Must have stabbed the brakes too hard.

Will take the braking down one level, though I think then they are fairly useless.

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more notices the better on this topic

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How did it happen? I’ve had VESCs blow and switches melt and fuses pop and BMSs burn up and motors short but never have i had a board lock up and throw you unless something terrible was happening with the reciever/ESC department. The only time it ever happened to me was on a raptor with a winning remote.

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Dang, it looks like everyone should be careful and be warned about these FVT esc’s then… I had a similar case with sudden brakes…

Long story short:

For some odd reason I thought it might be a good idea to go down a hill on a crappy sidewalk…

The moment I noticed the speed has increased way too much I started to brake slowly… at beginning it was kind of working but after a few meters or so the brake hit hard and I was on my side…

Nothing super serious, speed was not that big but this definately gave me a lesson that single drive boards with crappy brakes are a ‘‘no-go’’ for such situations where great braking force needs to be applied…

And especially for hills where grade is not very suitable for running out the speed after bailing out from the board… who knows how easy it might be to twist an ankle or something when jumping on the asphalt at 20mph or so.

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My own observations about FVT 120 (6s) esc so far:

Brake is working somewhat good and very reliable until one point… Not sure, but in my case it might be 10mph or no more that it is still safe, so after speed is close to 15-20mph or such, the brake becomes dangerous as it tries to lock up the motor - wheel at one point very suddenly!

And there are no warning when this happens… at least I have witnessed this that at slower speed (and still loose belt) I can brake down gradually… but when going with speed and applying brake slowly at first it is not effective at all (because of high speed)… and then it just ‘‘snaps’’ into ‘dramatic’ mode and tries to stop suddenly.

I dont know why but sometimes the belt’s teeth skip when I want to brake but other times it is just not braking very hard (without slippage) and then ‘‘engages’’ very harshly that you really have to hold onto the board not to fall forward because of this ‘‘jolt’’ / ‘‘jerk’’ action.

With this I wanted to point out that even with loose belt I experience this ‘‘sudden stop’’ action when going at higher speed but then again there are times when I do need to brake - slow down more rapidly but the belt is just skipping teeth and that’s all…

Okay… that is all what I had to said, didnt know it could become such a long text lol

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Side note 1:

I think it is good this topic was created and wasnt posted in another topic, since it could be seen by others now who dont follow the other topic

Side note 2:

I’ve heard that the second reason for falling is remotes and the way they are set-up, if you forget abot ‘fail-safe’ it can be quite bad when signal is lost… either the board might speed up, or it might cut power harshly, so I’ve heard (with situation about gaining max speed being more common)

Side note 3:

This topic also adresses the dangers of using FVT 120 esc, where brake is quite good up to some point, after which it becomes ‘‘unstable’’ and might ‘‘surprise’’ you unexpectedly…

I’ve tried 40% and 50% brake settings, but to be honest, I recently saw in this ‘config video’ that 80% might be even better, since there will be more ‘‘amplitude’’ of braking force, but I have not tested this yet…

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I had an FVT that caught fire and locked up the motor, it threw me like a bull. Was funny in retrospect, I haven’t had the wind knocked out of me since college baseball…until then.

FVT is the main reason I use VESC’s now. THey are more expensive but the config is much more linear and allows for a broader range of configuration. I like soft brakes, Id rather run it off than lock it up. I run loose belts and keep the bat min at -12.

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I keep mine tight and run -4 on bat min.

I just got an email from Favorite about their new Sleeping Lion 12S esc specifically for skateboards with moq and specs. They actually look like something i’d like to try if for nothing else than science.

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The info about sleeping lions sound good, havent had the chance to test 12s version yet… some ppl also reported a few things with brakes and firmware but I think it is managable…

To be clear, I and Roger here are talking about 6s version of FVT 120 esc, at least I have 6s one and I believe he has it too!

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I’ve had this experience with the 6s FVT 120 as well, here’s my take FWIW:

99% of the time the brakes work well and I’m able to modulate braking pretty precisely (GT2B remote in my Baby Buff mod case), but every once in a while, I notice the controller seems to lose sync with the motor during the initial braking roll on and doesn’t begin actively braking until I’m sometimes 60% or more into a brake pull where it goes “instant on” hard brakes and hilarity ensues.

So what I do now, if I notice there is no brake engagement when I pull the trigger to ease on the brakes, I actually apply a little throttle which seems to re-sync the motor and controller and then the brakes work as expected. There’s a distinct, audible difference to when the brakes are working as they should and when they are going to street your face.

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wow this is pure gold info!

Didnt notice such subtle differences… need to check this out! If I remember correctly… When going at speed the ‘‘response’’ is sometimes lost… Also I experience some delay when accelerating… not sure is it the remote’s fault or is it something else…

Anyways, pure gold @Qwiksand this might eliminate the problem just by being a bit more cautions…

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To be honest - we should create a sepeate thread about Esc’s! In picture format so that people dont have to read long lines of text and can just see the pitfalls or things to be careful with when choosing a certain esc…

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Thanks for sharing.

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I have a whole bin of dead 6S-8S Favourites. They’re good as long as you don’t race them constantly. They were some of my first ones to use when i got started.

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@longhairedboy So do you suggest that it is possible to run them at 8s, even if they are ‘offiially’ rated at 6s?

Yeh, havent had problems with heat (luckly)… but there are cases where some of them has caught some smoke, I think…

Compared to other esc’s… (especially heli / boat), these fvt 120 ones are way better I think, because of some settings you can still change and somewhat soft acceleration (if needed).

Though, compared to some higher priced ones (roxxy’s / Toro / Mamba)… they might not be as advanced but for the price they are pretty good.

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Still makes me think someone with a bit of designer skills should set up a rough comparison in picture format for quick comparison - minuses/pluses of different esc’s etc…

The same goes for lipo vs li-ion story, as there seem to be some inconsistencies in this whole thing.

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well, no. They have the 6S only variety, and don’t run them at 8S. My suggestion woufl be to run the 5-8S variety at 6S and they’ll last longer. But if you have the 6S only model, run it at 6S.

I’m about to make a Favourite post listing all the models they sent me info on. After i get back form subway. They have roasted chicken as the SotD today.

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Mine was a 6s esc, well, a pair. Happened exactly as described. Found myself going too fast down hill, applied gentle brakes, nothing much happened. Tried a tiny bit more… Bang! I’m on the deck.

The experience is hardcore. I’m seeing a physio next week to try and get my hand working properly. With no helmet I reckon it would have been very messy…at the least.

They are going on eBay.

I have great results with 150a ez run pro escs but they were phased out recently?