Hello guys, I’ve recently been looking into electric skateboards and I wanted to buy a premade one. I looked into the Evolve Bamboo Street and the Boosted Board. However, I came to realize how expensive those boards were. Instead, I wanted to build one, but I am a complete newcomer to these kind of things. I’m looking for a decently fast board (20-25 mph) and decent range (10-20 miles). I was wondering of those specifications are achievable with a 600 dollar budget? If it is, I want it to look sleek, I really despise the bulky looking builds that have large component boxes and things like that under the board. I also don’t like the large RC car remotes, I prefer a small and compact remote like the Wii remotes.
P.S. I don’t have access to heavy duty metal cutting machinery and what not, so I would need to buy mounts that are premade and such.
I think it’s possible. But, you need to understand right now, that if you buy really cheap parts, you will be buying more parts later. So if you find a $40 esc, when it brakes you are going to buy a $100 dollar esc. Buy a cheap charger, it will burn out and you will be buying a more expensive one. Basically, add 100-150 to every cheap part you decide on. That will be the final cost of your build.
Enertion and I have some pretty good deals going right now on good parts. You need to do some heavy research on electronics though.
@aspiringbuilders I also think that it’s worth really considering whether the range and speed you note here are realistically what you need. 25mph is achievable, but once you feel 15mph on an eboard you will likely not want to hang out at 25mph for very long. 25mph is really fast when you have no protection from the elements, cars, or other stationary objects. I’ve hit that speed a few times and won’t likely do it again. I have my build capped at 18mph and average about 10mph when I cruise around.
Also, 20 miles is a loooong commute way on a skateboard of any kind! Unless you’re a pro athlete you might fatigue after about 5 miles.
As far as looking sleek, if you’re really crafty and have access to the right tools, and have the time you can make anything look good. But if you want to hit your target budget you might have a hard time hitting those aesthetic goals. Look at @psychotiller’s enclosures at @longhairedboy’s shop for some ideas. Enertion’s motor mount is on sale now, it’s a good deal for a very solid part!
Just some food for thought, I think a lot of new builders aren’t aware exactly what they need at first.
@psychotiller is right that anything cheap that you buy will need to be replaced sooner, and might not work the way you hope.
Tacon 160 motor: $60
VESC: $100 (or fvt120a for $50-55)
GT2B: $25 (someone was selling badwolf housings for $26 on here if you want a sleeker look)
Accucell 50w Charger and Power Supply: $45
Deck: $100
Caliber Trucks: $50
Flywheel Clones: $20
Torque board’s drive kit: $128
two multistar 6s 5200mah lipos: $65
=$593
I made a couple boards and haven’t spent more that $500. Also been insetting the batteries in the deck, and replacing stainless steel covers to replace the strength of the board. And lots of research. Also have been making my own battery packs.
Would you be willing to help a newbie find a set of parts that work with a 600 dollar budget? I could even compensate you for your time in helping me find parts.
You should read through the builds section. Find a build you like and price out the components. After you do that a few times you will have a very good idea about what you can do for a specific price.
It can definitely be done, I’ve built sub 600 buck boards. They aren’t great and you likely want to replace parts in the future, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.
Right off the bat look at blank boards, they can be had for less than $50. I would advise against multistar lipos, they have terrible amp delivery, look at turning lipos at hobbyking.com.
All the necessary components can be purchased but you will save a lot of money if you learn to solder and make your own cables. Premade cables are pricey.
This is a pretty comprehensive list, and has some good parts. My only disagreement with this list is that I would go with the 192kv version of this motor.
hahah I actually had found that list and liked it, my only worry was that a single motor setup might not be strong enough for my weight of 210 pounds. Why do you favor the 192kv over the other?
Get a Koowheel, if you get more money like $1000 make a DIY board it would way better than the Koowheel. I don’t think you can make a better board for $500
There’s a misconception that DIY boards are cheap, but not at all, they are more expensive buy have higher specs than almost any pre-made board
The 192kv version ia better matched for 10S voltage with the VESC, since the VESC has what is known as an “erpm limit” equal to about 60,000. Take the motor kv (192) and multiply it by the highest voltage the motor will see from the battery (42V in this case, 4.2V multiplied by 10 cells), and multiply that by 7. We get 192427=56,448erpm, which is just below the 60K limit. The other version would not be able to go quite as fast, unless you bumped up to 12S.
As for the issue with single vs dual drive, I don’t think that it’s possible to build a decent dual drive for $600 unless you really cheap out on motors, battery, and especially speed controllers. $600 is just about the threshold where DIY is no less costly than just buying a board in my opinion
I wouldn’t need to be compensated. I would keep an eye on anyone selling stuff on this forum. Just seen someone was selling a sk3 motor (214kv). I’ve seen just about everything to build a board here. DIY has some good items as well. The big dollar items are the killer. I built my own battery packs, which saved me a lot of $. You can find good used long boards on like Craigslist. Hobbyking has esc’s that would work as well. Just do a lot of research before purchasing.
