EMAD Conversion

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I have an opportunity to buy an EMAD sidewalk surfer board on the cheap. Its batteries are shot.

I know some folks on the forum have converted to li-po from the SLA batteries. Looks like the consensus is to go with a 12S setup of two 6S wired in series. Is this pretty much a plug and play swap (with the expectation that connectors may need to be soldered)?

Also, the previous owner lost the remote, and my understanding is that it is very difficult to find spare parts for EMAD products. Is there a generic remote that would work? If not, would it be theoretically possible to use one of Torque's Wiicievers? (http://diyelectricskateboard.com/wiiceiver-electric-skateboard-wireless-wii-nunchuck/?)

Last question - I would want to convert to ABEC 11 Flywheels. Would I need to get a new drive wheel pulley, or could I re-use the one from the EMAD board?

Many thanks in advance.

Hi Matty,

If the EMAD uses typical RC signal wire from the ESC then you can plug it into the Wiiceiver and it will work. However, if it uses a different type of wire or signal - would probably have to take a look.

Altered skateboards remote should work, or check Ebay. Maybe even Alibaba. I could never figure out what frequency they are using, as I wanted to use their remote on one of my boards. I had an old 200w board with a blue remote that doesn't work with my 600w board. The EMad is clear, correct?

Definitely do two 6s batteries in series. They use a deans connector so its not that hard to wire. You could go 36v and have low voltage cutoff. If you go 48v watch the batteries.

As to the drive pulley, you will need a new pulley to use the abec 11s. Altered sell ones for the 107mm wheels. They are only $30, which isn't a bad deal. Those wheels are expensive though. The pulley gear won't fit any smaller sizes - keep that in mind - you have to have the 107s.

Thanks for the replies.

I contacted EMAD in Florida and got a phone response that they can provide replacement remote controls at $50.00 plus shipping.

I've read about the low voltage cutoff and needing to come up with a home grown solution if using li-po w/ the EMAD. Will need to do more research.

I'm not exactly clear on needing 107 duro on the Flywheels. I was actually wanting to go with 83 or 90 duro. My idea was to purchase a set of those and throw on a pulley from Torque, which is admittedly half-baked and not researched. Please explain the need for 107s... because those are durn pricey.

Would check ebay for one as it is the generic china made eskate remote.

Yes, 2 6S batteries in parallel is the way to go...just add a Low voltage alarm from ebay ($5 bucks, and plugs into the balance port).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-in1-Indic...Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item23395338cd

As for the wheel pulley, the current one is built to use the stock wheel so you will need a new solution. Also possibly some risers as the stock motor is huge. I would just replace the trucks/wheels/pulley with torque's solution and reuse the stock electronics and motor.

You can check out my iterations of my DIY board and modifying my emad here.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=57517

Thanks @NormRD. I've read and re-read your thread with interest. Some excellent information there, and thank you for sharing it. My biggest take-away is that I shouldn't spend a bunch of money trying to polish a turd.

My immediate goal is to have a board that I can ride. I can live with the slow stock wheels in the short term. Throwing in the li-pos seems to be a great way to improve the EMAD. Doesn't really seem worth it to put much more into it.

Long term, I plan to build my own DIY board using Torque's trucks & Wiiciever and some derivation of the hobbyking-supplied hacks that the fine folks on this forum have pioneered.

Exactly. Go lipo in that board and nothing else. Save your money to build one. Just be thinking about that when you buy your batteries so that you can reuse those.

I had the emad first but now I ride my diy 90%+ of the time. Will let friends use the emad since it's a little more user friendly. ( 3 speed settings, stronger brakes, no push start)

Diy is lighter, faster, and much more efficient(batteries last much longer)

I would also just add Lipos. You'll have a fun ride still. Much lighter and manageable than the SLAs. You can also use the Lipo and charger on your next board.

As to the 107's, I assumed you were looking at the drive pulley on Altereds website. I made the mistake of thinking it would work on smaller wheels. The axle on the Emad is bigger than your normal skateboard axle, so you need different bearings if you want to attempt it. But, if you are going to buy all that stuff go DIY and do it right.

I had a chance this weekend to pick up the board... and the owner found the remote, so that was a bonus. I plugged it in to see if the batteries would take a charge and found out that the charger is not working. So I decided to try to manually charge the batteries. No dice. They won't put out more than 8 or 9 volts after sitting on the charger all night. So, yeah, it's definitely time to put in some li-pos.

As you can see from the sticker on the motor (see photo below), it appears to be rated 24v. A 6S li-po is going to give me just a tick over 22v. If I go with 2 6S li-pos in series, do I run the risk of damaging the motor, or other components?

Next steps will be to source a decent used longboard deck (since the EMAD deck is a bit of a piece of crap) and put together a parts list. I'm in Hawaii so Hobby King won't ship batteries to me, so I'll also need to find a local RC supplier.

I also found that the truck axles take a standard skateboard bearing, so it would in theory be possible to put "real" skate wheels on the board instead of those crummy shopping cart looking wheels. The trucks themselves appear to have the "old school" bolt pattern, so should be easy to fit onto a different deck. They're different from NormRD's (http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=57517).

Obligatory "before" picture.

Actually my motor is rated at 36V (had 3 12 volt SLA batteries in series). If your motor is only 24V the 2 6S batteries in series will be way too much. Basically we are putting close to 50V through ours (this is why it is faster as we are putting more voltage through it). You could do just 1 6S, or maybe 2 4S in series to give you a little more voltage.

That was my assumption but wanted to check. Thank you for the info. The current notion is to purchase 2 6s li-po batteries and wire them in parallel.

Learned that Hobby King will ship to Hawaii, but only if the battery is 4000 mah or less. I'd prefer 5000 mah, but Hobby King beats the local hobby store prices by orders of magnitude, so I'll settle on less range for some serious cost savings. So... I made an order for 2 6s Zippy Flightmax 4000mah li-pos. Now we wait.

Picked up a used longboard (complete) for $25 from a guy down in Waikiki. It's a 6 ply Sector 9 carver. Fitted the front truck. The bolt pattern is off by about 1 or 2 mm, but I was able to get things to line up with some pushing and prodding. Had to drill extra holes for the "old school" bolt pattern. Looks OK, but those shopping cart wheels sure are ugly. Need to find somebody who will ship Flywheel clones over here.

So is the board a 200w motor? Your picture doesn't pull up for me. I assumed you were using a 600w with 36v. If its a 200w motor, you aren't going to get much speed and going brushless is what you need to do. I fried a 200w controller with 48v, but it could have been 36v, can't remember. I did use the crappy trucks with mount for a while with a brushless motor setup and new 5mm htd belt. The 200w skate I had used a 3mm belt, which will slip with a bigger motor.

Thanks so much for the info.

It's a 150w motor. I don't think it's going to be fast at all. But I'm on a budget and want to learn how to build my own, so starting with something I can get working and don't have to worry too much about if I blow it up seems a reasonable course of action. Three weeks ago, I had zero knowledge of RC anything. Just an old man skater who doesn't want to push anymore.

Next steps will be to save up for Torque's rad trucks, "real" wheels, get a decent brushless motor, and upgrade the electronics. But that's looking to be a few months down the road.

matty_x said:

Thanks so much for the info.

It's a 150w motor. I don't think it's going to be fast at all. But I'm on a budget and want to learn how to build my own, so starting with something I can get working and don't have to worry too much about if I blow it up seems a reasonable course of action. Three weeks ago, I had zero knowledge of RC anything. Just an old man skater who doesn't want to push anymore.

Next steps will be to save up for Torque's rad trucks, "real" wheels, get a decent brushless motor, and upgrade the electronics. But that's looking to be a few months down the road.

Click to expand...

Guess, you'll be lucky. They'll be cheaper within the next few months or so the next batch. hopefully our open source ESC will be available too - http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=63540

Hobby Parts order arrived. Hooked one li-po up to the leads on the ESC. Turned on the RC remote. Biggedy bam! It's aliiiiiiive!

Very stoked to get it cobbled together and ride it.

Awesome. Let us know how it rides.

I know nothing about RC, so all this battery stuff is new to me. I was able to watch Youtube videos and read the manual for the Imax B6AC charger. So my batteries are properly charged. Now it's time to put everything together.

Question about low voltage alarm. If I run my batteries in parallel, do I need 2 alarms (1 for each battery) or just 1?

For connectors, I want to standardize on one type for the whole setup. What's best?

Thanks!

For the standard alarms, you would need 1 for each battery since they go to the balance plug and monitor each cell. You can go with EC5 or XT90 connectors for stuff that you disconnect and reconnect often. For everything else, bullet connectors are fine, I think 5.5mm would be a good advice since they come on most batteries (at least my Zippy Compact came with it).

Thanks for the tip. I went ahead and bought XT60 connectors because they will fit the balance charging board I bought. In the interim, I just used wire nuts to do some prototyping.

Got to take the board out for a spin. Initial impression - it's really, really slow. It's a two-three push cruising speed. Doesn't go up inclines very well at all. It went up a 5% grade at about 1/3 speed. Anything more than that and it just bogged.

I ran into a problem with the RC remote losing connection with the receiver. It has a range of about 2 feet. So I'll need to cobble together an antenna. Any suggestions/tips?

The wheels/trucks/longboard combo provide a decent ride. The wheels are slow and don't behave like urethane. They. will. not. slide. I suppose this is good and bad. I was able to do some very sharp backside carves, which usually slide out on me. I was surprised that these wheels stuck. I'll have to adjust. Speaking of carving, the board carves wonderfully. I was having a blast carving down the hill in front of my house. Typically, I wouldn't bomb that hill because it's super gnarly, but the braking power of the motor allowed me to barge it like it wasn't a thing.

In its current incarnation, I give the skateboard itself an 8/10. The motor/RC components I give a 4/10. Super slow and not enough power. Fine on flat but not fast enough to really lean into carves. Nice on downhill. Suck on uphill. The li-po batteries rock though.

So the experiment was a success. I was able to resurrect the EMAD, sort of. But I'm not satisfied.

Next steps: new trucks, motor, ESC, wiiceiver, cogs & belt. So basically I'm keeping the batteries, the deck, and my Bones bearings... and I have a set of fake Flywheels already.

Great to hear you are at least out on it. Yes the 36v emad is only one close enough to giving enough speed and even then full throttle happens a lot. Once you go brushless and 6S or more its a different story.

I'm rocking 2 6S lipos, 4000mah each, in parallel.

Right but only 24V in a brushed motor. The 600W/36V emad we are running 6s in series for 50 volts!

6s is plenty on a new brushless motor. Mine does about 25 mph and no problems with hills.

matty_x said:

I ran into a problem with the RC remote losing connection with the receiver. It has a range of about 2 feet. So I'll need to cobble together an antenna. Any suggestions/tips?

Click to expand...

It's not suppose to work if you are not standing on the board, -a safety future. You also need to have your hand in contact with the conducting tape on the remote.

I'm curious how standing on the board makes any difference. It works whether I'm on the deck or not. It seems like it's a reception issue, but if you know something that I missed, I'm all ears.

I'm tempted to wire the 6s batteries in series to see if the electronics can handle it, but I have the feeling I'd just blow everything up.

Remote just works on distance.

Connect batteries in series and I'm sure you will fry something.