My Build

[We-Me]

Specs-
Alien power system battery- 37 volt 10,000 MAH (overkill)
Cheap 2.4 ghz transmitter from Amazon
Alien drive system brackets for Caliber trucks
Abec 11 wheels
APS speed controller (dual motor but only using it for 1 motor)
Etc etc

I went through all of the problems one would encounter when learning this stuff from scratch and owe allot to this board and the others that've taken time to post. So here it is. And thanks to Bruno and also Beetbox (Richard) from England for their help and great customer service.

This board may look like a beater but it is smoking fast and reliable and relatively safe. It has taken me 6 months to get it used to it. I consistently ride it at 29 mph. It will go faster but 29 is about the fastest I feel safe. When I was using two motors diagnally mounted it was ridiculously fast but the braking was horrible and left me on the pavement a couple of times.

 

[We-Me]

I don't want to discourage sales for APS or ADS (alien power system / alien drive systems) but a single motor setup is way more power than I needed and I ride fast and uphill and I weigh 185 lbs. i still haven't opened up the throttle all of the way and don't plan on it either. Save your money.

 

[torqueboards]

Awesome review. It's definitely a steep learning curve but it's well worth it.

Your braking issue was probably the brakes were just too strong and going at high speed it will make you do a face plant. Lower the brakes that way it's gradual and you'll enjoy braking at high speeds.

I disagree but I may be biased. I enjoy a dual motor setup and wouldn't trade it for a single any day of the week. I climb steep hills and enjoy the safety of having the two wheels brake than just a single wheel.

However, a single is just as fun and I imagine would be more then perfect on flat ground.

 

[We-Me]

Hi, thanks for your input. Regarding the dual motor braking issue I had, the problem was the programming. Unfortunately the ESC used some sort of driver that was only compatible with an antiquated version of windows. I use a Mac. And I even bought a PC just to program that ESC which is when I found out it didn't work with Windows 8 or whatever the latest version is. Sadly, I spent some time troubleshooting that particular problem. When I say some I mean lots. It was compounded because I assumed it was my general lack of Windows knowledge when it was just a compatibility issue confirmed by Bruno.

I finally had my neighbor program it on his old windows laptop but I didn't pursue the settings tweaking it requires to use two motors for braking.

That same programming issue rendered the nunchuck transmitter I purchased inoperable too. But at least that was fun to put together. They sent me a circuit board with a bunch of tiniest little things like resistors etc. I had to learn how to do micro soldering which is a whole other rant. I should have just bought it from you complete turn key. Actually I shouldn't have bought it at all. My fugly RC car setup works fine.

I hope this info helps you fellow e-skateboarders. It was hard learned and I wish I could have read the right way to do it here first. It would have saved allot of $.

 

[We-Me]

Actually I probably got more helpful info from the guy at DIYelectricskateboard.com and I am not just saying that. That website has lots of good info and very articulate writing. No offense to ADS and APS but it is sometimes hard to follow the Alien guys. I think they are way too busy and get way too much mail asking for help from people like me. I finally felt that I reached my maximum help requests from Bruno. I think he hates me or at least thinks I am a complete imbecile. He's a very patient man. I will post a link to one of the lithium fails that I got on video.

 

[We-Me]

That video shows me trying to figure out how to balance charge a 10S battery (10S is 10 a cell lithium battery in RC speak) using 2 x 5S balance plugs and a balance board. I still don't know how to do that. I only had a 6S charger and Bruno said it would work but it didn't. I knew it worked fine but just didn't work for me because I was pretty clueless. So at that point I bought a 10S icharger which was just more $ thrown at my learning curve.

 

[torqueboards]

That video shows me trying to figure out how to balance charge a 10S battery (10S is 10 a cell lithium battery in RC speak) using 2 x 5S balance plugs and a balance board. I still don't know how to do that. I only had a 6S charger and Bruno said it would work but it didn't. I knew it worked fine but just didn't work for me because I was pretty clueless. So at that point I bought a 10S icharger which was just more $ thrown at my learning curve.

Lol DoH! Scary watching that vid man. lol

Glad I can help from my website. Let me know if it's lacking. I'm sure it is as well though.

 

[We-Me]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/3Hm7FNm6d0c[/youtube]

Here is the dual motor setup right after I fired it up for the first time. I was so happy.

Prior to this video I was really stuck and had not made progress for a week or so. I couldn't figure out how to hook all of those heavy gauge wires in and out of the components that I needed. It just all seemed like it would not fit in the enclosure and it looked way more spagetti-ish than the other builds I saw here and on ADS.

Then the guy from DIYelectricskateboards.com really gave me the confidence to finish it. He told me that yes all that crap needed to be wired up and to just do it and basically just shove it all in there and call it. Not sure the exact words but that was the message I took away from it. And then I did that, turned it on and then took this little video.

Thanks again guy from DIY and torqueboards. I am sorry but I forgot your name. Anyway thanks man I owe you!

 

[okp]

congrats !

 

[Wayno]

Awesome board! Why do you have the wattmeter on the bottom though? Doesn't seem like it would be very useful down there. Does it log data?

How warm does the one motor get under load?

 

[Tartopom]

Hello
Nice built
For the driver problem you met, I'm using parallels on my mac to run a virtual machine. From there i installed the vista driver for the usb dongle and it worked
But I agree it was an issue which bother me few hours

 

[We-Me]

Hi Wayno, the wattmeter logs info like max amps you drew since it was last turned off. It cycles through a few metrics like that. Once you switch the board off it resets.

The board stays pretty cool. But I have blown out the UBEC two times. The last time it blew out I just hooked a 4 pack of AA batteries to my receiver and it worked fine until I got a new UBEC from Amazon ($12)

I hope this helps.

 

[longhairedboy]

Please don't feel too bad about that expensive and steep learning curve. I'm right here with you. One day I would love to build these for people for a living, so I've been trying to learn as much as possible. It's expensive!

My initial build was a complete dual drive 10ah kit from enertion that i ordered just last year and put on a 40" bustin popsicle deck. I did it that way because i wanted to start out with a known quantity and still be able to experiment. That was just september of last year. Since then I have learned a lot. Swapped the case out, tried a different ESC, burned out components, lost screws, tried different motors, destroyed one of enertion's R-SPEC motors (the wires were totally ripped out), accidentally welded a bullet connector to the battery case because i'm a dumbass, and stripped belts trying to climb grass mounds in the name of testing. Also, extensive vibration testing on the most terrible roads in america: my neighborhood.

Now I'm trying to build my own decks specifically for electric builds. Man have i really stepped in it! So far all I've managed to do is throw a bunch of badly cut or badly sanded pieces of wood into the garbage and get a few drawings onto posterboard. But I keep at it because all i can think about is electric longboards. Torqueboards has an inbox full of my questions, as does enertion.

Don't give up! There's nothing like doing 30mph on a souped up diy electric longboard and seeing the faces on the people as you blow past them sounding like something from a star wars movie. It's so totally worth every dime, burnt finger, and minute waiting on parts in the mail. Not to mention you get way more speed and miles for your dollar than you would out of something like a Boosted.

Also, i've heard a number of complaints about Alien and honestly the only thing i'm interested in from them is their 2.4ghz remote. And of course they're out of stock on that like everything else.

 

[We-Me]

@longhairedboy- it is comforting to know that I am not the only one inflicted with this e-skateboard fanaticism. I've had it for 15 years straight, since the x-24 first generation board. I just keep waiting and waiting for the masses to catch on to the absolute joy of riding one of these.

In my opinion the reason this hobby or sport or whatever you call hasn't went mainstream is that you need to be both crazy and safe to ride successfully. You need to be crazy just to want to do it in the first place and safe so you don't kill yourself. Not too many people have both character attributes.

Please let me know how your project goes.

 

[torqueboards]

@We-Me - I'm sure, it's not just you lol. Seems most people have about 2-3 boards haha.

The process is simple once you know it but that's like a beginner getting into eBikes and RC Cars. Of course, it will take a while.

Also riding on the street definitely takes a bit of patience. I realized sometimes in the city I need to relax and be a bit more patient and wait out that 5-20 seconds for faster cars to either pass and/or start riiding when there's a better more safer time to ride.

That waiting time of 20 seconds isn't worth your life.

Have to admit though... riding in the city with a ton of cars and using it for actual transportation is a ton of fun compared to riding in a city with just long stretches of road.

I also feel safer riding in the city since it's expected for bicycles to be on the street versus in a city where you might not see any people biking.

The funnnnn part is passing all the people walking and flying up the hills.

The downside is I don't want to walk anywhere.

 

[longhairedboy]

@longhairedboy- it is comforting to know that I am not the only one inflicted with this e-skateboard fanaticism. I've had it for 15 years straight, since the x-24 first generation board. I just keep waiting and waiting for the masses to catch on to the absolute joy of riding one of these.

In my opinion the reason this hobby or sport or whatever you call hasn't went mainstream is that you need to be both crazy and safe to ride successfully. You need to be crazy just to want to do it in the first place and safe so you don't kill yourself. Not too many people have both character attributes.

Please let me know how your project goes.

Once I get the process for pressing decks nailed down and polished I will be posting all of my trials and tribulations here along with the successful final result for all to enjoy. This weekend I'm taking @torqueboards advice and building a big wooden hydraulic press using some pressure treated timbers and a couple of bottle jacks. That will turn out very interesting weather its successful or a complete failure. Though I am saving my progress for one giant post here, You can follow along in more real time on instagram. My username there is @longhairedboy as well. All of my failure so far is already there for your amusement! lol

 

[torqueboards]

I seen it before they didn't use a wooden press though.

Here's something similar. Do you weld? Maybe weld something together.

 

[longhairedboy]

I seen it before they didn't use a wooden press though.

Here's something similar. Do you weld? Maybe weld something together.

I used to be ship fitter for litton-grumman at ingall's shipyards (navy ship contracts) so i have welded in the past enough to build something like this but that was about 16 or 17 years ago and my job had all the gear, so i currently do not have a welder, torch, grinder, or any of the other gear i would need, so the startup cost would be waaaay more than the $100 or so i spent on lumber, lag screws, and a couple of bottle jacks. Having a guy build me one would also still be a lot pricier.

However, if you can imagine this exact thing made out of three layers of 4"x4" pressure treated timbers so as to be about a foot deep and a little over 4 feet wide and about 4 feet tall, and using a pair of 2 ton bottle jacks instead of three, that's what i'm building.

The mold i made has worked out amazingly well so i'm very happy with it. I'm just trying to get the pressure required to laminate the layers of veneer between it correctly. If I was able to get as close as i did with just the mold and clamps i made, i'm certain what i have in mind will work. Probably for quite some time without issue.

We'll know how it went by Sunday, i'm sure. Once i get laser vision focus on a project i don't stop until i get results one way or another, and this weekend i have the time to do it.

 

[torqueboards]

4x4 should be sturdy enough lol

 

[bandaro]

Once I get the process for pressing decks nailed down and polished I will be posting all of my trials and tribulations here along with the successful final result for all to enjoy.

I look forward to it! Built many proto decks that have snapped myself. If you don't cnc cut your moulds then I wouldn't go a hydraulic press, any discrepancy will cause voids and breaks in the boards. Have you looked at the TAP thin air presses? They provide a solid and reliable method with minimal tools and tooling costs.

 

[We-Me]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/NYhye3IJhJw[/youtube]

 

[nickkapoor]

What type of range do you get on this thing?