A good electric longboard setup

JonSesma

1 µW
Joined
May 30, 2017
Messages
3
Hi everyone,
I'm working in my own dual-motor electric longboard and I want to make sure that all the components are going to work fine, so this is the list:

2x brushless outrunner motors:
- 62A (Max amps)
- 800Kv
- 1250 Watts

2x Hobbyking Red Brick 70A ESC version 2:
-Constant current: 70A
-Batery: 2-7S

2x Turnigy LIPOLY batteries:
- 5000mAh
- 3S
- 20C
The batteries are going to be separately. One battery connected to one ESC connected to one motor.

Also I would like to know how much time the batteries will last

Thank you very much
 
Some input:

Motors: Not a good choice at all. Also not enough Information on size and on how you wanna mount them.
You should go for at least 50mm (diameter) motors, although 63mm are probably better. More power.
Length will be an issue if you wanna mount them both on the same truck. Assuming you're gonna get regular 180mm trucks. The only dual motor setup you can fit on there (unless you're going really exotic with the motor mounts) are two motors that are 55mm long. If you wanna mount them in dual diagonal setup (one motor per truck), that's not an issue. Dual Motors on one truck means you'll have to get 6355 or 5055 motors. With the first two digits indicating the diameter and the last two digits indicating the length.
Next issue: 800KV is waaaaaayy too high. You wanna go for a motor in the 150-300KV range. Ideally closer to the 200KV mark. Lower KV means more torque which is what you'll need considering the weight you're moving on a board like that. Gearing also plays an important factor, but I suggest you do some more research on that by yourself. Basically a nice and simple way to tweak acceleration and top speed stats of your board.

Main point being: Lower KV, ideally more Watts/Power. Think about whether you wanna go dual diagonal or dual rear with your motor setup.
Now you can find good motors on Hobbyking (Hobbyking > Electric Motors > Outrunners by size > Above 50mm) if you look for Turnigy SK-series ones with a low enough KV rating. In my experience however there's some drawbacks to those. Namely that they are designed for model airplanes and that they have relatively large cooling holes in their case. That's bad if you ride at high speeds with the motor being very close to the ground, because it's gonna pick up a lot of tiny debris and at some point the motor will get damaged on the inside. I've had that happen to a Turnigy SK3 6374 motor and a Turnigy G160 before I solved that issue by 3D printing a protective case.
So as far as motors go - my recommendation would actually be to go with motors from either diyelectricskateboard or alienpowersystems. I'd steer away from enertion, not because of part quality but because of very shitty business practices and horrible customer service.
Alternatively, look around on aliexpress and find motors with small holes that don't pick up too much debris.

Next up: your ESC's are airplane ESCs. Don't recommend getting those. Bought two of these on my first build too and I hated it.
They just work differently than car ESCs. A car ESC will let you slowly accelerate whereas the plane esc just starts at some point and goes straight to high speeds. Which means that you'll always have that mini-heart attack feeling when you accelerate simply because there's no way to start smoothly. Also braking doesn't work the way you'd want it to. With most airplane ESCs, once you let go of the throttle it will either coast and you won't be able to brake, or it will brake and you won't be able to coast.
Long story short - you need a car ESC. Some people also made it work with boat ESCs, but car ESC is definitely the way to go here.
Drawback: Most car ESCs only go up to 4s Lipo, which won't be enough for your board. However, there's some that actually go higher. I'd look into Hobbyking's X car beast series, particularly the 150A model. I have one of these mounted on one of my boards as well and it's doing a good job actually. Bonus points with the X-Car Beast series ESC - it has an on/off switch which saves you money on either a spark plug or an expensive high amp on/off switch. Drawback 1: The fan is relatively loud since it's so small, Drawback 2: It's hard to mount this thing under your board, since it doesn't have any screw holes.
Important note: If you go with an X-Car beast you absolutely have to get a programming card with that. because without it, there's absolutely no way for you to program the thing. I'd suggest getting the digital one because it's way easier to use than the other one. Point being: ESC won't work without a programming card for setup purposes.
My personal recommendation: go with a VESC. You can configure way more with them and you'll have an overall better experience. They're worth the extra buck compared to a normal ESC.
When it comes to VESCs in particular absolutely advise against ordering them from Enertion though. They might some of the cheaper places to buy them from, but the last time I bought two VESCs from them, they kept telling me that they're gonna send them out "this week" and ultimately I got them about three or four months late.
Alternatively - there's dual ESCs you can get from alienpowersystems or diyelectricskateboards. A bit more expensive but probably the simplest solution if you don't care too much about tweaking stats on a VESC.

Battery wise - there's a relatively cheap turnigy Lipo battery out there. It's a 3s 8000mAh pack which is great because of how flat it is. Meaning it fits better under your deck.

Have you thought about remotes yet? My recommendation - go Aliexpress on this one.
Cheapest ones you'll find, I actually have that exact one right in front of me on the table and it works great. Good signal and very trustworthy. You can even get a second receiver (for that dual motor/ESC build) if you ask the seller for it. It's like 8 bucks extra if I recall correctly.

I think that's all for now. Hope that helps!
 
dannydoyle2 said:
Some input:

Motors: Not a good choice at all. Also not enough Information on size and on how you wanna mount them.
You should go for at least 50mm (diameter) motors, although 63mm are probably better. More power.
Length will be an issue if you wanna mount them both on the same truck. Assuming you're gonna get regular 180mm trucks. The only dual motor setup you can fit on there (unless you're going really exotic with the motor mounts) are two motors that are 55mm long. If you wanna mount them in dual diagonal setup (one motor per truck), that's not an issue. Dual Motors on one truck means you'll have to get 6355 or 5055 motors. With the first two digits indicating the diameter and the last two digits indicating the length.
Next issue: 800KV is waaaaaayy too high. You wanna go for a motor in the 150-300KV range. Ideally closer to the 200KV mark. Lower KV means more torque which is what you'll need considering the weight you're moving on a board like that. Gearing also plays an important factor, but I suggest you do some more research on that by yourself. Basically a nice and simple way to tweak acceleration and top speed stats of your board.

Main point being: Lower KV, ideally more Watts/Power. Think about whether you wanna go dual diagonal or dual rear with your motor setup.
Now you can find good motors on Hobbyking (Hobbyking > Electric Motors > Outrunners by size > Above 50mm) if you look for Turnigy SK-series ones with a low enough KV rating. In my experience however there's some drawbacks to those. Namely that they are designed for model airplanes and that they have relatively large cooling holes in their case. That's bad if you ride at high speeds with the motor being very close to the ground, because it's gonna pick up a lot of tiny debris and at some point the motor will get damaged on the inside. I've had that happen to a Turnigy SK3 6374 motor and a Turnigy G160 before I solved that issue by 3D printing a protective case.
So as far as motors go - my recommendation would actually be to go with motors from either diyelectricskateboard or alienpowersystems. I'd steer away from enertion, not because of part quality but because of very shitty business practices and horrible customer service.
Alternatively, look around on aliexpress and find motors with small holes that don't pick up too much debris.

Next up: your ESC's are airplane ESCs. Don't recommend getting those. Bought two of these on my first build too and I hated it.
They just work differently than car ESCs. A car ESC will let you slowly accelerate whereas the plane esc just starts at some point and goes straight to high speeds. Which means that you'll always have that mini-heart attack feeling when you accelerate simply because there's no way to start smoothly. Also braking doesn't work the way you'd want it to. With most airplane ESCs, once you let go of the throttle it will either coast and you won't be able to brake, or it will brake and you won't be able to coast.
Long story short - you need a car ESC. Some people also made it work with boat ESCs, but car ESC is definitely the way to go here.
Drawback: Most car ESCs only go up to 4s Lipo, which won't be enough for your board. However, there's some that actually go higher. I'd look into Hobbyking's X car beast series, particularly the 150A model. I have one of these mounted on one of my boards as well and it's doing a good job actually. Bonus points with the X-Car Beast series ESC - it has an on/off switch which saves you money on either a spark plug or an expensive high amp on/off switch. Drawback 1: The fan is relatively loud since it's so small, Drawback 2: It's hard to mount this thing under your board, since it doesn't have any screw holes.
Important note: If you go with an X-Car beast you absolutely have to get a programming card with that. because without it, there's absolutely no way for you to program the thing. I'd suggest getting the digital one because it's way easier to use than the other one. Point being: ESC won't work without a programming card for setup purposes.
My personal recommendation: go with a VESC. You can configure way more with them and you'll have an overall better experience. They're worth the extra buck compared to a normal ESC.
When it comes to VESCs in particular absolutely advise against ordering them from Enertion though. They might some of the cheaper places to buy them from, but the last time I bought two VESCs from them, they kept telling me that they're gonna send them out "this week" and ultimately I got them about three or four months late.
Alternatively - there's dual ESCs you can get from alienpowersystems or diyelectricskateboards. A bit more expensive but probably the simplest solution if you don't care too much about tweaking stats on a VESC.

Battery wise - there's a relatively cheap turnigy Lipo battery out there. It's a 3s 8000mAh pack which is great because of how flat it is. Meaning it fits better under your deck.

Have you thought about remotes yet? My recommendation - go Aliexpress on this one.
Cheapest ones you'll find, I actually have that exact one right in front of me on the table and it works great. Good signal and very trustworthy. You can even get a second receiver (for that dual motor/ESC build) if you ask the seller for it. It's like 8 bucks extra if I recall correctly.

I think that's all for now. Hope that helps!

Danny boy!!! Thanks for taking the time out to write such an awesome little guide. I've been dicking around with making my own board and I know there's a huge learning curve there. You cleared up a lot of unspoken unknowns and gave really usable advice. You mentioned dual diagonal for getting longer motors, how does that effect riding dynamics?
 
Sure, no problem. I sure as hell spent sums of money going into the four digits range when I first started, simply because I thought I knew it all and I could make it work. Thought I'd save you a buck or two by just telling you what makes sense and what doesn't.

I remembered one more thing regarding the speed controllers - if you're gonna go for a Hobbyking ESC, they work great but there's one little thing that's really annoying - when you brake they make an annoying screeching sound. VESCs don't do that.
It's actually pretty annoying if you ride that one in a more public area because you can't really brake without turning heads everywhere around you.
So I guess that means one more reason to go straight for a VESC.

But anyway, to answer your question - the way you mount your motor has both benefits and drawbacks. Just off the top of my head (and I'm sure i'm missing some here):

- Dual rear:
*Cleaner wiring since all the wires are going to the same side of the board
*Also when you accelerate fast, your board doesn't break out to one side (i.e. if you only have one motor and you accelerate fast, your board will tend to slightly pull to one side.) It's barely noticeable when you're standing on it though so it's almost a non-issue.
*It also looks a bit cleaner and feels 'safer', especially if you mount them like they do on the evolve carbon GT. Leaves you more clearance between the motors and the ground. Which is also good for the motors, because less debris finds its way into the motor than when the motors are mounted directly under the board.

- Dual diagonal:
* biggest pro would be that you can't really get stuck anywhere. Meaning if you ride over something, and one of the wheels ends up being "in the air", the other one still has contact to the ground and the motor can pull you over the obstacle. that also doesn't really happen that often, unless of course you plan on turning it into a mountain board and plan on riding that offroad.
* big drawback - if you have big motors that won't fit under your board and you wanna mount them "the evolve way" (=facing outwards), you can't really do dual diagonal. If you crash your board into something, the first thing that will impact is be the motor and you don't want that. Motors are fragile and you don't want the magnets in them coming loose.
So dual diagonal only really makes sense if you can fit both motors under the board, facing inwards.
* The wiring is also messier, since you'll have battery and ESC wires everywhere. Also limits where you will mount the battery a bit, since you're most likely want your battery to be exactly in the middle.

As far as driving dynamics go, I doubt you'll see/feel much of a difference once you're standing on it. It's really for the most part a decision of convenient wiring. In my opinion, at least.

My advice - go dual rear. I'm doing the same. Actually just ordered two Evolve trucks (they have the dual kingpin trucks which are amazing for close corners and intense carving) and they should arrive sometime next week. Gonna mount two 6355 motors on there and get about 6000W worth of power on that board. Dis gon be fun.
 
Danny, thank you very much for your detailed answers, it seems that you have a lot of experience with e-longboards.

First of all, it's a pity the motors kv it's too high. The motors are 43mm (diameter) and 50mm long. The design is similar to the Turnigy G160 but I also have a 3d printer. I've thought of building a first version of the e-longboard with 3d printed mounts and gears that can solve the torque problem of this motors that later I will upgrade.
Because both motors are going to be in the back truck (I also bought dual kingpin trucks) and it is not too much weight, it could work fine for the first version.

One question, if I change to this setup the battery to a 5S battery, is the motor going to receive more voltage? I mean, if we connect a 5S battery with a 70A esc to the motor, does the motor receive 18,5 volts (5S × 3,7V) and 70 amps?

To sum up, this setup:

2x brushless outrunner motors:
- 62A (Max amps)
- 800Kv
- 1250 Watts
- 43mm (diameter) × 50mm (large)

2x Hobbyking Red Brick 70A ESC version 2:
-Constant current: 70A
-Batery: 2-7S

2x ZIPPY LIPOLY batteries:
- 5000mAh
- 5S (before was 3s but maybe 5s is better)
- 20C

may not be the best, but for a first version e-longboard; adjusting the gearing for more torque; and 3d printing the mounts and protective covers; could it work?

P.S. can you send again the Aliexpress link for the remote? The first one doesn't work.
 
Lower voltage means higher amp draw so I wouldn't recommend going with a 5s setup.

And as far as your setup goes, the 42mm motors will overheat, start smoking and ultimately be unuseable. They're not gonna do it if you ride on a flat surface, but as soon as you ride up at a slight incline or you accelerate from a speed that's too low, your motors will overheat. Especially if you plan on sticking to the airplane ESCs. Those things can't do a slow startup/acceleration and you're gonna end up burning through your motors (and possibly stripping your belts at the same time). Dual motor gives you extra torque and combined with the fast startup of the airplane ESCs, you're gonna hate your board.

All I can tell you is to reconsider getting at least 50mm motors (although 63 are preferred) and to get a decent speed controller that's either designed for cars or to go straight for the VESC because it's worth the money.
I'm not gonna stop you from trying out what you're planning on doing but I've been there and I can tell you what's gonna happen from first hand experience. I burned through a 1600W 50mm motor doing the same thing and that one was a 192KV one.
And frankly, I don't see a point in asking for advice on a forum if you're gonna continue doing the opposite anyway.
 
Sorry for my ignorance. I'm learning, and that means that I can make mistakes.

First of all, I've decided to choose the VESC, you are right, I didn't know that the previous ESC was an helicopter ESC, and if I want to build a good quality e-longboard, the VESC is indispensable.

Second, please, read this post about a guy that tried to use a 750 Kv motor, it is a relly interesting post, and my new setup will be inspired by that post.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=56839#p847526

So the new setup is:

2x brushless outrunner motors:
- 62A (Max amps)
- 800Kv
- 1250 Watts
- 43mm (diameter) × 50mm (large)
Some similar could be these one: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/ntm-prop-drive-series-42-38-750kv-785w.html

2x VESC's (version 4.12): http://www.ollinboardcompany.com/product/vedder-s-speed-controller
I have read very good things about the VESC, as you can program a set of parameters for example to prevent the motors and the VESC's from burning.

2x Turnigy LIPOLY batteries:
- 5000mAh
- 4S
- 20C
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-5000mah-4s1p-14-8v-20c-hardcase-pack.html

Charger: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...er_Cell_Checker_30w_2s_4s_USA_Warehouse_.html

HK-GT2B RC Remote: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyki...-receiver-w-rechargable-li-ion-battery-1.html

I've learnt a lot in Benjamin's Website: http://vedder.se/

About the gearing ratio, I've though I could work 1:3, but maybe, if I need more torque 1:5 should work.
Again, read this post where it appears the experience of a guy: https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=56839#p847526

I hope the setup has improve, please danny, I would like to know your opinion.
 
The motors you want have a too high KV. I'm using a turnigy aerodrive sk3 5055 280KV. This motor has even a high KV for use on an e-longboard. The best is 200-ish KV for a motor.
 
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