I posted another thread a little while back and wanted to follow up with my build thread.
Goals:
Great hill climbing ability
10+ mile range for possible daily commute
Reasonably reliable
Charge batts in place
The knowledge to troubleshoot and repair
A professional finish
After lurking here for quite a while I finally decided on the diyskateboards dual motor kit. Feel free to take a look at the components/specs at the website if you are curious about the details. I'm going to spare us a rehash of the typical information and just focus on some of the challenges, differences, and details.
Why 12S? Initially I was planning on 8S and had already bought 2 zippy 5AH 4S packs. My commute is going to be about 5 miles each way and although I'll keep a charger in the office I wanted to be able to make it through a whole day without a recharge. When I realized I had maybe barely enough juice for the 10 miles I wanted to add capacity for some comfortable head room on distance. Since I already had 2 4S batteries I decided to just buy a third battery and run it in series which should give me 12-15 miles. I didn't need the voltage but I did need the watt-hours.
I planned to use a smaller deck but when I took it in to a local skate shop for grip I ended up walking out with a new deck. It is a LandYachtz Peacemaker. 36" with a kick-tail. With the enclosure I'm able to run the front trucks one set back from the foremost holes. The rear trucks are all the way back.
Some pictures of the 95% completed phase 1 of the build.
Side on:
Bottom:
The enclosure was a dream to work with. Those batteries I got fit perfectly and snugly side by side with just enough room to run power cables under them. They make a nice dividing section that allowed me to put the receiver on the other side of the case from the ESCs.
Speaking of the receiver... my biggest problem was that it didn't work reliably inside that aluminum enclosure. I spent a day rearranging the layout, moving motor wires, etc trying to keep it clear of interference. No matter what I did I lost connection constantly. See that little black nub on the bottom of the enclosure? That's the nun-chuck receiver sticking through the panel with the arduino electronics connected to it. A little dremel surgery and I created a hole just barely big enough to force the receiver through. It is in there tight and I may add some reinforcement. This solved all my receiver issues.
Here is why I'm only 95% complete... The power button that came with the kit doesn't seem to be working for me. When I plug it in, no matter how I press it the light stays on and the circuit stays connected, and after a few minutes the button becomes surprisingly warm. I can't seem to turn it off. I'm confident I have it hooked up correctly so maybe it's just bad.. I'm hoping it can handle 12S voltage because it's such a nice power option. I just haven't followed up on the switch yet, but once I install that and do some cable management in the enclosure this is more or less done...... for now.
Sadly at the moment those two black wires are my main power switch. I'm about to add an in line resistor to yet another connector to avoid the sparking problems but I can't wait to have a real on/off switch to use.
She weighs in at 18.2 pounds. I'm thinking about carry straps/bags... Any recommendations for a long board bag?
I have about 4 miles on it in the past two days. Just shakedown rides but so far it's performing incredibly well. It has been 25 years since I rode skateboards so I'm just trying to ease into it. It's amazing what the body remembers without you having to think about it.
The first thing I did after my initial testing was turn the motor acceleration setting all the way down to low. Currently the motor force setting is still on max but I'm sure I could turn it down to 50-75% and never notice the difference. I like having the ability to dial things back for safety, efficiency, cooling, etc.
One of my first thoughts is to dive into the nun-chuck receiver code and see if I can customize the throttle and breaking curves more to my situation. I'm also thinking about remapping the lower trigger button as a dead man's switch so it needs to be held down for the throttle to work. I realize this wouldn't be to everyone's liking but for me I might appreciate the extra safety. The brakes for me seem ineffective for much of the first half of the stick movement and then come on too strong too quickly. I'd like the force to be more linear.
I'm planning non diving into some arduino LED control anyway (diff project) and later on I may decide to add some adafruit LED strip lights to act as head, tail, or marker lights. I may add a second BEC and with sufficient 5V power on-board there are many, many possibilities in LED control.
That's it for now. Any questions or comments?
Goals:
Great hill climbing ability
10+ mile range for possible daily commute
Reasonably reliable
Charge batts in place
The knowledge to troubleshoot and repair
A professional finish
After lurking here for quite a while I finally decided on the diyskateboards dual motor kit. Feel free to take a look at the components/specs at the website if you are curious about the details. I'm going to spare us a rehash of the typical information and just focus on some of the challenges, differences, and details.
Why 12S? Initially I was planning on 8S and had already bought 2 zippy 5AH 4S packs. My commute is going to be about 5 miles each way and although I'll keep a charger in the office I wanted to be able to make it through a whole day without a recharge. When I realized I had maybe barely enough juice for the 10 miles I wanted to add capacity for some comfortable head room on distance. Since I already had 2 4S batteries I decided to just buy a third battery and run it in series which should give me 12-15 miles. I didn't need the voltage but I did need the watt-hours.
I planned to use a smaller deck but when I took it in to a local skate shop for grip I ended up walking out with a new deck. It is a LandYachtz Peacemaker. 36" with a kick-tail. With the enclosure I'm able to run the front trucks one set back from the foremost holes. The rear trucks are all the way back.
Some pictures of the 95% completed phase 1 of the build.
Side on:
Bottom:
The enclosure was a dream to work with. Those batteries I got fit perfectly and snugly side by side with just enough room to run power cables under them. They make a nice dividing section that allowed me to put the receiver on the other side of the case from the ESCs.
Speaking of the receiver... my biggest problem was that it didn't work reliably inside that aluminum enclosure. I spent a day rearranging the layout, moving motor wires, etc trying to keep it clear of interference. No matter what I did I lost connection constantly. See that little black nub on the bottom of the enclosure? That's the nun-chuck receiver sticking through the panel with the arduino electronics connected to it. A little dremel surgery and I created a hole just barely big enough to force the receiver through. It is in there tight and I may add some reinforcement. This solved all my receiver issues.
Here is why I'm only 95% complete... The power button that came with the kit doesn't seem to be working for me. When I plug it in, no matter how I press it the light stays on and the circuit stays connected, and after a few minutes the button becomes surprisingly warm. I can't seem to turn it off. I'm confident I have it hooked up correctly so maybe it's just bad.. I'm hoping it can handle 12S voltage because it's such a nice power option. I just haven't followed up on the switch yet, but once I install that and do some cable management in the enclosure this is more or less done...... for now.
Sadly at the moment those two black wires are my main power switch. I'm about to add an in line resistor to yet another connector to avoid the sparking problems but I can't wait to have a real on/off switch to use.
She weighs in at 18.2 pounds. I'm thinking about carry straps/bags... Any recommendations for a long board bag?
I have about 4 miles on it in the past two days. Just shakedown rides but so far it's performing incredibly well. It has been 25 years since I rode skateboards so I'm just trying to ease into it. It's amazing what the body remembers without you having to think about it.
The first thing I did after my initial testing was turn the motor acceleration setting all the way down to low. Currently the motor force setting is still on max but I'm sure I could turn it down to 50-75% and never notice the difference. I like having the ability to dial things back for safety, efficiency, cooling, etc.
One of my first thoughts is to dive into the nun-chuck receiver code and see if I can customize the throttle and breaking curves more to my situation. I'm also thinking about remapping the lower trigger button as a dead man's switch so it needs to be held down for the throttle to work. I realize this wouldn't be to everyone's liking but for me I might appreciate the extra safety. The brakes for me seem ineffective for much of the first half of the stick movement and then come on too strong too quickly. I'd like the force to be more linear.
I'm planning non diving into some arduino LED control anyway (diff project) and later on I may decide to add some adafruit LED strip lights to act as head, tail, or marker lights. I may add a second BEC and with sufficient 5V power on-board there are many, many possibilities in LED control.
That's it for now. Any questions or comments?
(pics below) I'll install a fusible link for a bit of aver amp protection on my next pass.
