Build: HELectric Board - Helsinki Electric Longboard Project

[haimindo]

Hi all! New to the forum but been lurking for few weeks now.

Just finished my first electric longboard build and named it HELectric board. Have not seen any electric longboards in Helsinki I thought it would be interesting to be one of the first ones to build in DIY-spirit.

Some general information about the board.
Deck: Rayne Whip 41" (From Boardsport.fi)
Trucks: Caliber II Fifty (From Boardsport.fi)
Wheels: ABEC11 Flyweel 76mm 78a (From Boardsport.fi)
Drivetrain: Alien Drive System Freestyler-kit
Motor: APS 5065 Outrunner brushless 270KV 22000W
ESC: APS 120A 2-7S Mini ESC, 4.5 Firmware
Battery: APS 6S 6300mah 35C
Controller: HK-GT2B and Badwolf V2 3D-printed case

After few test runs im quite happy with the board, next step is to build Anti-spark, power button and some kind of easy way to charge the board without opening the enclosure (ideas?). Also it is interesting to see how the cold Finnish weather affects the board and its performance. Problem at the moment is that the Finnish law does not recognise small electric vehicles so there is risk of getting 160 euro fine when riding one of these in public

Some test-run footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYOSBmCPf9M

Build "blog": http://www.pimio.fi/helectric/

 

[Vulthor]

Congrats for the build and the vids, really nice both.

 

[torqueboards]

Sweet build!

 

[RideTheIon]

Tervetuloa porukkaan!

Your board looks sleek and mean.

Problem at the moment is that the Finnish law does not recognise small electric vehicles so there is risk of getting 160 euro fine when riding one of these in public

There is hope that the proposed “segway”-law will change that.
http://www.lvm.fi/tiedote/4437033/m...sahkokulkuneuvot-laillisiksi-liikennekaytossa
The 15/25 kph speed limit really sucks
I'm almost sure they will also slap on a ridiculously low power limit. Segway is 2kW, so they will probably go with that.

I've clocked about 10 hours of commuting to work and just goofing around with my E-mountainboard. I kind of get the feeling that to get fined for riding an E-board in Helsinki, your have to be doing something else wrong that pisses someone off.
It's a grey area and the street cops aren't looking to do more than stop the crimes that bother people.
Nevertheless I haven't been brave enough to board around the few km^2 center of downtown Helsinki. There the sidewalks are usually packed with people, so I'd have to ride among the cars the whole time.
Being the first "vehicle" at the traffic light of a busy intersection is kind of begging for some kind of police intervention.

I recently blew my APS/Flier ESC while braking on a slight downhill. I'm now impatiently waiting for 2 VESCs.
When the street boarding season has passed, I was thinking of tinkering with the VESC's code and adding a “street-legal” feature.
This would temporally limit the power and change the throttle curve / top speed.
Beside complying with the law, a power limiting function would be cool. When I'm on the sidewalk, I don't want a finger cramp maiming a pedestrian, but on the road I want to be able to quickly accelerate to 40 kph to keep up with the cars. Driving 25 kph in traffic is unsafe and reckless.

 

[haimindo]

Thank you all! And kiitos tervetulotoivotuksista RideTheIon

Yeah I am aware about the new legislation and feel your pain with the 15/25kph speed "limit". Just today had a one hour ride around Töölö/Töölönlahti and Kansalaistori. Its pretty odd to skate around when people are staring, maybe thats something to get used to. Where do you usually commute and how do people react?

Your VESC-street-legal-project sounds great, let me know if you manage to tinker that before spring Where did you order your VESCs? From Enertio?

Cheers!

 

[sl33py]

Wonder if you can have a 2kw "actual" vs theoretical power limit? I found on a dual 5065 200kv board on 8s (very fast/powerful) with dual VESC my watt meter showed just shy of 2kw (199x was max seen, usually 1950'ish) on 8s. So "technically" under 2kw? The motors i think were spec'd at 2kw ea though... Nice feature of the watt meter was the live display where you could show someone it wasn't over 2kw?

GL!

 

[RideTheIon]

Its pretty odd to skate around when people are staring, maybe thats something to get used to. Where do you usually commute and how do people react?

I commute between Ruoholahti and Lauttasaari.
In both areas people stare a lot, but in Ruoholahti it has a good vibe. People give me the thumbs up and I kind of get the feeling that their happy that their day has some entertainment.
In Lauttasaari the reactions are more mixed. Especially the senior citizens have a expression on their face like I was juggling motorsaws on a trippy 4th dimensional vortex. They don't fully comprehend what they are seeing, but it looks dangerous to them and they can't understand why anyone would do it.
I go to Jätkäsaari to try new things and test the board's limits. I don't want to wipe out with a big audience of people.

Where did you order your VESCs?

I sent jamesonotc a pm 2 weeks ago and he included me in his latest batch.
They were shipped on wednesday but customs will sit on the package for a few days.
That enough time for me to get the connectors soldered and cap packs assembled.
Hopefully we got 2-3 month of riding until we have to change the snow tires onto our boards

I found on a dual 5065 200kv board on 8s (very fast/powerful) with dual VESC my watt meter showed just shy of 2kw

I'd be funny if they build skateboard sized dynamometers.
I've been wondering is the theoretical power limit of these motors obtainable or are they like hifi watts. Maybe they can put that out with a certain size propeller on an RC plane.
Boosted board advertised 2 kW / 22 mph and I believe those numbers. I've never ridden or seen one in person, but based on the videos, it seems to have the same acceleration as my board after kick-off speed.

After half of my ESC got fried, I still have 3 kW on paper. Riding it is just not fun. I have to be careful to not stall on acceleration and it just feels like there is too little power.
Boosted board has hard wheels, but I doubt that make that much difference. I'm riding with 3 bars which is close to the max pressure of the tires. There's also 15% difference in top speed, so that contributes a little.

I'm probably never using the maximum of my motors, since it has flipped me around a few times on a hard accelerations.
If my board has too much power with 2 motors, then it should max the available power with one motor before performance is hit.
So how come 2 kW is enough for the Boosted board and 3 kw is not enough to comfortably get me around on my board? :?

 

[torqueboards]

After half of my ESC got fried, I still have 3 kW on paper. Riding it is just not fun. I have to be careful to not stall on acceleration and it just feels like there is too little power.
Boosted board has hard wheels, but I doubt that make that much difference. I'm riding with 3 bars which is close to the max pressure of the tires. There's also 15% difference in top speed, so that contributes a little.

I'm probably never using the maximum of my motors, since it has flipped me around a few times on a hard accelerations.
If my board has too much power with 2 motors, then it should max the available power with one motor before performance is hit.
So how come 2 kW is enough for the Boosted board and 3 kw is not enough to comfortably get me around on my board? :?

You only have a single motor running at 2200W. Boosted has two motors which run at about 2000W together. But that second motor does help. They're also using 12S 3.2v so 38.4v compared to your 22.2v almost half. So they're running with more power.

You would need to run your pack at 22.2V * 100 amps to get 2220 watts which your pack most likely won't do. Your probably running at 60amps * 22.2V = 1332 watts peak. So your only getting about 1332 watts peak if even.

If you were running 12S, you would get a ton more power but your only at 7S.

What do you mean pressure of the tires? Aren't you using ABEC 11's?

You'll fry a lot more of those ESCs.. They aren't really of any quality unfortunately.

 

[haimindo]

After half of my ESC got fried, I still have 3 kW on paper. Riding it is just not fun. I have to be careful to not stall on acceleration and it just feels like there is too little power.
Boosted board has hard wheels, but I doubt that make that much difference. I'm riding with 3 bars which is close to the max pressure of the tires. There's also 15% difference in top speed, so that contributes a little.

I'm probably never using the maximum of my motors, since it has flipped me around a few times on a hard accelerations.
If my board has too much power with 2 motors, then it should max the available power with one motor before performance is hit.
So how come 2 kW is enough for the Boosted board and 3 kw is not enough to comfortably get me around on my board? :?

You only have a single motor running at 2200W. Boosted has two motors which run at about 2000W together. But that second motor does help. They're also using 12S 3.2v so 38.4v compared to your 22.2v almost half. So they're running with more power.

You would need to run your pack at 22.2V * 100 amps to get 2220 watts which your pack most likely won't do. Your probably running at 60amps * 22.2V = 1332 watts peak. So your only getting about 1332 watts peak if even.

If you were running 12S, you would get a ton more power but your only at 7S.

What do you mean pressure of the tires? Aren't you using ABEC 11's?

You'll fry a lot more of those ESCs.. They aren't really of any quality unfortunately.

I think you mixed up my board with RideTheIon:s mountainboard project ( https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=69243&p=1050336#p1050336 )

Sorry for this inconvenience when the discussion goes off-topic here

I commute between Ruoholahti and Lauttasaari.
In both areas people stare a lot, but in Ruoholahti it has a good vibe. People give me the thumbs up and I kind of get the feeling that their happy that their day has some entertainment.
In Lauttasaari the reactions are more mixed. Especially the senior citizens have a expression on their face like I was juggling motorsaws on a trippy 4th dimensional vortex. They don't fully comprehend what they are seeing, but it looks dangerous to them and they can't understand why anyone would do it.
I go to Jätkäsaari to try new things and test the board's limits. I don't want to wipe out with a big audience of people.

Just few days ago rode over the Lauttasaari-bridge and it was in awful condition, so many big cracks that I almost wipeout couple of times, I really need to get bigger wheels than 76mm. Maybe I should upgrade to inflatable winter tyres :lol:

I'd be funny if they build skateboard sized dynamometers.
I've been wondering is the theoretical power limit of these motors obtainable or are they like hifi watts. Maybe they can put that out with a certain size propeller on an RC plane.

Yeah, I think the new electric vehicle law does not apply to these DIY-boards. I think it is ment for the commercial boards that have CE-markings and the nominal wattage.

We should have some kind of electric long/skate/mountainboard-meetup here in Helsinki

 

[beetbocks]

awesome build...looks very neat..

power button and some kind of easy way to charge the board without opening the enclosure (ideas?)

I have been using a a 15Way D-sub plug and socket on my latest builds..just solder a 7s extension cable to the 1-8 pins then use the remaining pins for the Positive and negative lead on the battery ( the pins are rated at 5amp each..and i use two pins for positive and 2 pins for negative).. works great.. and really cheap to buy on ebay..
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_o...dsub+plug.TRS0&_nkw=15+way+dsub+plug&_sacat=0

 

[haimindo]

Thanks beetbocks for the idea!

Can I charge the board without disconnecting it from the ESC? At the moment I dont have a power switch on the board.


Other news:

Went longboarding on a beautiful and bendy forrest road and realized that I need way more POWAAH! So next project (after winter) is building a 12S double motor setup with VESC:s
What would be optimal motor, gearing and wheel setup if im looking for higher top speed? Im not that heavy (65kg) so I can sacrifice some torque for speed.

Is there any sense in this setup
2x VESC
2x Enertion R-SPEC 190kv motors with 15T gearing with 36T wheel gearing
4x ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 3S1P 20C (Any good?)
4x ABEC11 (or cheapo copies) 90mm flywheels. Finnish tarmac is really rough because of the studded winter tyres and snow plows



Some cruising. Sorry for the bad video quality, had shaky hands some weird settings on the phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdYx1ZlRfs

 

[whitepony]

Is there any sense in this setup
2x VESC
2x Enertion R-SPEC 190kv motors with 15T gearing with 36T wheel gearing
4x ABEC11 (or cheapo copies) 90mm flywheels. Finnish tarmac is really rough because of the studded winter tyres and snow plows

what kind of speed are you aiming at? at first I thought 50kph is crazy, but by now I feel dangerously comfortable.

I think the last few builds on the forum used pretty much this setup with small variations (okp, sl33py, me). Im firing up the 2x enertion motors with a 10S battery and torqueboard ESCs and the torque is quite breathtaking - cant think of any slope that this board wont be able to climb, it gets to its max speed (48.4kph) with ease ... just accelerates and stays there. for my feeling, I got too much power right now! pretty sure that 2x 50mm motors or 1x 63mm motor wouldve been sufficient. currently I have to use conservative settings on the ESC to keep me alive and keep the wheels from locking when I brake.

 

[sl33py]

Thanks beetbocks for the idea!

Can I charge the board without disconnecting it from the ESC? At the moment I dont have a power switch on the board.


Other news:

Went longboarding on a beautiful and bendy forrest road and realized that I need way more POWAAH! So next project (after winter) is building a 12S double motor setup with VESC:s
What would be optimal motor, gearing and wheel setup if im looking for higher top speed? Im not that heavy (65kg) so I can sacrifice some torque for speed.

Is there any sense in this setup
2x VESC
2x Enertion R-SPEC 190kv motors with 15T gearing with 36T wheel gearing
4x ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 3S1P 20C (Any good?)
4x ABEC11 (or cheapo copies) 90mm flywheels. Finnish tarmac is really rough because of the studded winter tyres and snow plows



Some cruising. Sorry for the bad video quality, had shaky hands some weird settings on the phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdYx1ZlRfs

Yeah beetbocks has a great setup and love the single plug simplicity of it for balancing.

Love the video - shaky a bit, but gorgeous scenery! Looks like it's getting you up the hill really well. You want to go faster? Do you have a top speed you want to setup? It really is all in the gearing...

Your proposed setup, using beetbocks speed calc he gave me forever ago... :

Diameter		Motor KV		Battery S/V		M pully		Hub pulley
								
90		190		12		15		36
								
Speed= KPH	64.47384							
Speed= MPH	38.83966265							
actual speed	32.62531663

Looks scary fast like Whitepony has mentioned - i expect i'll have to set some sort of max rpm or other limiting configuration to stay uninjured.

Wheels - with your deck, will 90mm fit without monster/large riser pads? Something with some wheel clearance like Vanguard and other symmetrical cutout decks might work better at this point if you want to keep your deck height lower. I ran some Flywheel 97's on my gbomb and LOVED them! I'm doing the same 97's on my new Omen e-Chief. Wondering if i can squeeze the electric flywheels on (107mm but WIDE which might not fit), and not sure if regular flywheel hubs from enertion/DIYes will fit either. Might have to get a set to find out!

One last thing on wheels - i'm actually pretty pleased with some Flywheel clones i have (83mm) on GF's deck, but there is definitely a difference in the 'thane quality/feel. So if rough roads is a big issue, besides larger wheels, i'd also recommend the softer 'thane of the flywheels over clones.

Looks awesome and congrats on the great build so far!!

 

[beetbocks]

Thanks beetbocks for the idea!

Can I charge the board without disconnecting it from the ESC? At the moment I dont have a power switch on the board.


Other news:

Went longboarding on a beautiful and bendy forrest road and realized that I need way more POWAAH! So next project (after winter) is building a 12S double motor setup with VESC:s
What would be optimal motor, gearing and wheel setup if im looking for higher top speed? Im not that heavy (65kg) so I can sacrifice some torque for speed.

Is there any sense in this setup
2x VESC
2x Enertion R-SPEC 190kv motors with 15T gearing with 36T wheel gearing
4x ZIPPY Flightmax 5000mAh 3S1P 20C (Any good?)
4x ABEC11 (or cheapo copies) 90mm flywheels. Finnish tarmac is really rough because of the studded winter tyres and snow plows



Some cruising. Sorry for the bad video quality, had shaky hands some weird settings on the phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdYx1ZlRfs

well i use the power switch to disconnect.as the neg and pos are connected directly to the battery by SWG14 wire..
how do you turn it off now..just disconnect the battery?..use a XT60 or similar plug to form a kill switch on the negative lead maybe?
I find my dual Hyper Ev ( dual 63mm 10S) has simply too much power...for most situations..and i weigh 85kgs.. its nice to have the power but i constantly have to concentrate on throttle management..
My favorite and easiest to use setup is a dual 5065 diagonal drive..with 7s but 8s would be perfect..it means i can basically use full throttle without thinking about being thrown off.. and the board is still quite lightweight to carry.. whereas a dual 63mm with 12s is a pretty heavy item,

 

[haimindo]

Cheers everybody!

I think I'll "settle" with the max speed of 45km/h. And see if I dare to ride even that

Wheels - with your deck, will 90mm fit without monster/large riser pads? Something with some wheel clearance like Vanguard and other symmetrical cutout decks might work better at this point if you want to keep your deck height lower.

Yeah, I think im getting new deck with cutout for the speed-board, and leave the single motor for commuting stuff.

how do you turn it off now..just disconnect the battery?..use a XT60 or similar plug to form a kill switch on the negative lead maybe?
I find my dual Hyper Ev ( dual 63mm 10S) has simply too much power...for most situations..and i weigh 85kgs.. its nice to have the power but i constantly have to concentrate on throttle management..
My favorite and easiest to use setup is a dual 5065 diagonal drive..with 7s but 8s would be perfect..it means i can basically use full throttle without thinking about being thrown off.. and the board is still quite lightweight to carry.. whereas a dual 63mm with 12s is a pretty heavy item

Yeah I connect directly with XT90-plugs at the moment. Im looking for a power switch but it's sold out in many places (APS & Enertion).


New video!

I should get gimbal+gopro combo like okp for steadier footage Its getting colder and colder so this could be one of the last runs on this "season".

[youtube]83nhx2sbGpg[/youtube]

 

[haimindo]

Last week added some LED-lights to the board (back to the future day).

Quick run before my GT2B died :?

[youtube]9IT2JMDN2gM[/youtube]

Edit: also made killswitch/key with XT90-connector

 

[haimindo]

Had a Finnish ES-meetup with RideTheIon today It was nice to chat with fellow E-boarder, lots of ideas for the future!

Quick video of RideTheIon testing my setup


[youtube]w4-czLj4PUI[/youtube]

 

[sl33py]

Nice vids! Did you get the GT2B fixed or what was the issue?

 

[haimindo]

Nice vids! Did you get the GT2B fixed or what was the issue?

Thank you sl33py!

I tried to move the usb-port and I think I short circuited it So had to order new GT2 and instead of moving the micro-usb-port I just cut hole in the bad wolf print and fitted it that way.

In the other news, just ordered hub-motors from LEVer/Pediglide Couldn't wait through winter for the next build

 

[haimindo]

Biggest newspaper in Finland made an article about my board! They had segment about upcoming e-vehicle legislation renovation and they interviewed me about my project and the future of e-vehicles in Finland

I know that most of you have no clue what it says in the article but my main point was that instead of ordering complete sets from China people should build/assemble/design them by themselves. 8)

 

[whitepony]

thats pretty amazing, how did they find you?

 

[LEVer]

That's awesome!

 

[beetbocks]

awesome.!!! great going..

would you mind me using a link to your post for my website and Facebook page?

 

[haimindo]

thats pretty amazing, how did they find you?

Dunno actually

 

[haimindo]

I am selling this build to my friend and start a new project with hub-motors. So goodbye HELectric and welcome unnamed project 8) Stay tuned for more!