How to choose an electric skateboard that suits you

by Muzaara on October 19, 2020

 

The market for electric skateboards is becoming more and more popular, and there are more and more manufacturers and brands entering this field. At present, there are many kinds of electric skateboard brands on the market, from 80 US dollars to 2,600 US dollars, there are at least hundreds of branded and unbranded ones to choose from. How can I choose an electric skateboard with good performance and quality? ? please watch the following.

 

Choosing an electric skateboard is very similar to choosing a car. We must first start from our own needs.

If you like a car with a fast speed on the road, you need to choose a sports car with great speed and power. If you like off-road, then choose an off-road vehicle.

So it is a wise choice to think clearly about your needs and then choose an electric skateboard. The demand for electric skateboards here can be roughly divided into the following three categories

 

  1. Toy gifts for children or purely curious to try, skateboarding layman, beginner

 

  1. Electric skateboard enthusiasts, travel daily use, intermediate and junior players

 

  1. Avid DIY modder, professional extreme player who pursues speed and drift

 

Toy gifts for children, skateboard beginners

 

Electric skateboards that meet these needs have the following characteristics

The price generally does not exceed US$300

Speed not higher than 15MPH or 25KM/H

The range is within 5Miles or 8km

The length of the board is within 30 inches/76CM

Weight within 8lb/3.6

 

This kind of electric skateboard is generally called electric fishboard or electric penny board. They are characterized by low speed, short range and low carrying capacity, but they are very suitable for children's entertainment or not intense transportation. Because of its low speed, there are no strict requirements for the motor, battery and skateboard bearing structure. As long as you weigh less than 180lb/80kg, you can still get the fun of electric skateboarding without violence use. For example, it’s a good choice to go skating with your child or walking the dog.

 

Electric skateboard enthusiasts, travel needs, intermediate and advanced players

 

Adults who want to experience the fun of electric skateboarding but have no idea about the product knowledge should take a closer look next.

 

The product market in this area is really mixed, and the products made are also strange.

Prices range from US$300-1900, and there are many brands, so I won’t list them one by one here.

 

Many people think that the faster the skateboarding speed, the better, the longer the range, the better. This might not be true.

 

Any product, especially sports products, can never be as simple as just looking at a few numbers. If everyone only cares about the faster the speed, the longer the range, the better, why not build an electric skateboard with a huge motor and a huge battery pack so that its speed can reach 80km/h and the range can reach 100km. But have you thought about it? This skateboard may weigh 45Kg, and you cannot carry it when there is no electricity. So we have to look at a balanced indicator.

 

I have to admit that the fun of electric skateboarding comes from being able to take the rider to a high-speed state of 32km/h-42km/h without manpower. (The speed exceeding 42km/h is for 99% of non-professional skateboarders. Very dangerous) The sliding experience at this time is very exciting and exciting. When you ride a suitable electric skateboard to a speed above 32km/h, the cool wind blows through your ears, the road surface transmits the bumps on your feet through the board, and the skateboard is on your side by moving your center of gravity left and right. Carving under your feet is like surfing on land. That’s Great!

 

So for a good electric skateboard, the gliding body feel is the most important indicator

 

The body feel of sliding, whether it is comfortable, and the habits of the skater can best reflect whether the manufacturer has really studied skateboards or longboards.

 

At present, most of the manufacturers on the market are manufacturers who used to produce balance bikes and electric bicycles. They think that electric skateboards are very simple products. They can only be sold with skateboards or longboards plus a power system, but when you are in When using these electric skateboards, you will feel special Stiff. It just feels like sliding on a rigid brick, completely without flexibility and road feedback. Because these products are designed by people who don't know how to skateboard.

 

Here are a few misunderstandings that they often make mistakes

  1. The surface of the board is completely inflexible
  2. The ground clearance of the board is too high
  3. The board will jam the wheels
  4. Use the wrong truck.
  5. Use bad quality wheels

 

  1. The surface of the board is completely inflexible

 

 

In order to save costs, some manufacturers use very cheap hardwood to make the board surface, which is completely inflexible when stepping on it. Imagine when you are driving at a high speed of 32km/h, wheels with a diameter of only 90mm or less and a hardness of 78A, 85A will give you a strong sense of bumps. I bet your feet will be numb to walking in less than 10 minutes, and long-time sliding will damage your spine and brain.

 

Boosted Board is made very well. It uses the valuable Loaded Vanguard deck. Only this board is priced at $174 on the loaded website. This board is very flexible and can provide you with maximum shock absorption during sliding. 

 

If it is not for a big brand like loaded, how to judge the quality of the board? The easiest way is when you get an electric skateboard, jump on it to see if it is flexible, and at the same time look at the side of the board, you will find a good quality board, the thickness of each side of the board is the same. The glued lines are also parallel and straight, and the color is very light. And many times there will be a dyed layer. Although the dyed layer has no effect except for beauty, it can also reflect that the manufacturer pays attention to the details of the product and does not hesitate to spend more money to make the entire board have a traditional and authentic skateboard taste.

On the other hand, the shoddy board surface has uneven side layers and different colors.

 

  1. The ground clearance of many boards is too high

Many people don’t understand what this means, I will use a picture next to you to understand.

 

What is the use of this indicator?

Simply put, it is the distance between the surface of your foot and the surface of the board to the surface of the ground and the wheel.

For high-speed electric skateboards with a speed of more than 32km/h, the lower the value, the better. The lower the value, the lower your center of gravity, and the more stable and safer it is when sliding at high speed.

 

Give two examples

  1. The higher the heel, the more unstable the girl who wears high heels.
  1. The center of gravity of the chassis of the car is very low or even close to the ground, in order to obtain good stability when drifting at high speed.

 

Here are a few good brands

 

 

Generally speaking, when the speed exceeds 22mph or 35Km/h, the board with a ground clearance of less than 12cm will slide more stably, with stronger grip, and more stable turning and serpentine.

Here I am a little curious why there is a design to install the bracket on the battery case? ?

 

  1. The board will jam the wheels

In order to pursue higher speed and greater power, many manufacturers use 90mm wheels or hub motors.

But the larger the wheel diameter, the larger the wheel center distance, that is, the larger the radius, the higher the ground clearance and the more unstable. And the larger the diameter of the wheel, the easier it is for the board to catch the wheel. This is very dangerous in high-speed sliding. If the board bites the wheel during sliding, the skateboard will immediately get stuck and throw people off. So they have to add very high spacers in order to use the big wheels, making the whole skateboard very high and very unstable.

 

 At this point, I suddenly thought of another electric skateboard product that is popular on the market.

 

Electric skateboard drive system, and claims to be able to adapt to any skateboard..

But this is totally impossible! 

  1. The long board has a foot socket shape, and the bottom is a variety of curved surfaces. It is impossible for an electric skateboard system of the same shape to match all different shapes of boards deck.

  

  1. As long as it is not a Drop board, the board will catch the wheels. If you don't want the board to catch the wheels, you can only add high spacers, which is very strange to use.

  

  1. The problem of counterweight balance

The battery, motor, and all the weight are on the tail of the skateboard. When suddenly accelerating or going uphill, the head of the board is very light due to the light weight, and the rider's center of gravity is likely to fall backward.

Excellent high-speed sports products such as BMW3, the front and rear counterweight ratio is 50:50

 

 

  1. Use the wrong truck

 

In order to save costs, many manufacturers who do not understand skateboard longboards use some completely unscientific brackets, which often cause problems such as jamming, breaking, steering too flexible or unable to steer at all, and high-speed shaking.

 

Some of these are due to the use of completely non-compliant brackets

Boosted V1 uses the Caliber trucks

  

Boosted V2 didn’t continue to use Caliber trucks, but chose no brand trucks. Perhaps it was to save costs. The bracket alone costs $52.

 

The apex of the bracket and the position of the base need a gap of 1-1.5mm. If there is no bracket, it will not be able to turn. If the gap is too large, it will shake sharply at high speed

Most manufacturers use this fake Paris bracket, pay attention to the position of the bracket and apex.

 

 

Let's see what the correct bracket looks like

  

  1. Use bad quality wheels

 

It’s still a cost issue. Many poor-quality wheels flow to the electric skateboard market.

 

The main problems are poor rebound. High rebound wheels can improve the passing of the electric skateboard under the same road conditions, the comfort of sliding and increase the range of 1-2 kilometers.

 

Wear-resistant wheels that are not wear-resistant quickly wear out. Although any wheel will eventually wear out, under normal driving conditions, generally good wheels can maintain 100-150 miles, and bad wheels may be completely worn out at 50 miles.

 

However, for skaters who like to drift and slide, they must consider buying an electric skateboard with replaceable wheels.

 

Now the market also have all terrain off road rubber wheels which, in my opinion, better than the PU wheels. They have more rebound and make a huge difference about the riding experience.

 

Therefore, if you want to buy an electric skateboard with a very good sliding experience, the brand is very important. How to distinguish the brand from good or bad, in addition to word of mouth, we can simply rely on the following points to distinguish

 

  1. The company's products have been on the market for at least three years, and there are already second or third generation products

 

We all know that no matter how good the design is in the laboratory, it must be tested on the market. Different use environments and different consumer habits will constantly test new products. Those electric skateboard brands that have existed for a long time have accumulated a wealth of experience from continuous feedback from the market and continue to improve their products. After all, we don’t want to buy a product with a lot of problems for hundreds of dollars or even more than 1,000 dollars

 

  1. This electric skateboard must be trained or developed by professional skaters to make it very smooth to use.

 

  1. Look at the company's homepage. If the company only focuses on electric skateboard products, then they will continue to research because they focus on the electric skateboard field, and they will become more and more professional.

 

Those who do all kinds of products (hoverboard, electric bike, electric sctooer), basically do not concentrate on researching products, but purely as a tool for making money.

 

We just talked about the skateboard part of the electric skateboard

Next we will analyze the electronic part of the electric skateboard, which are

 

1. battery

2. controller

3. motors

 

Battery

There are two main types of batteries, each with its advantages and disadvantages

 

  1. A battery pack composed of 10-20 18650 batteries

 

  1. Battery pack composed of polymer lithium battery

  

18650 is the originator of lithium-ion batteries-a standard lithium-ion battery model set by SONY in Japan in order to save costs, where 18 represents a diameter of 18mm, 65 represents a length of 65mm, and 0 represents a cylindrical battery. The exterior is wrapped in a steel shell. 

The advantage is that the global standard is consistent, SONY, SANYO, PANASONIC, SAMSUNG, LG and other large factories produce, the price is relatively low, and the performance is stable and outstanding.

The disadvantage is that the shape is fixed, the arrangement and combination are limited, it is impossible to achieve ultra-thin, and it is not pressure resistant. Lithium batteries can easily explode when squeezed. So the battery must not be placed directly under the flexible board.

 

Polymer solution

The characteristic of polymer battery is that it can be made into any shape without size limitation, and it can fit the shape of the skateboard well.

The disadvantage is that there is no uniform standard for this battery, the quality and performance are very unstable, and the price is high.

 

Whether it is 18650 battery or polymer lithium battery solution, each has its advantages and disadvantages

 

But the battery is definitely not as simple as looking at the capacity such as 6.4Ah, 4.4Ah, and voltage 36V, 24V.

In addition to the quality of the battery cell itself, its combined pack level, spot welding process, protection board and BMS battery management system will all contribute to the safety, stability, and ability of the battery itself. 

I myself have no way to understand more details of the battery very deeply, so could only check the market of each brand.

 

Controller

Regarding the controller part, most electric skateboards currently use

Sensored FOC ESC, this kind of PCB itself is not difficult to design and manufacture. The key is whether there are professional skateboards with the programmer’s adjustment to make the skateboard more in line with the sliding habits, and the quality of the PCB itself, which is mostly consumed I don’t know that I can only experience it firsthand

 

Motor 

This is also the most interesting part

The mainstream power systems currently on the market are divided into

High speed motor + belt gear

Planetary gear hub motor/ High-power hub motor 

High speed motor + belt gear

Direct Drive motor

  

Boosted uses a 270kv high-speed motor, which is characterized by very high speed but insufficient torque

So he needs belts and gears to reduce the speed and increase the torque

The torque of this combination is very large, so both acceleration and climbing are powerful

Since the motor is exposed outside, it can be air-cooled during driving, so the heat dissipation effect is very good, but it is also easily damaged by water, sand and stone on the ground

  

Evolve puts the motor on the tail of the skateboard, which cleverly avoids this problem. 

But the disadvantage is that the belt will be loose after a period of use, which will cause the torque to drop and the speed will drop. The belt needs to be updated. 

Also, the power of high-speed motors is very large, generally 1000W, 1200W, 1800W, 2000W

But while they use belts and gears to reduce the torque to increase the torque, the motor efficiency loss is also very large, the actual output power is far less than the nominal power of the motor.

Someone has calculated that the actual output power of a direct drive 300W in-wheel motor is equivalent to 800-900W of a belt conveyor. 

Therefore, the actual performance of the wheel hub direct drive dual motor 300WX2 and the belt combination 1800W motor is close.

 

  

Planetary gear hub motor/ High-power hub motor

 

It ingeniously brings the large torque of the belt conveyor to the hub motor through the built-in gear combination, which does not sacrifice the torque while reducing the volume.

So it can quickly accelerate to 20MPH with only a single motor, and can climb 20% of the slope. 

The disadvantage of planetary gear motors is that gear friction will generate a lot of heat, and the motor system will soon be very hot.

Due to the hard contact between the gear and the gear, the failure rate is very high in the complex road environment

Direct Drive motors are very new and it is what FABOARD are focusing on. The Direct Drive motors combine benefits of hub motors and belt motors, it is silent and extremely powerful. It directly drive the wheels and save a lot of energy compared with belt motors. Also it could change the wheels easily so it has more space for DIY and also because it is the wheels that contact the road, so it has more absorption and more comfortable to ride.

 

Having said that, in fact, it is also a bit of advice and suggestions for the majority of electric skateboard enthusiasts when choosing.

But in general, the electric skateboard product is not a very simple product, it contains a lot of technology

So for the sake of safety, don't buy products that don't have a brand, after all, they won't care after they are sold. However, brand companies will continue to provide after-sales service because they care about their reputations to gain consumers’ reputation. Customer service is also a very important part because it is a transportation and it definitely needs maintenance.

 

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