Electric Skateboard V5 and a Reflection on the Evolution of the Industry
When I built my first electric longboard, there was effectively no industry to build off of. Boosted Boards, a company that has already seen its rise and fall, was still more than a year from releasing its first product. The first longboard was built on a strict budget, forcing me to source parts intended for other uses such as RC vehicles and general-purpose microcontrollers. The strict budget meant that I could not implement custom trucks, motors, motor controllers, or an ideal battery pack. In addition, the difficultly was increased by the low clearance that my 70mm wheels provided between the board and the pavement, even with the trucks mounted below the deck with riser pads.
As I turn the wrench to complete my most recent build, it is clear to me that the state of the industry has completely changed. There are dozens of manufacturers and distributors whose sole business is to mass produce complete turn-key electric longboards and longboard parts. The DIY community has increased in size by orders of magnitude, and custom skateboard parts are both readily available and inexpensive.
My most recent design uses a fiberglass-bamboo deck made by Magneto, a 10s5p battery, and a drivetrain produced by Meepo. Having custom-built each of the listed components in previous builds, I have learned that it is much more cost-effective to buy these components from large scale manufacturers. While I could have produced a battery pack with higher energy density or wound my own hub motors to optimize for torque over high maximum RPM, doing so would be prohibitively expensive as the tools required to build component and a hundred components would be nearly identical. At my production scale and budget, it only makes sense to use mass-produced components.
While buying from established manufacturers is cost-effective and usually provides for a better-engineered solution, this is not always the case. The ESC that I am running in the current version of the longboard is made by an OEM called Binary and sold through a longboard assembly company called Meepo. While I have been happy with both the V1 and V2 ESCs that I have bought through Meepo, the V3 has issues that eventually destroyed the most recent longboard iteration. Depending on the startup procedure of the ESC and its paired controller, the wireless connection can have up to 500 milliseconds of latency. While half a second doesn’t sound like a lot, it makes all of the difference in the world when you are barreling at 30 mph towards an intersection. The last iteration of my electric longboard was destroyed in this scenario as I had to bail from the deck and watch it slam into a curb at full speed. Under no circumstances would I recommend the safety hazard that is the Meepo V3 ESC to anybody.
In my five years of building and designing electric longboards, I have watched the industry transform from a group of nerdy hobbyists who were writing every line of code and turning every motor coil to a blooming industry of electric skateboard riders who have never used a soldering iron. This transformation has dropped the barrier to entry for beginners and multiplied the build options for seasoned professionals.
