So it begins...... Battery spot welder

[rvpopeye]

Skuh kuh kuh kuh
Well , now that you mention it . I did think about what yer crew "finds" on the average voyage (what we call it these days.....) 

Bein' th' Cap of yer ship you get to decide which propulsion unit you choose ,  slaves and oars are such a bother ! arrr

(remember ta keep an eye on th' fuel guage and weatharrrrr to know when to head back ta port ! )

Oh and don't forget the pics errrr y'll be facing a plank matey , and yer 1st mate 'll be th' Cap , headed away from ya with all the canvas t' th' wind ! YO-Oh  .

[sternwake]

A surfer in florida, especially one on the gulf coast, better be into boating and fishing shouid they wish to retain an inkling of sanity.

The kayak is a van dwellers boat, even one who presently does not live i a van and whose van has not moved more than a mile in the last 5 months.

the higher end 28mph skate i am considering at is 10s1p. 42 volt.

already bookmarked the dc to dc boost converter i woukd use to charge via 12v nominal system..

[sternwake]

I was kneeling over kayak hatch with existing board, and a tape measure.
The meepo M3 atom is 400$ for the next 18 hours or so.

duaL 540 watt motors, 17mile range, spiffier hand controller, 29mph potential.

drool.

But, it is simply too wide, and wheelbase to big and track too wide, and i would likely have to explore 29mph on a skateboard and end up in hospital with no insurance, and all i really need is a board which can tow the Fionayak, and duaL 350 watt motors is 100% more power than current board, and if not ill transfer the 350 watt motor truck, to front truk, taPe the two hand controllers together, and have 3 wheel drive, 1050 watts of torque driven by 21 18650's.

And all cells can be replaced with higher capacity, higher CDR cells which should deliver more voltage for longer.

So, the trigger has been pulled on the 700 watt model.

289$, not the 169$ used ebay 'lightly used' model which supposedly tests as 'fully functional'

[rvpopeye]

Plan in action.
Fionayak !!! Love it !

[sternwake]

269$, not 289.

They want me to download an app to track the order.

I hate apps. so i remain clueless as to expected arrival.

I made a mistake reading all the 1 star amazon reviews. .

some complaints are ' range decreased by more than half within a month.


, which can be crap cells chronically overcharged and fully depleted by dipshit consumers.

Some others show a broken drive truk, which is far more worrying.

Some are reviews from poor lightweight skaters who might weigh kess than half of me, complaining it brakes too hard and threw them off.

some say the bolts holding motor to truck loosened up and stripped or stripoed and loosened up.

But if one only ever read and believed those, one would never buy anything.




Ive been a bit reluctant to put miles on my 350 watt skate since, but tonight took it on a 2.67 mile journey, came back to 3.68v per cell. rested, measured a few minutes later, which is likely around 25 to 35% SOC.

Cells really seems to tank in voktage once they reach 3.3,v

So much fun .on smooth newish asphalt.

So the full range is likely under 5 miles, at my 190lb weight.

Some guy chased me about 0.6miles across shopoing plaza, n to ask about it, and I was zigzagging all over to avoid cars i assumed could not see me, knew i was being followed and oukd have lost him

He just wanted to know about the board and i was jazzed enough with the ride to that point, i called it the best 106$ ive ever spent.


I busted out my 150 watt dc to dc CV only converter for recharge..

Sk8 battery can easily accept somewhere well over 200 watts, with enough voltage delta, but i dialed it down, way down to the 5 to 10 watt average range, bumping voltage in stages,, and stopped at 28.7v, accepting 0.0x amps. 4.1v per cell, where 4.2v is 100% fullstop.

Stock power supply is basically 40 watts max, and will overcharge the cells to somewhere well above 4.2v each.

The sk8 provided power supply, limited by 5 amp xl 4015 CCCV bucker, is a better solution for safe sub 40 watt charging, but i can see wanting far faster charging in some situations.


With the charge port being wired directly to the battery BMS, I assume i could parallel another 29.4v 7S battery , externally, if range is an issue or a worry. I coukd really beef up the cbarge circjit
but proba ly better to.parallel the main conne tion t from battery too ESC


I remapped the shortest route to KayK launch trail head 0.78 miles. about 0.25 walk from thers.

I think the 700 watt skate witb double the battery will easily tow the Fionayak there and back.

[rvpopeye]

The plan comes together....I like it!

[sternwake]

Saw some guy on youtube who took same Battery/ESC enclosure, built a hideous wood spacer, and a hideous 7s2p battery, badly soldered, yet succeeded in increasing range.

I swear most people do not realized how dangerous a lithium 'venting with flame' event can be.

Ive been looking at 7S BMS's, and think the small square bulge under heatshrink is a 20 amp model, but don't wanna open it just to check.

I do see the Battery/ESC enclosure on the ordered skate has some vent holes for the ESC' heat sink.

The heat sink on my existing board is unvented. there is room for improvement of surface area and mass, but opening enclosure for ventilation seems a bad idea, regarding dust and moisture.ingress.

I wanna see how this is addressed on the new skate.
And i want to insure longevity by adding vibration resistance to ESC. Maybe a true conformal coating of CB instead of clear nail polish and Amazing goop.


Im unlikely to order high end 18650s while these packs capacity is enough to propel me and the FYAK to the trailhead. The battery spot welder is also a future acquisition, to be acquired once i know more.

And high end 21700s are basicLky the same price as high end 18650s with far higher capa ity and CDR, so a larger enclosure to house 21700s might be designed, or purchased.

The youtube hack, successfully soldering a 7S 2p pack with what appeared to be a 60 watt iron, is rather impressive, but does suffer one tab rattling off.

My modded 140 watt weller gun, with freshly shiny contacts pulls over 200 watts, and can hold a much larger dollop of molten solder.

I could likely do a far better job soldering than the youtube hack did, but when i do it, I want to do it right, and that means a spot welder.

These Eskates seem to be a rabbithole, of more torque, more speed, more range.

An offroad Eskate, with ig ole wheelz, so i can ride instead of walk the last 0.25milez of crushed shell trail, would be awesome. but would never fit in the F yak hatch.

[rvpopeye]

Interesting,,Do those exist today or would you be the engineer?

I do remember seeing a guy on a single wheel fat tire thing going down the dirt road at my local fishing spot ...it kinda had a board. Probably too hard to control if two were used as skates though...

[sternwake]

Electrified mountain Boards have been Available premade for a few years now, but guys have been DIY'ing them for at least a decade. Some have gone psycho with 2000 watt motors on each of the 4 8" wheels, and they can hjt 70+mph and get there in 4 seconds or skmething silky like that.

The 'one wheels' are supposedly recalled, all of them.

I saw plenty of those in Socal, but mostly kids.
Never had any desire to try on and did have the opportunity to try.

The E skateboards, i really did not see too many surprisingly, despite concrete jungle.

E bikes everywhere and scooters but not too many E skateboards.

there are some 110 mm offroad wheels which can be put on regular truks. The in hub motors can use them too, but not sure if my cheaoo chinese in hub motors are compatible.

[sternwake]

Ok.
16mph on the new 700 watt skateboard is uncomfotably fast. Especially, as the brakes are jndeed very abrupt and jerky and not linear. and in general , suck.


The new skate has zero chance of fitting inside the Fyak hatch without serious modification. bjt has more than enough power to tow it.
I dont really like how it turns. Either the truk geometry or wheelbase or both are just too different to what i am used to.

I can likely dial it in better.

I could put 700 guts on 350 board, or shorten 700 wheelbase and modify tail to length to fit in the Yak hatch.

But the brakes.

They are sketchy.

No way was i gonna touch them at max speed.