How to choose an electric skateboard that suits you？

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 brands of electric skateboards on the market, ranging from $80 to $1,600. How can you choose an electric skateboard with good performance and guaranteed quality?

In fact, 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 fast acceleration on the road, you need to choose a sports car with a low chassis and high horsepower. If you like off-road, choose an off-road vehicle with a high chassis, high torque and short wheelbase. If you need to meet the daily needs of home, you may need an SUV

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

1. Toy gifts for children under 12 years old or curious to try, beginners

2. Electric skateboard enthusiasts, travel needs, middle and junior players

3. Avid DIY modders, professional extreme players pursuing speed and drifting

We mainly talk about the first two types of people who account for the majority of the population. After all, there are very few avid extreme players.

Toy gifts to buy for kids under 12, skateboarding beginners

Electric skateboards that meet such needs have the following characteristics

The price generally does not exceed 300 US dollars

Speed not higher than 15MPH or 25KM/H

The flight range is within 5Miles or 8km

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

Weight within 8lb/3.6


This type of electric skateboard is generally called electric fishboard or electric penny board. They are characterized by slow speed, short range and low carrying capacity, but they are very suitable for children's entertainment or girls' travel. Since the speed is not fast, there are no strict requirements for the motor, battery and the bearing structure of the skateboard. As long as your weight does not exceed 180lb/80kg, you can still get the fun of the electric skateboard without violence. For example, it is a good choice when going skiing with children or walking the dog.


Due to the slow speed and low load of such products,  as Hobbyskyboard products cheap and the most important thing is after-sales guarantee.


Electric skateboard enthusiasts, travel needs, intermediate and advanced players

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

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

The price ranges from 300-900 US dollars, and there are many unlicensed brands, so I will not list them one by one here.



Many people think that the faster the skateboard, the better, and the longer the range, the better. This is a very elementary mistake.

Any product, especially sports products, can never be as simple as simply looking at a few numbers. If everyone just cares about the faster the better, and the longer the range, the better, then why don't the merchants 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? The skateboard could weigh 45Kg, and you wouldn't be able to carry it when it's out of power. So we're going to look at an equilibrium indicator

I have to admit that the fun of an electric skateboard comes from the fact that it can take the rider to a high speed of 32km/h-42km/h without manpower, (more than 42km/h, for 99% of non-professional skaters, Dangerous.) The gliding experience at this time is very exciting and exciting. When you drive a suitable electric skateboard to a speed of more than 32km/h, the cool wind blows from your ears, the road transmits the bumps on your feet through the board, and moves your center of gravity left and right. Carving under your feet, like surfing on land. That's great!

So for a good electric skateboard, the sliding motion is the most important indicator

The body feeling of skating, whether it is comfortable, and conforming to the habit of skaters can best reflect whether the manufacturer has really studied skateboards or longboards.

At present, most of the manufacturers on the market are those who used to produce balance bikes and electric bicycles. They think that the electric skateboard is a very simple product, just a skateboard or a longboard plus a power system can be sold, but when you are in You feel special Stiff when you ride on these electric skateboards. I don't know how to translate that word. It just feels like coasting on a rigid brick with absolutely no bounciness and no return from the road. Because these products are designed by people who don't know anything about skateboarding and longboards.
Here are a few mistakes they often make

1. The board is completely inelastic
2. The ground clearance of the board is too high
3. The deck will jam the wheels
4. Using the wrong stand
5. Use poor quality wheels


In order to save costs, some manufacturers use very cheap wood to make the board surface, which is completely inflexible under the feet. Just imagine how strong the bumps are when you are driving at a high speed of 32km/h, the wheels with a diameter of only 90mm or even smaller and the hardness as high as 78A and 85A bring you. I'm sure your feet will be so numb that you can't walk in less than 10 minutes, and constant gliding for a long time will damage your spine and brain.

The easiest way is when you get an electric skateboard, jump directly on it to see if it has elasticity, and look at the side of the board at the same time, you will find a good quality board, the thickness of each layer on the side is the same, and the thickness of each layer is the same. The glued lines are also parallel and straight, and the color is very light. And in many cases, there will be a dyed layer. Although the dyed layer has no effect other than aesthetics, it can also reflect that the manufacturer pays attention to the details of the product, and spares no expense to make the entire board have a traditional and authentic skateboard taste.

The shoddy board surface has uneven layers on the side and different shades of color.

2. Many boards have high ground clearance

What is this indicator for?

Simply put, it is the distance from the surface where your feet touch the board to the surface where the ground and wheels touch.

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 safe it is to slide at high speed.

Give two examples

1. The girl who wears high heels, the higher the heel, the more unstable she walks

2. The center of gravity of the chassis of the car is very low or even close to the ground, so as to obtain good stability when drifting at high speed


Generally speaking, when the speed exceeds 22mph or 35Km/h, the board with a ground clearance of less than 12cm will slide more stably, have stronger grip, turn and snake shape more smoothly

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


3. The deck will jam the wheels

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

However, 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. Moreover, the larger the diameter of the wheel, the easier it is for the board to get stuck on the wheel. This is very dangerous in high-speed taxiing. If the board bites the wheel during sliding, the skateboard will immediately get stuck and the person will fall. So they have to add very high spacers in order to use the big wheels, making the whole skateboard very high and very unstable

Writing here, I suddenly thought of another popular electric skateboard product on the market

Electric skateboard drive system that claims to fit any skateboard



But this is totally impossible!

1. The longboard has a foot socket shape, and the bottom has various curved surfaces. It is impossible for the electric skateboard system of the same shape to fit all the different shapes of the foot socket board surface.


2. As long as it is not a Drop type, the wheels will basically be stuck on the board. If you don’t want the wheels to be stuck on the board, you can only add high spacers, which is very weird to use.

3. The problem of counterweight balance

Batteries, motors, all the weight is at the rear 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 very likely to fall backwards.

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

4. Use the wrong bracket

In order to save costs, many manufacturers who do not understand skateboard longboards use some completely unscientific brackets, which often cause the problems of stuck wheels, broken, too flexible steering or no steering at all, and high-speed trembling.

Some of this is due to the use of totally non-compliant brackets

The bracket is too much to pay attention to, here I will give an example, you should observe carefully when you get the skateboard

The position of the bracket vertex and the base needs 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 violently at high speed.


Let's see what the correct bracket looks like


5. Use poor quality wheels

It's still a cost issue, and many wheels with poor quality flow to the electric skateboard market

The main problems are

Poor rebound The wheels with high rebound can improve the passing and comfort of the electric skateboard under the same road conditions, and improve the range of 1-2 kilometers

Non-wearable Wheels that are not wear-resistant will wear out quickly. Although any wheel will eventually wear out, under normal driving conditions, a good wheel can last 100-150miles, and a bad wheel may wear out in 50miles.

However, for skaters who like to drift and slide, they must consider buying an electric skateboard with replaceable wheels.
Eccentricity The concentricity of the wheels is poor, a lot of efficiency is consumed when turning, the range is shortened, and the sliding experience is poor

So if you want to buy an electric skateboard with a very good sliding experience, the brand is very important. 
We just talked about the skateboard part of the electric skateboard

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

1. battery
2. controllers
3. motors
4. Battery

Batteries are mainly divided into two types, each with its own advantages and disadvantages

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

2. Battery pack composed of polymer lithium batteries
The disadvantage is that the shape is fixed, the arrangement and combination are limited, it cannot be ultra-thin, and it is not pressure-resistant. Lithium batteries can easily explode when squeezed. Therefore, the battery must not be placed directly under the flexible board

The only solution is to make the board inelastic

If you want the board to be flexible, you need to use the 18650 battery solution, which can only be placed on the head with little elasticity like a boosted.

Polymer Solutions

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

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

Due to the use of ultra-thin polymer lithium batteries, the industrial design of Stary's products is very good. The entire skateboard has abandoned the constraints of the battery shell and is very integrated. But it also sacrifices range, cost and quality issues from unstable batteries

Whether it is a 18650 battery or a polymer lithium battery solution, each has its own 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 itself, its combined pack level, spot welding process, protection board and BMS battery management system will all play a role in the safety, stability and ability of the battery itself.

I myself have no way to understand more details of the battery, so I have to look at the market test 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 skateboarders who cooperate with the programmer to make the skateboard more in line with the sliding habits. There is also the quality of the PCB itself. Most of the consumption No one can know, only experience

motor

This is also the funniest part

At present, the mainstream power systems on the market are divided into

High-speed motor + belt gear 

Planetary gear hub motor

High-power in-wheel motor 

High speed motor + belt gear

He needs a belt with gears to bring the speed down and increase the torque

The torque of this combination is very large, so it is full of power whether accelerating or climbing.

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 and sand on the ground.

But putting the motor at the end of the skateboard cleverly avoids this problem
But the disadvantage is that the belt will loosen after using for a period of time, resulting in a decrease in the torque drop speed, and the belt needs to be updated.

In addition, the power of the high-speed motor is very large, generally 1000W, 1200W, 1800W, 2000W

However, when they increase the torque through belt and gear reduction, the motor efficiency loss is also very large, and the actual output power is far less than the nominal power of the motor

Some people have calculated that the actual output power of a directly driven 300W in-wheel motor is equivalent to 800-900W of the belt conveyor

Therefore, the actual performance of the hub direct drive dual motor 300WX2 and the 1800W motor combined with the belt is close to
Since it attaches great importance to the body feeling of skateboarding, HOBBYSKY insists on using only 80mm diameter wheels, and strictly reduces the ground clearance to only 10.5cm

But at the same time, due to the small diameter of the wheel, the space left for the in-wheel motor is very limited. In order not to lose power, HOBBYSKY created a double-lengthened motor for the first time.
Due to the overall lengthening of the motor, there is 30% more space inside the motor. Allows HOBBYSKY to maintain ultra-low ground clearance while maintaining the same power as the 2000W motor

And this motor is designed to be replaceable wheels, to meet the needs of avid enthusiasts

Having said so much, in fact, it is also a little opinion and suggestion for the majority of electric skateboard enthusiasts to choose.

But in general, the electric skateboard product is not a very simple product, it contains too much technology
Therefore, for the sake of safety, it is recommended that you buy a merchant with after-sales service as Hobbyskyboard or other well-known brands.