Pop A Wheelie With Your Electric Skateboard, The Hacker Way

March 20, 2020 by Danie Conradie 9 Comments

Using a bit of tech to make up for a lack of skill is a time-honoured tradition, otherwise known as cheating among those who acquired the skill the hard way. Learning to ~~wheelie~~ manual a skateboard is usually paid for in bruises, but [blezalex] got around that by letting his electric skateboard handle the balancing act.

At first glance the board looks and rides like an average DIY electric skateboard, with an off-the-shelf a dual hub motor truck, VESC speed controllers and a wireless throttle. The party trick appears when the front wheel is popped off the ground, which activates the secret self-balancing mode. At this point a STM32F401 dev board and MPU-6050 IMU take over control of the motors, which is in turn controlled by leaning forward or backwards, like a hoverboard. The remote throttle turns into a dead man switch, which cuts power to the motors when released.

[blezalex] says he has had less that an hour of skateboard time in his life before getting on this one, which is a good testament of just how well it works. The biggest challenge was in getting the board to turn while on two wheels, which was solved by sensing side-to-side tilt of the board with the IMU and applying proportional differential torque to the wheels. With a bit of practice it’s also possible to smoothly shift between riding modes while moving.

We think this is a really elegant cheat, now we need to build one of our own. Fortunately the STM32 firmware and instructions are all up on GitHub. Building your own electric skateboard has become really simple with the availability of off-the-shelf components. We’ve also seen a bicycle with a wheelie cheat device to prevent you falling on your back

Electric Longboard Quick Build Using Off-The-Shelf Components.

November 22, 2019 by Danie Conradie 13 Comments

Building cool things completely from scratch is undeniably satisfying and makes for excellent Hackaday posts, but usually involve a few unexpected speed humps, which often causes projects to be abandoned. If you just want to get something working, using off-the-shelf modules can drastically reduce frustration and increase the odds of the project being completed. This is exactly the approach that [GreatScott!] used to build the 3rd version of his electric longboard, and in the process created an excellent guide on how to design the system and selecting components.

Previous versions of his board were relatively complicated scratch built affairs. V2 even had a strain gauge build into the deck to detect when the rider falls off. This time almost everything, excluding the battery pack, was plug-and-play, or at least solder-and-play. The rear trucks have built in hub motors, the speed controllers are FSESC’s (VESC software compatible) and the remote control system is also an off the shelf system. All the electronics were housed in 3D printed PETG housing, and the battery pack is removable for charging. We just hope the velcro holding on the battery pack doesn’t decide to disengage mid-ride.

The beauty of this video lies in the simplicity and how [GreatScott!] covers the components selection and design calculations in detail. Sometimes we to step back from a project and ask ourselves if reinventing is the wheel is really necessary, or just an excuse to do some yak shaving. Electric long boards are extremely popular at the moment, you can even make a deck from cardboard or make a collapsible version if you’re a frequent flyer.

Improved Controller For E-Skateboards

December 28, 2018 by Lewin Day 12 Comments

[Timo] recently purchased himself a Acton Blink Qu4tro electric skateboard. Performance-wise, the board was great, but the controller left a lot to be desired. There were issues with pairing, battery displays, and just general rideability. Like any good hacker, he decided some reverse engineering was in order, and got to work.

Initial results were disheartening – the skateboard relies on various chips of Chinese origin for which documentation proved impossible to come by. However, as it turned out, the board and controller communicated using the common NRF24L01+ transceiver.

Initial work focused on understanding the pairing process and message protocol. With that done, [Timo] decided the best course of action was to redevelop a controller from scratch, using an Arduino Nano and NRF24L01+ to do the job. [Timo]’s Open esk8 controller improves driveability by removing delays in message transfer, as well as improving on the feel of the controller with a 3D printed chassis redesign.

[Timo] now has a much more usable skateboard, and has racked up over 200 miles in testing since the build. However, if you fancy converting your existing board to electric, check out this project.

Building An Electric Longboard From Scratch

September 11, 2016 by Moritz Walter 7 Comments

Step one to most electric longboard builds is typically the acquisition of a foot operated longboard, with step two being the purchase of a ready-made motor bracket to electro-convert the strenuous vehicle. Not so [Matt Carl’s] scratch-built electric longboard, which starts out with four 1/8″sheets of baltic birch.

Continue reading “Building An Electric Longboard From Scratch” →

Electric Skateboard Reaches Neck-Breaking Speeds

March 10, 2016 by James Hobson 25 Comments

[Mischo Erban], a Canadian speed-freak, just broke a world record on an electric skateboard. 59.55mph! That’s almost 100km/h.

We’ve covered a lot of electric skateboards over the years, as well as some commercial versions — like the Boosted Board, one of the few actual Kickstarter success stories — and of course, people have hacked them as well. But this board from Next Generation Vehicles (NGV), seems to have taken speed to the next level.

Made by a Slovenian tech startup, the board features direct drive motors built into custom wheels. The article is a bit light on details, but we imagine they must be a few kW each in order to reach those speeds. No mention of a range (we can’t imagine it’d be very far at those speeds), but it is just a prototype.

Continue reading “Electric Skateboard Reaches Neck-Breaking Speeds” →

Adding Range (and Bling) To An Electric Skateboard

November 10, 2015 by Elliot Williams 5 Comments

Long-time Hackaday reader [Andrew Rossignol] bought a Boosted-brand electric skateboard while he was living in NYC. While the batteries more than sufficed for his commute in the Big Apple, he ran out of juice when he moved to the Left Coast, leaving him three miles short of a ten mile trip.

Faced with the unthinkable fate of pushing his skateboard like a Neanderthal, [Andrew] added more batteries. There’s great detail about how he chose the battery chemistry and the particulars of charging and something about load balancing, so it’s definitely worth a read if you’re building an electric vehicle.

But once [Andrew] had some surplus battery capacity on board (tee hee!) he thought of ways to waste it. The natural solution: tons of RGB LED underlighting.

Still not content with an off-the-shelf solution (which wouldn’t let him recharge the batteries without unplugging the lights), he ended up rolling his own with an Arduino and some WS2812s. The nicest touch? Keeping it all out of the elements in a sweet aluminum box, hiding the cable salad within.

There’s a lot to be said for the good industrial design of something like the Boosted skateboard, but if you’d rather DIY, we’ve been covering electric skateboard for a while now. It’s nice to see how battery and motor technology have changed since then, too. Compare and contrast this recent build with that old-school version and with [Andrew’s] build that was covered in this post. We live in good times.

Electric Skateboard Rev’ed To Version 2

March 29, 2015 by Rich Bremer 5 Comments

What’s cooler than a sweet skateboard? A sweet electric skateboard! And the only thing cooler than that is a DIY electric skateboard. [comsa42] has proven to be a DIY electric skateboard aficionado with his new project. It’s a rebuild and upgrade from his electric longboard that has previously been featured on Hackaday.

The most noticeable change is the size of the deck, it was cut down to be 31 inches long to enhance its maneuverability. The electronics are housed in an updated fiberglass compartment that attaches to the bottom of the deck. The old compartment had a large port that had to be removed in order to charge the battery. The new compartment has a plug for easily connecting the charger.

The drive components still consist of a brushless DC motor, RC hobby ESC and a LiPo battery. Previously, an RC transmitter and receiver were used to control the motor. [comsa42] wrote an app for his phone to send throttle signals to a Bluetooth module which controls the ESC as well as relays battery life back to the phone.

We think this project is pretty rad and wouldn’t mind taking this skate for a spin around the block.