Building a Boosted Board

If you don't know already, electric skateboards have been becoming more and more popular, mostly due to a Silicon Valley startup known as Boosted. They are the Apple of electric skateboards, and accordingly, their boards go for as much as $1500. When I saw YouTube star Casey Neistat riding a Boosted Board around, I really wanted one for myself. However, I don't have $1500 lying around.  I realized that the actual parts cost for the Boosted Board was much less than the selling price. I understand that Boosted needs to make a profit and all, but I figured that I could do it for much less. I started by researching the parts and watching a lot of YouTube tutorials. Everyone who built one pretty much used the same components: A motor around 200-300KV(KV is short for kilovolt, and the higher a KV is, the faster a motor spins), some type of electronic speed controller (ESC), two or one big Li-Po (Lithium-Polymer) batteries, and an enclosure to hold everything. I tried to find the cheapest parts that would still offer good performance. After a lot of researching, I chose a 280KV motor from Turnigy, two 3s 3000mAH Zippy batteries, a 150A RC car ESC and a waterproof plastic fishing bait box from Walmart. For the actual board itself, I bought a cheap longboard off of Amazon (parts link will be below), a motor mounting kit, and some larger 80mm wheels. After all the parts arrived, I was faced with a few problems to solve. First, setting up the pulley system. The wheels I ordered had spaces in them that made fitting bolts in them easy. The bolts threaded into a circular sprocket gear that was affixed to one of the skateboard wheels. Yes, this skateboard is one-wheel drive, but so are other commercial electric skateboards. Next, I had to attach the motor mount onto the skateboard truck (the thing holding the axle to the board). This part of the build took a lot of time, as I had to file down the metal skateboard truck in order to fit the hole of the motor mounting plate. At the hole, the mounting plate was secured by three grub screws (basically bits of thread that hold something to another object with friction). After I managed to get a secure fit between the motor mount and the skateboard truck, I moved onto fitting the pulley gear onto the motor shaft. The motor screwed into the motor mount just fine, however, my pulley gear had a bore of 8mm, while my motor shaft was about 6mm. I had to order a separate pulley gear online that had a bore of 6mm for the project to continue. This is important - don't assume the parts will all work together. Next, I focused on the electronics, which were surprisingly easy to put together. After confirming that motor was spinning in the correct direction (you can reverse motor direction by switching any two of the 3 motor wires that go to the ESC), I soldered the ESC to the motor. Next, I soldered the two batteries together in series. Series means that one negative of one battery and one positive of the other battery are soldered together, and the remaining positive of one battery and negative of the other battery are used to output power. After soldering the ESC to the battery, I plugged in my RC car receiver. I bought an RC car transmitter and receiver on Amazon, but I plan to return it for a transmitter and receiver that are actually made for an electric skateboard. The RC car transmitter and receiver work perfectly fine, but the transmitter is kind of bulky. I drilled some holes into the skateboard and mounted the plastic fish bait box from Walmart to the bottom of the board with nuts and bolts. I had to shave off some of  the plastic compartments in the box so that my electronics would fit. I cut a hole for the ESC (for ventilation - gets very hot) and for turning the board on (ESC was wired to a on/off switch out of the box). After that, I fired it up and tried the board without my weight on it. It seemed to work fine, but once I got on it, the throttle response was way too jerky. I trimmed/adjusted settings on the throttle on my transmitter, and then I was able to actually ride the board. I had never ridden a skateboard prior to this build, so I practiced a bit before without a motor. I found that starting the motor with a moving start in the direction you want to go in helped with stability. I went to a local park and tested the board there, and it worked very nicely. In terms of charging, you will need two balance chargers or one multi charger to juice up your batteries(there are separate charging cables on most LiPo's, so don't worry about soldering the batteries together). I already had a few balance chargers lying around that I used for my drone batteries, so I was good to charge. The chargers that I use are very inexpensive, and can be purchased from Hobbyking.com. I haven't yet tested top speed and range, but I will report that info to you guys in a follow up post. Back to the main reason I started this - building my own Boosted Board on a budget. I think I pretty much accomplished my goal. I don't have a fancy app for my board, two wheel drive, a bamboo deck or fast charging, but in essence, I built a practical method of transport that's not only fun to ride, but fun to build.
Here's a video of me riding the board: Skateboard Video
Parts List:

- 3s 5000 Zippy LiPo x2: $43.76 - Hobbyking
- 280kv Turnigy Aerodrive Motor: $46.96 - Hobbyking
- ‎Hobbyking 1:8 Scale 150A ESC: $73.20 - Hobbyking
- ‎Turnigy Twin Pack Charge Lead: $1.99 - Hobbyking
- ‎83mm Longboard Wheels: $26.99 - Amazon
- ‎Motor Mount and Pulley: $29.99 - Amazon
- ‎Magic Union 41" Longboard: $45.99 - Amazon
- ‎HTD 3M 15 Tooth Timing Pulley: $13.88 - Amazon
- ‎FlySky FS-GT2B 3ch Transmitter and Receiver: $28.99 - Amazon
- ‎Waterproof Fishing Bait Box: $7.75 - Walmart
- Turnigy 12V 2-3s Balance Charger: $5.00 - Hobbyking
- 12V DC Power Adapter: $10.00 - Amazon