DIY Electric Longboard
A DIY electric longboard with 3200+ Watts of power capable of about 15 miles range and 32+ mph speed.
Time frame: August, 2019
Seeing videos of people riding both commercial and DIY electric longboards and efficiently traveling small distances (like on a college campus), I was inspired to create my own electric longboard. While I had minimal normal longboarding (or skating) experience, I thought this would be a fun project to challenge myself and stimulate my passion for creation. After doing about a month of research on commercial boards and off-the-shelf components, I decided to pull the trigger on a DIY one.
There are a few basic components of an electric longboard: the longboard deck, trucks, wheels, motors, motor mounts, battery, and an electronic speed controller (ESC). There are also a handful of hardware components as well.
There were many decisions to make in terms of the choice of components for power (pretty much how fast it would go and how much torque), such as power transmission, battery size, and more. Careful research brought me to a cost-effective DIY setup involving belt-driven wheels (as opposed to hub motors which live within the wheels) and a 12s (50.4 Volts) Li-Ion Battery capable of about 15 miles of range. While a “DIY” board can have everything purchased from the basic components, enclosures, and so on, I wanted to actually make something and not just assemble hardware. With this, I decided to custom fabricate the enclosures that house the battery and other electronics.
Initially, both the enclosures for the electronics and the battery were 3D printed from a modified version of a design that was graciously made available on Thingiverse. I used more than 750 grams of PETG filament in these cases. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of use, the PETG battery enclosure shattered into countless pieces. I decided that instead of wasting time and money printing a replacement, I would go all out and machine a new one. My initial ideas were to mill out a near-indestructible case from a block of acetal plastic (Delrin) or a more-clunky combination of aluminum angle brackets and sheeting. My roommate helped me discover that 6061 aluminum rectangular tubing was sold cheaply in the giant dimensions of 6” x 2” x 10”. With the tubing and angle brackets, I created an enclosure that is clean and extremely durable. I used the Haas CNC Minimills at my university to cut out the designs.
This project is certainly one of my largest and most fun ones. It is also a convenient method of getting around short distances at home or on campus. While it is technically complete, there are always new ideas on improving it. My latest upgrades/upgrades-in-progress are flashlight mounts for night riding visibility.
Total Cost: $1000+