Electric Eel Longboard
For my Bachelor's thesis I built an electric longboard. The purpose of the thesis was to explore the possibility of a dual purpose electric vehicle. Why dual purpose? Well, Sweden as several other countries, has put requirements on personal electric vehicles. To be allowed to use the board on public streets the board must follow these requirements:
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Max continuous motor power output: 250W.
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The vehicle can not be constructed for speeds above 20km/h.
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The vehicle must have a horn, front, and back lights.
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The vehicle must be able to break at least 3m/s².
The maximum motor power really limits the performance if you want to use it for anything else than daily commuting.
The name comes from my old hobby company Fishboards, you can read more about it under the design tab.
You can read my thesis here: Electric Longboard: A dual-purpose personal vehicle.
If you want to see how I built the longboard check out this page: Electric longboard how I made it.
Features
City covering range
15km 9.3mi
Ergonomic handcontroller
With built-in horn
Integrated lights
The tail light indicates when the board is braking.
Lightweight composite construction
Dual modes:
Racing and Commute
Built in RGB matrix
Shines trough the griptape to show board status
Specifications:
Deck dimensions: 1000 x 255 x 25mm 39.4 x 10.0 x 1.0 in (L x W x T)
Deck weight: 2kg 4.4lb
Total board weight: 7kg 15.4lb
Effective range: 15km 9.3mi
Max motor output: 2kW
Battery: 2 x 5s 5Ah LiPo (185Wh total)
Wheel diameter: 90mm
Motor controllers: 2 x VESC HW 4.12
Motor type: In-wheel Hub motors
Controller-board connection: 2-way 2.4GHz with automatic anti-interference.
Headlight/taillight strength: 780lm / 488lm
Controller battery life: 66h
Board display: 8 x 8 pixels 24bit color
Renderings
Board
Controller
Pictures
CAD models
Three 3D CAD models should be seen below. The files are shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Hand Controller
Board structure
Board assembly
Tools I used
01/
Electrical engineering
The board has three custom made circuit boards. Two are the headlight and taillight PCBs and were designed by me. The last circuit board is the Power distribution board.
02/
Prototyping
The board uses 3D printing, CNC milling, PCB prototyping, vacuum forming, and composite carbon fiber construction.
03/
Simple optics
The front and back lenses were designed to condense the light from the LEDs. They utilize simple spherical lenses as well as the shape of the board to project the light straight forward.
Things I learnt
01/
A lot about electronics
Everything from finding the right part, checking datasheets to getting PCBs made in bulk.
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Arduino programming
This project is my first big project with the Arduino microcontrollers and programming language. I learnt its strengths and weaknesses.
03/
Electric vehicle systems
I have learnt about the systems needed for an electric vehicle. One of my biggest takeaway from the project was what potential electric vehicles have for the future.