Electric Mountainboard Build
Electric Mountainboard Build
2022
I wanted to try out skateboarding so I started doing that, then I wanted to try out extreme skateboarding in the form of mountainboarding. I didn't want to pay a lot of money for a mountainboard or an electric mountainboard at that, so I tried to make one with Hoverboard motors and a wired controller.
I ordered some motor controllers online and wired it all together with their limited documentation. These controllers worked but were a bit sketchy cause they were super cheap and they eventually broke. That may be because I was pulling all the control signals (brake, stop, etc.) high from a separate 5V rail when I should have been pulling them low, but that's irrelevant.
I ended up buying a cheap 1500W motor controller online meant for an e-Bike, which is able to control all 4 motors at once. There are two main issues with using this controller. One is that all 4 motors would be getting the same drive signals, so I had to flip a couple phases of a couple motors.
Another issue is that this was a nominal 48V/64V controller. This means that the controller is meant for a 48V or 64V battery and will switch depending on what you connect. The issue is that it will only detect a 48V battery and will switch itself off when the battery voltage discharges and gets too low. I measured this cutoff voltage to be about 43V after stringing a couple lab power supplies in series. I took the thing apart and found the voltage divider which was responsible for measuring the battery voltage. I measured the output low-voltage voltage divider voltage at 43V and used that value to calculate a new voltage divider which would return that same value when a 36V battery got down to about 32V. This then converted this 48V/64V controller into a 36V compliant one. I won't be using this for anything other than 36V so I don't have to worry about side effects if I use a higher voltage battery (too much discharge of the battery).