**The Motorization of a Longboard: A Step-by-Step Guide**

As a longboard enthusiast, I had always wanted to take my board to the next level by motorizing it. After some research and planning, I finally started working on this project, and in this article, I will share with you the step-by-step process of how I did it.

**Step 1: Enlarging the Inner Hole of the Gear Wheel**

To begin, I needed to enlarge the inner hole of the gear wheel that would be attached to the trucks. The inner hole was too small for the trucks, so I marked the rough outline of a circle and used a small drill to create dozens of holes. This process allowed me to achieve a diameter of 20 mm, which was necessary for the gear wheel to fit properly.

**Step 2: Creating Holes in the Gear Wheel**

After enlarging the inner hole, I moved on to creating holes in the gear wheel itself. Using the board truck nuts as a template, I drilled eight 5mm holes in each corner of the two boxes that would house the batteries and ESC (Electronic Speed Controller).

**Step 3: Mounting the Batteries**

With the holes drilled, I began mounting the batteries in the metal case. I used the M5 bolts and nuts to secure them, making sure they fit snugly without being too large to hit objects on the street.

**Step 4: Preparing the ESC Case**

Next, I worked on preparing the ESC case, which would be positioned next to the motor. This involved drilling holes for the cable glands, balancer extensions, and xt60 connectors.

**Step 5: Creating a Cable Management System**

To keep the cables organized and prevent shorts, I created a cable management system using heat shrink tubing. I extended the short wires of the brushless motor with three-core flexible wire, ensuring they were secure and protected.

**Step 6: Bending Metal Sheets for Battery Housing**

Using fixed steel sheet, I bent two pieces to create a housing for the batteries. Marking the width onto the sheets, I then marked three evenly spaced spots on each sheet to drill holes for the M3 bolts and nuts that would secure them to the metal case.

**Step 7: Finalizing the Mechanical Build**

With all the components ready, I shortened the bolts with a saw and closed up the board to ensure it fit properly. This marked the final step of the mechanical build process.

The motorization of my longboard was a complex and time-consuming project, but it has been an incredible learning experience. In the next part of this series, I will explore the electronics and programming aspects of the project, so stay tuned!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ennow that you got your own long board it is time to motorize it for that I started off with a gear wheel that is slightly smaller than the wheel it needs to get attached to in order to transfer the rotational energy of the motor onto the street but there's already a problem because the inner hole of it is too small for the trucks it needs to get enlarged to a diameter of 20 mm which can be achieved by marking the rough outline of the circle and then using a small drill to create dozens of holes in my case though I used the metal la which I didn't record sorry but once the step was done the gear wheel should fit easily next we divided the surface of it into six equal parts secured it in place with a small bench wise made marking 3.5 mm from the inner circle on the six lines and then use the prick punch to create indentations where those markings used to be with the help of a 3.5 mm drill we used those indentations as a guide to create six holes which didn't work out that well because the drill had broken off in one of them so we are only going to use four of them but definitely use more if you can afterwards we positioned the wheel with the gear onto the trucks and find you the location of the gear so that it does not wobble around once it looked decent we secured it with tape and used a 3mm drill to firstly create markings with the gear as a template and then drill through the wheel completely for the next steps we need M3 threaded rods which gets cut to four pieces with a length of around 7 cm through the help of a saw those then get pushed snuggly into the four holes of the wheel and secured with self-locking nuts in the front and a combination of washer nut nut washer gear wheel washer and finally a nut on the other side later I realized though that due to vibrations the nuts like to loosen up but luckily just a bit of locktite can solve this problem it's also a good idea to check in between whether the gear runs smoothly and once I was happy with the result we used the sword to cut off the axis of the threaded Rod now that this obstacle was out of the way I continued by placing all the core electronic components onto the board and did some basic measuring to get a clear image on how this all should play out the most complicated hurdle though was the adapter which connects to the trucks and holds the motor in midair but still in a fixed position so that the tooth belt stays tense so OB obviously I started with that by creating a couple of crew technical drawings which I used to construct a cardboard prototype that worked surprisingly well even during the first try I then created an optimized Vector graphic with inkscape that features elongated mounting holes for the motor in order to adjust the tension of the belt afterwards I exported this graphic as an SVG file and imported it into easel which is the control softare Weare for my xcarve CNC machine the material I used was 100x 160 10 mm thick aluminum that I secured in place with the clamps of the xcarve and started the Milling process with the basic outline of the object once again drilling a dozen holes is the Perman version of this step which is actually faster because each lap of the bits took 2 minutes and 14 seconds multiply that with with the necessary 100 labs and you know how long it took but nevertheless I then started the Milling process for the inner cutouts which had a slight offset in the Y AIS but thankfully it didn't matter that much once the 10-hour torture was over I freed the adapter from its prison Ross down the sharp edges and assembled the gear system which made a good first impression only thing left to do to complete it was to Mark the location of the yet missing M5 bolt and drilling a hole through the trucks which sounds easy but at some point we hit very hard metal a 5mm HSS Cobalt drill was necessary to get all the way through then we simply marked how the bolt would need to go through the adapter to hold the motor in midair and also drilled the necessary holes after rasping down a bit of the trucks I secured the adapter with the bolt washer spring washer and two knuts and don't you dare to forget the lock TI by cutting off the excess bolts and reinstalling the rest of the gear system the hardest part was finally complete so I continued this adventure with the two main aluminum cases for the electronics the given measurements ensure that the batteries can sit inside without a problem while not being too large to hit objects which lay on the street so I began by using the board truck nuts to mark one spot in each corner of the two boxes which I used to drill the eight 5 mm holds after positioning them in the center of the boards with a distance of 1.5 cm to each other I used them as a template to extend the 5 mm holes through the longboard and secured everything with M5 bolts and nuts each battery will either sit in one compartment the ESC or electric speed controller will be positioned in the case next to the motor and additionally we're going to need two screwed cable glands two seven pins balancer extensions two xt60 connectors and two three position switches I started the mounting process by marking a center point for a 60 mm Circle 3 cm from the edge of the case then I drilled a couple of smaller holes and used the file to make it look somehow like a circle doesn't to be perfect though but the cable gland should fit nicely the opposite side of this case receives a slightly bigger circle with a diameter of 20 mm at the same spot and then I moved on to the front there I started with a xt60 connector 2.5 cm from The Edge followed by a 7even pins balancer connector with a distance of 1 cm from the xt60 and finally the switch with an additional distance of 4 C mm by drilling a couple of 6 mm holes or even smaller ones for the balancer and using a file to create the necessary shapes all the cutouts for the first case were complete the second box is pretty much the same Only Exception would be the 20 mm hole which isn't necessary anymore afterwards I used Three core 1.5 s mm flexible wire to extend the short wires of the brushless motor and don't forget get the heat shrink tubing which can save you from unwanted shorts and a possible destruction of the ESC after pushing the new wire through the cable gland and shortening it I got myself 0.5 mm fixed steel sheet that I needed to cut to two pieces with a length of 20 cm then I positioned the two batteries in the middle of those pieces and mark the WID onto it with the help of the top section of the metal case or even a ruler I bended the sheets upwards in a way that the batteries would fit inside a bit loose then I marked the heights onto the sheets and bended them again with a bit more complex clamping technique the intermediate result should look like this and by marking a line 1.5 CM from the second B I shortened the Metal Sheets once again with my tin snips and continued by marking three evenly spaced spots 0.75 CM From the Bench after drilling 3 mm holes through the Metal Sheets I positioned them as close as possible to one side of the lids of the metal case and used the existing holes to Dill through the lids and secured everything with M3 bolts and nuts for the final step of the mechanical build I shortened the bolts with a saw and closed it all up to see whether it fits and it surely does with those tasks out of the way the next and final part of the series will be easy again hopefully until then don't forget to like share and subscribe consider supporting me through my patreon campaign stay creative and I will see you next time