Electric Long Board Project

About 5 months ago an electrical engineering friend of mine approached me about some help regarding his senior design project.  He wanted to design and build an electric long board.  He would be responsible for the control board and all of the electric functions and he wanted to know if I would help with the mechanical aspects.  Of course I obliged, mostly out of sheer curiosity and also because I had some extra time on my hands at the moment.

We went over the motor he had selected and determined the best way to fix each component and what type of gear and belt drive to use. The next step on my end was to build a bracket that could fix the motor to the board.  The main problem was that because the board pivots at the truck, the motor would have to be mounted on the truck itself in order to keep the belt drive aligned.  Also, I came to realize that EE's don't use much CAD software, so I started with a paper template and some measurements and worked from there.

The first iteration was a little rough. Luckily the trucks he bought had a decent place to mount the bracket. The trucks were cast and unfinished so I needed to mill a flat area and tap a hole to mount it.  After a remake of the original bracket attempt, everything came together quite nicely.  

       

He completed the final assembly on his own, adding a safety on off button that you stand on while riding. That way if you fall of the board the motor shuts down automatically.  Also, the knob coming out of the control box on the right (looking from the bottom side) is used to adjust the power delivery to the motor and therefore the speed.  All in all, a fun, quick and successful build.