I’m in the process of designing a board that is roughly based on the 4’9" Lift board. I’m getting stuck on designing the interface between the board and the mast. From what I’ve seen, people generally use turtle boxes or plates. I have a Gong Alligator v2 mast, and I want to use it as a passive heatsink to cool the VESC, so I need a hole for the ESC to fit through, too. I was thinking about a 3/8" aluminum plate with a seal built into the board like a Flightboard. Does anyone happen to have any ideas on how to reinforce that area?
For the adapter plate (gong > Fliteboard) we used a 15mm thick aluminium plate.
The thickness was only needed for the “pocket” where the 3 phase wires go through from the motor to the VESC as they needed to be covered with potting for waterproofing.
So, after a long pause and a bit of recovery from life, I’ve finally gotten the all-important spousal approval to make headway on this project. I’m going to 3D print the fliteboard-style interface box. After doing some tests, I’ve gone with stainless tee nuts and backcoating them with a layer of glass to lock them in, similar to how I do snowboards. I’m using the tee nuts for more thread engagement as my snowboard nuts are only 5.5mm.
Doing the same basic setup as flite does, but I’m debating on casting it in a task series urethane, or printing in ABS/PPA-CF or similar. I saw a video of a guy who hit the ground hard and ripped his out, revealing that there really isn’t much to it, and I’m way overthinking it. Link to video.
Test piece fresh off the printer, I’ll need to wait for the inserts to arrive from McMaster before making the final one. I’m thinking of inserting some 3mm rods as structural reinforcements in the design for shearing loads along the layer lines. I’m not thrilled about the orientation of the layer lines and the forces that will be acting upon it. At 100% infll it would work fine, but man, it would be heavy. Needs some revision.
I will add a full or half dovetail oring slot to the bottom. I’m trying to figure out how to get the surface finish smooth enough for an o-ring to seal. According to the Parker Oring manual, I’m pretty limited in options for orings of this size.
