Ok my mistake, I thought this thing was a thrust bearing but it’s not. Just zoomed on the original patent to look at :
Take a look at following patent : US 2018/0072383. We are far from what they have today. As far as I know David is not an engineer, he wouldn’t have been able to think about such a thing by his own. So, how exactly did the magic happend in 2018 ?
To me, it looks like he first came across this forum…
This baby is a scorpion motor, the cap & seal is coming from a torqeedo motor, the ESC he was refering to also is more like a turnigy aquastar…
torqeedo front cap :
Scorpion motor :
I’m a little lost on what points you are trying to get across?
If you are talking about Flying Rodeo (David), he has a degree in both Electronics and Mechanical engineering. Apart from that I don’t see why a lack of a degree would prevent anyone from solving any form of problem. Lift designed the first direct drive unit. FR reverse engineered it and improved it. Lift then started buying from FR, hence why he has no time to supply the DIY community.
The PLE60 can take a load of 500N. That is WAAAAYYYYY more that efoiling will ever put on that gear unit. There’s no need for a thrust bearing.
I am talking about David Trewern, founder of Fliteboard.
Will correct my previous answer.
Trying to figure out how exactly Flite went from this idea to a totally functionnal unit patented the same year 
Ah, fliteboard would have known about the gearbox before this forum started up. PMeister was just the first to document by video. The geared units had been on endless sphere for a while before being used on electric surfboards etc. This forum was born off the threads over there…
Brand new fliteboard, had an incident with leaking oil. The motor still works but has a vibration. This is why I like Flying rodeo Motor better because of the direct drive.
Is it yours ?
What happened ?
Do you know the brand of thee brown V-ring ?
I’d be interested to know what happened too
I think Thom is speaking about the lipseal
Just riding along on the 5th time on the water and felt a terrible vibration. There was no impact to the foil or propeller. Fliteboard support is pretty good, they troubleshooted and determined it was a broken gearhead. They will send a replacement so thats cool. It could have been a long cold swim but luckily I had jetski support.
Bad luck I guess…
Can you spot the brand of the lip seal ?
Would you measure the outer diameter of the motor pod to be compared to the FR motor please 
?
Analyzing the patents, they seems to use Neugart gearbox with TPP motor, so OD should be pretty close to 60mm.
Also, do they offer a brand new replacement board or just replacing the pod ? What about the old / broken one, do you need to ship them back ? Interested in their after sale management
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Hi MauiMan! sorry to hear of your issue.
What is shown in the picture above is not gearbox oil, it is simply shaft seal oil draining from the reservoir because the screws and o’ring that hold in the oil have been removed. These screws should not be removed unless under very clear instruction from one of our team.
I have never heard of one of our gearboxes failing, so this is news to me. Even test units that are over two years ridden for many hours a week old are still going strong. Yes our gearbox is made by Neugart, but it is a heavily customised unit to handle the forces involved to be easily replaceable.
I’d love to hear more about your issue and how you are going with the repair? Feel free to reach our to me directly at david@fliteboard.com. I don’t spend much time on this forum as I’m pretty busy with our global team and customers. Especially in these challenging times. I was alerted to this and particularly interested in making sure our customers are happy.
To your point on direct drive versus gearbox… We chose to use a gearbox because it allows us to use a narrower and smaller motor and still provide ample torque. The key here is to use the smallest motor possible, not the most powerful. This greatly reduces wettest surface area and drag, and improves responsiveness. This is Fliteboard rides and turns better than anything else (at least thats what everyone who has told us so far that has ridden Fliteboard and a competing product).
All the best,
DT
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All good David. I had jetski support. Your support team was pretty good.
Why EFOILS are so EXPENSIVE? ft David from Fliteboard, a 44min video by JetsurfingNation.
Don’t hesitate to click on the video description to see the 16 questions with timecodes.
The Fliteboard efoils are exceptional products. For the people who can’t put so much money in their toy, we are fortunate to have this forum that allows us to built an efoil around a 63100 outrunner motor from 1500usd with a 12s12p LI-Ion battery (SAMSUNG 30Q).
to the forum creators.
Maybe covered somewhere else but wondering about the flite board motor cooling, filled partly with oil like Lift directdrive? Is the motor outrunner or inrunner?
German scorpion made motor i believe and neugart 1:4 planetary
Thanks! Was not able to see from the pictures, is it inrunner or outrunner, scorpion makes both i think. As the motor is in a shell interesting that it does not have heating issues in any case.
I might be wrong but looks like the Flite has less water intrusion issues compared to direct drives, maybe the gearbox is the reason, maybe easier to make waterproof?
What is the external diameter of this motor ? Custom or stock ?
On the stock side, taking into account the 4::1 ratio, we’re looking for 125 x 4 = 500kv.
Here is a 350USD candidate (backorder): 12s max, 8mm shaft, 5 / 7kw continuous/peak power. The specs and price look interesting but the torque info is unknown and the waterproofing (or oil bath) implementation looks uncertain. What do you guys think ?
'Scorpion HKIII-5035-500KV (8mm) - Scorpion Power System
https://www.scorpionsystem.com/catalog/discontinued/motor/hkiii-50_1/HKIII_5035_500/
Pretty hard to put a gearbox on a outrunner and in a tube , the phases wires are in the way , works for airplane but I think its a inrunner setup, sss or tp have plenty of power , Scorpion not sure they have the thing
For a geared setup sss56104, 56114, 56123
US $176.72 6％ Off | SSS 56114 360KV/420KV/500KV/700KV Brushless 1/5 Motor 13.000W 56114mm for Boat,car and Surfboard
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqUfhuV
Or TP 5680 or 5690: TP Power TP5690 Brushless Motor for RC Boat or 1/5 Car and Truck | eBay
56114 and 56123 are only available with 10mm shaft, you need to lathe it down to 8mm.
KV depends on the voltage, planetary gear and propeller, 100-130x gear ratio prooved to be a good value for 12-14S