Hello!
I’m planning my board build and am concerned that the standard track box setup may not be ideal for maximum strength. I feel like it would just rip right out of the board the first time the foil hits something. I could be wrong. I am also planning to build a fairly low-profile board and don’t want the track boxes to take up a bunch of space between the bottom of the board and the battery box. Does anyone have an alternative mounting system that they like?
I have attached a diagram of what I am thinking of doing. I want the board to be fiberglass but in the area where the mast will attach I want to embed a large 4-6mm carbon fiber sheet that will have 4 threaded rivet nuts attached to it to mount the mast to. I’m thinking the plate would help spread the load through the board. I’m also considering making the bottom of the board and the battery box one solid piece with no space in between. Any thoughts here are much appreciated!
A 5mm solid carbon sheet 400x200 mm where the mast is attached works fine for me. I made a gfk/cfk sandwich with foam and cfk core (for the mast) and glued it from underneath. Not the lightest build but it is really solid:
See here: Daniel's 2nd build - #2 by sat_be
You might want to consider the advantage of passively cooling your vesc using the mast as a heat sink. Aluminum plate on bottom of battery box with vesc on top. Through bolt so the threads are sticking out of the bottom of board (seal the holes of course) mount the mast plate on the bolts using nuts
Aluminum mast is “metal connected” to bottom of vesc - providing cooling.
Fliteboard uses a modified version of this cooling approach.
I’m basing my comment on how a number of us have used a Fliteboard as a base for our builds.
Just search the forum for more details.
If you plan on using a carbon mast you won’t get much if any cooling effect.
Flite makes their drive system by mounting their Vesc on top of the mast. The entire assembly mounts into a “socket” in the bottom of the board
What has been developed here is an “adapter” plate that fits that socket. The Vesc is attached to this plate “inside” the socket and the mast base is attached to the water side of the plate.
The vesc is cooled by metal to metal connection to the aluminum mast and keeps the vesc cooled.
In your case you could make a “sandwich” construction with a carbon or perhaps just normal FRP plate on bottom and the aluminum plate on top. Size and thickness of plate would depend on the overall weight, cost, space and strength parameters you have set. Obviously a really thin plate might have tear out issues of the bolt heads, the dimensions of the plate might effect the space you have for battery etc.
