Evolve and Rain ?

I live near the coast in California so it's always foggy and moist there most of the time, but my question is what proofing should I do and with what product and what about the ceramic bearings sold by Evolve are those worth considering for the wheels or just stick with the stock ones?

 

I think the board would hold up ok in the coast / humid conditions, but in my opinion good practice to protect it just in case. However I'm not going to waterproof my Evolve until a little time has passed to ensure all electronic components have burned in and are 100% reliable.. If you do any circuit repair work you'll need to pull the protective coating off beforehand.

You can use conformal coating spray, bought mine on Amazon and went with the silicone based one for that it holds up to heat and doesn't retain heat as some of its beneficial properties. You want to make sure that your circuit board is covered and all contact points are protected. However as I mentioned you need to identify where the bluetooth antenna is located take caution to avoid spraying that.

I honestly think ceramics are a waste of money. I've done some research on them and even hardcore downhill racers don't use them. If you were trying to buy down every little spec to speed your board up then maybe. Also if any dirt works its way into the ceramic bearings, even the hybrid, the ceramic balls don't tend to do well with that, weakening them, and leading to eventual failure. If they had lifetime warranties I'd buy them since they you wouldn't have to shell out more cash to replace them, but they're not and I'm 100% sold on the cheap bearings that are a dime a dozen. Use, abuse and replace. EZ on the wallet.

 

Did my first ride on my water-resistant MetroBoard, had to do two runs to the bus station back and forth in the rain since I had forgot my bus pass prepping for the rain commute. Everything worked well, going to make a custom shroud to keep any water from splashing into the motor crevice, the non drive wheel side can spash every now and then if you hit the puddles. A plastic shroud would do that deflects the water, the drive side is protected by the pulley guard and motor mount. May also make spash flaps for the front of the Wheel Shields to help some spray that does work in the air and back onto the board. The board had some splashes on it but ultimately it protected the board from getting drenched and that's what I was targeting. When I arrive at my destination I wipe both sides of the board down and the battery box to remove any excess moisture. Had my action cam on for the 1st trip, will try to down load a quick clip of the fenders in action.

 

I ride in the rain, on the wet football in front of my house and the wet grass hills around my house. Everything is still working great and I will hit up that field again tonight.

 

Warranty... drain...down.

 

The warranty was only for 90 days and it only covers faulty parts.
I wasn't out long enough to drain the battery much. When I got home I gave it a quick wipe down with a rag and all was good.
I don't plan on making a habit out of it though.

 

Quick rides out in the rain like that won't kill your board, its a brush-less motor which are very good in wet conditions compared to brushed. Brushless motors can actually be run underwater, but its the corrosion of the bearings and such that need to be ultimately waterproofed and the inside housing sprayed with corrosion protectant. Also the battery box / controller box is protected from the start pretty well, the issue is over time when the seal starts to fail and water begins working its way through voids, hitting your control board and corroding it.

I've been using my MetroBoard all week in the rain, riding through puddles and such. No issues. However from my experiment I do want to build a full rain board that I can take out and use. I love my Metroboard and truth is riding on tarmac and in the rain is VERY hard on the board, the motor, and every thing that's exposed to it. You won't believe how small of road grit is everywhere under the board. The brushless motor is resilient but not bullet proof, so it will get beat up and worn just from the gritty abrasive environment. Also I found my Wheel Shield that's on the drive wheel keeps loosening. I have to crank it down on every couple of rides. This is due to the rotation of the wheel, if there was a reverse thread on that axle it wouldn't occur. But the rotation with vibration from the road eventually shakes it loose. Playing around with different solutions, but the best that I will try soon is to use some high strength thread locker, red, that's easy to remove if needed as well without any heat. But with that I have an older MetroBoard, two of them. One I blew the controller out since I was riding in the rain unprotected / no conformal coating on it. Hence where my experiment came from. I commute every day on my board so its important I get this dialed in right. So what I'm going to do is combine my two battery packs (15 mile) to create one large 30 mile pack. Going to pull out the brushed older gen motor and upgrade to the brushless outrunner from MetroBoard which does not have any holes in it which is better for the rain / wet conditions. I'm also going to upgrade the controller since they made huge improvements there and smoothing out the take-offs and regen. Put a water-proof coating on the board, install wheel shields with the thread locker and I'm good to go. I'll just have to keep in mind if its going to rain that day and use this dedicated board if it does. I'll waterproof the control board on my Evolve over time and its already done on one of my newer MetroBoard, the longboard. I'll waterproof my 10 mile short board when I get a moment. That protects me if I'm riding and a rain storm kicks up out of nowhere. The best part is that I don't have to worry if my board is going to fry or not if it does. Good peace of mind.

 

So reporting some more in on my rain setup. Rain stopped and this weekend I did a full cleaning of the board. So one thing that riding on the rainy streets is that your bearings get hammered!!! Motor bearings and wheel bearings. Interesting part is that the wheel shields protected the outside wheel bearings, they were covered. The inside ones are rumbly and have flat spots. I also could feel a small pebble that worked its way inside the motor but managed to get that out. With that I also could feel a flat spot on the motor bearing. All from less than a week of riding in the rain! But the board is still running strong, got the motor cleaned up, deck cleaned, new bearings in that are on my street wheels and flying down the dry streets. I can swap out the motor bearings at any time, they're cheap and I have the puller to get the gear off and all that jazz.

So a few takes, I'm going to throw some large fender washers over my wheel bearings. In essence they should do what the wheel shields did, keep the dirt and grit from getting kicked into the bearing. That's the issue there, they're not protected in any way. I may also keep the fender washers there for my street setup for that it keeps dirt out and dust which will prolong my bearing life. The other thing is the motor, on the motor opposite of the pulley the outrunner motor has a space where the motor rotates around the mounting housing. that's a place where water / sand and dirt gets in. This motor unlike the Evolve does not have outside cooling holes, but you can see that even without tow large holes on the outside of the motor grit works its way in. Planning on making a shroud or just putting a large o-ring there that covers and deflects that water/dirt from getting in there. Then put a little silicone grease around it to repel water as well along that mating area.

So to take from all this, I would not run my $2k+ Evolve out there like I did on the streets if you don't have to or can avoid it. Well I did run a very expensive board, the Metro, but I know I can get parts from the Manufacturer plus he was very supportive of me answering questions I had the entire way. I really don't know how Evolve would deal with this, just seemed like I had a very timid response asking if I could buy just the small pulley for the motor. Again I never got a yes for that. which put a bit of uncertainty in my board maintenance taste. But ultimately you can get your board to deal with this demanding and damaging environment. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the best route to go with this is to dedicate a board to be a rain board. Waterproof the deck with some sort of poly coating top/bottom, waterproof your electronics (keep away from the antennas), waterproof the battery box, shield the bearings, put fenders on and head on out. But do expect to be replacing parts over time.

Ohhh.... lastly I snapped a belt while riding in the rain. I talked to MetroBoard about that, if the wet conditions could have contributed to it. He said he doesn't believe so, he said what causes the belts to fail are pebbles getting lodged in there in the gear / belt rotation. I'm thinking what cause the failure now is that with all that grit, pebbles and crap getting kicked up that the belt was getting hammered with all that abrasive stuff and wore the bands out causing it to snap while going downhill under regen load. So protecting your belt as much as possible from water/grit is another thing to add on the laundry list of rainproofing the board if you're a hardcore commuter.

 

Hi wiztecy. Can you tell me exactly which conformal spray you used and also where and what size o-rings you used? there is some prep work I would like to do to the carbon GT prior to taking it outdoors.

 

Had a small problem yesterday. I was out on wet roads and I stopped for a min. When I tried to turn the power on the board it wouldn't switch back on. When I got home I removed the battery and it was all wet inside. I filled the whole thing with rice and let it sit for a few hours. That dried up all the water and the board runs fine again.

 

Bet you were very happy when it came back on. I am scared to run through sprinkler run off!

 

Was that with the GT or Bamboo? The GT is designed to be a water bucket. Lets hope they put some protective coating on the PCB board, if not, you're not immune to still frying your board. Corrosion can set in over time from water intrusion with the circuits.

By the way here's the conformal coating I used to waterproof my MetroBoard PCB:

I'm not going to do my GT, it has too many issues in terms of bad connectivity I want to sort out and don't want Evolve to void the warranty. I haven't taken a close look at their PCB but possibly if they did things right it would be coated already.

 

I have the BGT. I plan on getting some Nanoprotech to waterproof all the electronics with before I ride on wet roads again.

 

I plan on staying away from the rain - I agree with what Wiztecy said - some of us just want reliable boards that work well in the dry - forget the wet - and are the roads not slippy and pretty dirty when wet anyway ? (I ride in the rain on the bike occasionally but its not fun)

 

Riding in the rain is not a problem at all if you follow these simple steps:

- Buy large plastic container
- Buy 100Kg of rice
- After riding Evolve board in the rain drop it in the container
- Wait 24 hours
- Ride again

 

haha - sounds like a major pain

 

Honestly guys, your circuit board will corrode if not protected. And when you get one single drop on a circuit all the rice in the world won't bring your board back to life! I rode on a wet just rained on road to work yesterday, shorted out my board since I didn't run my fenders. Water got up in the front of the board where the IR receiver is and shorted that. It was the only part of the board / remote I did NOT protect. Luckily its only a $12 part from Metroboard which he ensures to support parts for these boards in everyway. I think I'll pick that up as well as the new upgraded RC remote he has available to retrofit to the board. He says its way better than the IR one. So I'll give that a try.

If you want to ride in the rain you have to dedicate a board for this if you don't want extra broken boards laying around in your house. Also go simple, single motor, you will be eating up your motor bearings and that's a given. Make the repair / maintenance simple.

One thing I might look into are hub motors. Been following the release of the Raptor2 by Enertion boards, Jason says these motors are resistant to water. If that's true its the perfect rain board combo.

 

From what I see most hub motors have an issue with heat, so they need cooling holes. I'm keeping an eye on the Raptor2, Jason was saying that these hub motors are waterproof/resistant. We'll see. If so I'll do a DIY board with similar hub motors if he sells them. So far I haven't found hub motors that are rain worthy.