Evolve GT street speed rings deformed? Motor ticking noise. Abec 1

Evolve GT street speed rings on the gear side, mine are deformed. I had two speed rings on one side, and one on another on my Carbon (which was delivered today). All the rings in this location, on both sides, are extremely deformed. I'll try to post a album here with some good (outer rings) next to the deformed ones. The pics don't do reality justice. The speed ring on the side with just one seems extra thick and may be two fused together. The others are misshapen, out of round, have protrusions, and are not flat. Has anyone seen something similar, or have an idea what may be happening. I'm certain this wasn't an alignment issue.

My brand new Carbon GT has a ticking sound (on the right side) while bench testing. I think it's the motor, but only when there is tension from a belt. I couldn't, at first, determine the exact location of the noise. I first checked to ensure the wheel nuts where tight: they where. Side note, belt tension was very different between the two sides. Perhaps a bit tight on the right side, and a more than a bit loose on the left. I removed the wheel/drive gear assembly on the right side and tested, no noise. I swapped the assembled wheel/drive gears from one side to the other, for testing. The noise persisted, again only one the right side after the swap. I decided to look closer at the the wheel assembly and took them apart. That's when I noticed the deformities and irregularities in number of speed rings.

The noise is only there with the belt in place, which I find strange. I can hear the clicking even when turning the wheel by hand. There is one spot during a rotation where the sound presents. It presents when the motor turns in either direction. The sound comes from the motor area, not the wheel area. There is one consistent sound with every rotation at any speed (even had turning), and in either direction. Higher speed been more frequent sound, of light clicking, but not a more loud sound. I'll make a video when I have time, but that may be a while.

The Abec 11 wheels appear to have more air bubbles in them than I expected. Some of the bubbles are quite large IMHO. Is this normal? I'll try to include at least one pic (in the album) showing at least one of these bubbles.

I'll call Evolve (USA) in the morning and see what they have to say.

 

for a brand new board to be delivered with a ticking motor, and speedrings like that is very odd, most likely they will tell you to swap the rings for others that should have been included in the spare parts ziplock, but for the motor, contact them and see if they have a fix for you, there have been quite a few users with ticking sounds in motors, I'm sure they will send you a new motor or fix it for you if there is an issue. Out of curiosity did you get the new V2 remote with your board? with the gear up and down function?

 

The clicking sound you are getting could be the bearings within the wheel housing. It's more common in the AT wheels but I've also had it with my Abec 11 97mm street setup. The symptoms you describe are exactly what it sounds like. Try taking out the bearings from the wheels and apply grease to the outside of the bearings (outer circumference) and then re-seat in the wheels.... sound will probably dissappear. ☺

 

i've never like the quality of standard skateboard speedrings, they will deform from being tightened down and mostly since the cheap-o's are made up of soft steel. I ran into this issue on my other electric boards, ended up going for full stainless speedrings which are way harder and also the key are the spacers. So on ebay I bought aluminum spacers that a person in the USA makes, he makes sure each is the correct length. After doing that I don't mush my rings and have very limited rolling resistance.

I also agree, the clicking is a sign of a bearing on its way out. When the bearing starts to go there's play and the tolerances loosen up. That too will destroy your speed rings.

 

Try bearings with built in spacers and speed rings, made a big difference for me and less parts to worry about

 

Many people do like those built in spacers / speed rings. My neighbor who is a long term park skater uses them. But know you're paying for that and when they go bad you throw all that money away.

I like to go cheap, I do the ABEC 9 bearings that run anywhere from $1.51 for 8 with free shipping as you see here below. I think I bought them for $2.50 a pop before. Possibly with the new election results the cost have dropped since they come from another country. I order a couple of sets usually. I might order some more since the price has fallen quite a bit. We will always be eating these guys up since we put on the miles. Skateboards should actually use tapered bearings but they don't. They'd last way longer since they distribute the side loads better. Evolve did their homework and put them into the drive gear bearing of the wheel from what I could research from the bearing part #.

 

Yes, V2 remote is what I received.

 

I plan on doing this. I use Zelous on other boards an have been happy. Just curious if anyone else has had this issue and what could be the cause.

 

Bearings just blow out / go bad. If you're carving your board a bunch, like I said above they'll fail earlier. I use to be the guy who bought those $50 for 8 precision super fast bearings (Moc bearings) until I had about less than 10 rides on my board and seeing one fail halfway into my work commute. No more throwing my dollars away. El Cheap'o's with the highest ABEC rating for me which have out performed the Mocs in terms of durability.

There's quite a bit of stresses down there from weight, load shifts and vibrations. Its a harsh environment. But you don't need a precisely designed bearing there either.

 

he said his board is brand new and just been delivered a day ago, so unless the QC testing went nuts with the board, it shouldn't be worn like this.

 

Ok, thanks. Didn't people complain about the AT wheels doing the same thing, making noise. And the solution was to grease the outside of the bearing then insert it back into the hub.

 

I had clicking bearings with my AT setup, I didn't have any luck with the grease trick so I just got some zealous bearings with built in spaces and speed rings, problem solved.

Oh and in reference to wiztecy comment about getting the highest ABEC rating bearings, I was under the impression that ABEC rating is kind of irrelevant for skateboards.

 

From what I've read and understood is that our wheels don't spin at 20-30,000 RPM, but rather at 2,000-5000 RPM, so we don't need the bearing to be that precise. Hence why I feel I was throwing away money with the $50 Moc bearings that blew out really fast. However if I have a choice of buying an ABEC bearing, the cost difference is very marginal if any. So go with the higher rating. Will the 9's last longer than the 5's or even the 1's? I think its all relative and they fail for some other reason due to grit/dirt getting in the bearing instead of them being too wobbly in tolerance. As I mentioned above, our issue is with "side loading" of the bearing since we are carving, which these vertical ball bearings are horrible at, great at vertical up/down loads, not so much for sides. That's another reason they blow out. Tapered bearings would be ideal. if I was a downhill longboarder, especially one who's going to be topping 80+mph then yes I'd start looking at higher precision bearings, but at 20-26mph and even 30mph, no. I've got other cool things to buy for my board such as wheels and grip-tape where that money would do me better.

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TidBits on Bearings
High precision and small tolerances are required for bearings to function at very high RPM (Revolutions Per Minute), that must spin at 20,000 to 30,000 RPM. At that speed, an ABEC - 7 or 9 bearing rating may be appropriate. However, a skateboard with 54mm wheels turning 20,000 RPM will be traveling about 127 MPH! Since most skating is done under 30 MPH, the realistic maximum RPM your skate bearings will see is about 4700 RPM and probably 90% of skating occurs under 2000 RPM. So, very high precision is not required at skating speeds.

Skateboarding Articles: All About Wheels and Bearings » Selecting the right skateboard wheels and bearings
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ABEC ratings described:

The ABEC rating system includes grades 1,3,5,7, and 9. The higher the ABEC rating, the tighter the tolerances are, making the bearing a more precision part. High precision and small tolerances are required for bearings to function at very high RPM, in products like high speed routers that must spin at 20 to 30,000 RPM.
Abec vs. Skate Rated™ - Support - Bones Bearings
bonesbearings.com/support/abec/

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Here's the link to the Stainless speed rings and aluminum spacers. You might be able to find them at the hardware store as well but if not, here's where you can buy them. This is where I'd prefer to put my saved money from the bearings:





20 Skateboard Longboard bearing spacers (5 sets of 4) Heavy Duty | eBay

NEW SET 8 SPEED RINGS/WASHERS FOR SKATEBOARD/LONGBOARD WHEEL AXLE LESS FRICTION! | eBay

 

When I picked up my board at Evolve in Dusseldorf they did this for me when I bought the AT setup as an extra. I guess they know this might happen and to this as a precaution.

 

The issue I'm having isn't related to bearing slop in the wheels and can not be fixed with greasing the bearings. It happens with the motor, not the wheel. It happens even when wheel bearings are removed from the equation entirely.

I went ahead and made some videos for Brandon at Evolve USA technical support. I will share them here, in the link below, as well. I apologize for the whispering, and poor quality. I shot these with my mobile phone after my wife and visiting in-laws went to bed, so it was the best I could manage at the time, with the time I had.

https://goo.gl/photos/4cEbVvwc3LiEqf7Z7


The email address Brandon gave as brandon@evolveskateboardsusa.com bounced back to me. Anyone, maybe have the correct one to share?

I've now tried:
service@evolveskateboardsusa.com

 

Get a 2mm Allen key and tighten the motor cog lug into the motor shaft in correct position.
It will be slightly loose and sliding on the shaft.

It will stop your clicking.

 

I don't think this is the issue. I don't find any slop in the motor cog on the shaft. I used a few Allen keys on the lug, and found that I'm unable to tighten (or loosen) the lug with the keys I have at a level of force I'm comfortable applying. BTW, I found mine to be a 1.5mm versus 2mm. I tried 3 different brands of keys, and they all bend significantly before breaking the lug loose.

 

Yeah some some motors need 2mm and others 1.5mm
Is there much space between the cog and the motor plate?
Undo the lug. slide the cog or so it over hangs the end of the shaft 1.5-2mm.
Then do it back up. it will line up with the depression in the shaft.
If it clicks once per rotation of the motor and in the same spot during rotation then it sounds like mine. did you post a video?

 

https://goo.gl/photos/4cEbVvwc3LiEqf7Z7

Much space, no. It's about the same as the other side and as I've seen in other pictures and videos. My guess is it's a motor issue, not a motor cog issue...

Thanks for helping, btw.

 

Are you able to capture the clicking / noise via video/sound recorder so we can understand what you're hearing?