Saturday, December 31, 2016

Extreme Long Range Electric Longboarding: 56km on a Boosted Board

I just returned from a 56km Boosted Board ride. I toured the bike trails along the Upper/Lower Crystal Springs Reservoirs and San Andreas Lake here in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is a new record for me. My previous range record was 27km on a single charge.

Boosted Board with external battery in my backpack :]
To achieve this I used a very large and custom designed lithium-ion battery pack. I tossed it in my backpack and connected it to the Boosted Board where I had previously made a modification to expose the internal battery voltage rail. This pack is arranged in a 10S6P (10-series, 6-parallel) configuration. It has a rated capacity of 21Ah at 37V nominal or roughly 777Wh. The internal battery of the Boosted Board has a rated capacity of 99Wh.

This battery pack is designed to attach to a custom designed board that I have been working on but is not ready for prime time yet. Below is a sneak preview of the board I am working on. I have decided to name it Voyager as one of the design goals has been to prioritize range.

10S6P battery mounted to Voyager with custom charging cable attached
Continue reading to learn more about my new record and construction of this battery pack. There are also more pictures of Voyager at the bottom of this post.