With the inevitable take-over of electric vehicles in the next couple of decades, and since seeing electric skateboards online, I knew I had to try and make one.
I'm going to be assembling my own custom battery pack to keep costs down, which will also greatly increase my knowledge and skills with electronics.
Always being up for a project, and put off by the ridiculous price tag of existing offerings, I've decided to make my own. I frequently cycle around, but the advantage of an electric skateboard is that it can easily be taken on trains/buses etc.
I assembled my own battery pack by attaching 40 individual Samsung 18650 lithium ion cells together. I connected them in sub-packs of 4 in parallel, to raise the discharge current rating of the pack to 60A continuous; and then connected 10 of these packs together in series, to raise the voltage of the pack to 37V nominal (42V max, 25V min). I connected the cells together by spot welding pure nickel strips to them, spot welding is preferable to soldering, which requires heat to be applied for a longer period of time, which damages the cells.