A2/Ypsi Longboarders?

[Vic]

This deck should be familiar to at least one other forum member, as that is who I got it from originally haha. I would throw long board trucks on it, but didn't want to pull my only set just for this, though it would probably make it a bit more of a familiar ride if it did have longboard trucks. Was more of an experiment than anything, and i was rather pleased/entertained with the outcome.
Also, only 3 bolts because I didn't measure twice, drill once haha.

But for my night light set up, I have just been too lazy to look up parts and such.

How is your El wire setup? What sort of battery connections or battery in general does it take?
When I finally get El wire and LEDs, I'm going to have some sort of battery box and switch somewhere.

The EL wire comes with a small 2 AA battery box that has a built in AC Inverter. I still want to add LEDs so I sorta wish I had gotten a usb to AC Inverter so that I could use a power bank with a splitter to power both, but I think I'll be okay with powering the LEDs with their own pack.

[Vic]

Finally got around to riding it at night.

[T6e9a]

Very cool.

Question on their brightness though, as I imagine, it would be difficult to tell by picture:
Does it have some bit of area that it lights up? Or is it more of an outline/for show to know where the board is?

Also, how long of a section did you by?
Any daytime pics of how you have it set up?

[Vic]

Very cool.

Question on their brightness though, as I imagine, it would be difficult to tell by picture:
Does it have some bit of area that it lights up? Or is it more of an outline/for show to know where the board is?

Also, how long of a section did you by?
Any daytime pics of how you have it set up?

I bought a 15ft section but I only really needed 9ft for my board. As far as brightness, this is the thinner el wire so it just shows the outline of the board. If you went thicker, like up to 5mm that might help but I'm gonna supplement mine with LEDs later.

I'll take some daytime pics tomorrow maybe, but it's mostly just hot glued on, with some binder clips to hold it on better because the glue came undone in some spots from me accidentally hitting it while kicking.

[T6e9a]

Some recent activity and updates on the longboarding front:

I finally picked up some Shark Wheels and have been riding them pretty much since I got them. So far, they are great for a smooth low vibration ride just about anywhere for cruising. Not the best for getting major speed, but they have their purpose in my book. I got some blue 78a 70mm ones.
I will probably use them sort of like "scouting" wheels. If I am going to check out a new location, not wanting to do anything too crazy, I'll throw them on. Then when I'm familiar and comfortable, I may swap to either my O-tang The Cages or my UnderTows.

Also got the chance to skate around Kensington with Vic. Great park for it, the path has a good balance of slight hills and flat ground, with one very notable hill that we ended up going almost 20mph down.

I was at Willow Metro Park for this past weekend for the BSA 2016 Rendezvous, and on some down time, took the chance to skate around and check out the trail. Great river access for kayaking/canoeing/fishing/etc and offers good scenery as well. Mild hills for the portion I checked out. But the nice thing is that it connects to Lower Huron Metro park, and in the 3.2 mile section between the 2 metro parks, is access to the I-275 Trail, which is nicely paved, and by the looks of it, fairly recently.

Of course, River Bends park as well, spans all the way from its 22 Mile Rd entrance through Utica and continues to the Clinton River Park and has access to Dodge and Jaycees parks as well. The trail does at least. I skated a good chunk of it today, just to make good use of the nice weather, and to scope other portions out a bit more.

[luke213]

I forgot about this thread;) Vic mentioned I should try long boards, trouble for me is honestly place to ride. I live way out in the woods, like nearly a mile from pavement, and even then it's rough. When I street skated I lived out here too but we'd ride to various spots via car to skate, we never skated to and from spots strangely enough;) Mostly since things are too spread out to be able to make that work and we all lived outside of town. Closest thing would have been skating around the college up in Marquette which we used to do often in the 90's but now all of that has been closed off for skaters and it's 70 miles from here;) So while I think long boarding would be cool I flat out don't have a place to ride.

Lately though with my son taking an interest I've had a serious bug to build a mini ramp in my shop;) Since then I could skate when ever I want to blow off steam and he could learn to ride semi vert on it as well;) But that's time and space and money that I'm not sure I've got or want to divert there right now. But it's been on my mind for the last several months, if nothing else it is a ways out.

On the wire I think you guys are spot on in running a groove with a router then setting the wire into it. Keep in mind you could probably make it work using a handheld router, just takes a steady hand and the right bit. I'm not sure of the stresses on long boards but I suspect it would be fine.

On crazy lighting, I saw this the other day on Youtube, I subscribe to Braille and get a kick out of their videos:



From what I read apparently they soaked a board in light stick goo(calcume?) or that was what the comments said. I didn't dig into it, but I was surprised at the amount of brightness the board has;) Still pretty dang cool none the less;)

Luke

[T6e9a]

I watch Braille almost religiously. That was probably one of their coolest videos. Those slow motion shots were awesome.

[luke213]

I really dig Braille they do some stuff that sort of gets on my nerves, but I watch a few other skate channels too. Which is sad since I haven't skated in a while;) But I enjoy watching it, even if I don't get to do it which is honestly weird;)

Luke

[T6e9a]

So I have been dabbling with some LEDs I pulled from some cheap lighted hat and a free flashlight thing from Harbor Freight. I essentially made my own LED strips of green LEDs. Only things left are to figure out how I want to connect it to the front of my board, preferably non permanent. I was thinking hot glue, tape, Velcro, zip ties or possibly some others. I'll ad pictures when everything is fully assembled and running. It will offer a forward 3 bright white LEDs with 2 rows of the 8 LED strips I made, and then another couple presses of the button, and it will turn on the 24 white downward facing LEDs. I'm just glad I finally got around to actually doing it.

[T6e9a]

Activity around the forum seems a little low, and I hate double posting, but editing into the previous reply doesn't really gather attention or mark as "Unread". And I haven't posted much in a while.

But that aside, my updates in longboarding:

I had the hankering to pick up another board, for a couple reasons. Try out a new style of board, have a board for a friend or someone else who might want to try it out, and possibly try some tricks on or something.

I picked up a Loaded Tesseract from a guy off the CDS Longboarding facebook group.
Complete:
Loaded Tesseract, custom grip tape (mix of fine and course grip in different spots)
Paris trucks
Orangatang Stimulus Yellows (70mm/86a/42mm contact) worn down a bit, but luckily no noticeable flat spots
Aphetamine bearings(I believe) 3 years old and still running well

I always wanted a Loaded board, just to try them out at least, and I was able to pick this up for $200.

Intending it to be a smooth cruiser board, I threw my sharkwheels on. But I didn't really realize this board isn't quite "just a cruising board" board. The feel was vastly different than my board and what I am used to. It is fiberglass reinforced, so has a ridged shape, unlike the flexibility of my bamboo board. Much more of a long traditional board. The Tesseract has a nose and a tail. Has also been know as some bit of a "quiver killer" as it can serve multiple purposes pretty well. Meaning it makes a decent down hill board, decent free style board, carving is a little weird, but plenty possible. Not a great pushing board, as it rides decently high.

Enough on my board, but thanks to Vic, who showed me the deals, I was able to nab some DC skate shoes, in my size(14) and color (helmet is red, as well as my old skate shoes). DC was having end of summer sales, and I got those shoes, and a portable charger, for $24 shipped.

And these shoes have MUCH better insoles/absorbing effect than my old shoes. They offer such a nice ride, and a little cost of board feel. They work well with my bamboo board, where my Es shoes work better with the Tesseract.