Cheap Balancing Skateboard


[Tony] submitted his site showing his recent projects. Besides his balancing scooter, and light creations, I thought his take on the balancing skateboard was interesting. The drive components came from a pair of $10 cordless drills, and the motor controller consists of a pair of relays and mosfets.(There’s a pic controller, gyro and accelerometer behind them) It’s not elegant, but these sorts of hacks are great for inspiring those on a budget.

Don’t forget, the new revised US daylight savings time is coming.

11 thoughts on “Cheap Balancing Skateboard

  1. that is exceedingly awesome. It amazes me that something that costs several thousand dollars, a high end computer, and who knows what else for a segway can be done with some plywood and some comodity parts. i’d like to see a balancing kids toy come out so we could use it’s brain as a base for a whole slew of homebrew segways.

  2. nuts and volts magazine has an article about builing a balancing robot. Mostly need an accelerameter and gyro from what i understand.

    also turning wouldnt be a problem, just have to turn one in the other direction as the other for a sharp turn or one slower than the other for a gradual turn.

  3. Braniac asks: Just a thought, wouldn’t the two plastic skate board wheels restrict turning?

    And the answer is: Nope – when balancing on level ground, rotanova is only a degree or so from level. The wheels contact the ground at about 20 degrees out of level – it’s so steep that you tend to slide off the deck when the skate wheels are touching the ground.

    Thanks to all for the great comments!

  4. Nice.

    I think I might tackle this project myself. I’m thinking either a single large wheel or two smaller ones like this one has.

    Perhaps for steering and speed control I’ll have two hand controls with slide potentiometers for the separate acceleration of each motor.. I’ll make sure to put up pics if I do this one.

  5. sheesh, what’s with you whiners… dude made a board you stand sides on (much like a skateboard, not like a scooter) and it balances itself automatically on two wheels, no small feat, regardless of if it’ll make you go 30mph. if you don’t like it, improve on it and show us your results.

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