Technical terms always go over people’s heads especially when it comes to electric skateboards. You may click into a e-skater community or electric skateboard forum, but you probably get confused about what people are talking about because they are all using the jargon and terms. Of course, electric skateboard professionals are not counted here. For those beginners or primary level riders, grasping some related terms will certainly help you know the skateboard better and make easy decision when you’re buying your first (or next) electric skateboard.

Among all those technical terms, some concepts are particularly confusing when it comes to different components that go into powering these boards. Sometimes even an electric skateboard rider can not explain the meaning clearly. Here in this article, we’ll discuss some important terms to figure out what these specifications really mean. Hopefully this will make elusive jargon and terms easier to understand for those who are skateboard shopping.

Battery: There is all kinds of stuff like “10S1P”,  “10s2P” and most people get it but not everybody. What does “10S1P” actually mean? It is 10 cells in series. There are 10 of these batteries. If there were 20 of them, you would have a “10s2P”. So “10S” is 10 cells, and “P” is a pack. Essentially the “S” is your performance and the “P” is your range, your fuel tank per sec. There are some propellants element to add any more packs because you get more overall amps you can safely pull. But for the most part, it’s mainly range. You can say the power train is the “reservoir” of power. Basically more “P”, more bigger reservoir and that’s basically the amount of energy that you could pump into this board over time.

Designed for short distance commuter board, Lycaon G is slim, light-weight and portable. Without doubt, it’s also beautifully shaped. Lycaon G has got the lithium polymer battery 10S1P, which means 10 cells in 1 pack. The power of the batteries is able to offer you 8 to 10 miles. If you are not planning for long-distance trip, Lycaon G should be your go-to choice. As an upgraded version of Lycaon G, Lycaon GR has improved both batter power and range. Lycaon GR has got 10S3P, that is 10 cells in 3 packs. The battery power is adequate to survive a 15-25 miles trip. If your commuting journey is relatively longer, then this board may be your better choice.

BMS: It’s short for Battery Management System. It’s a kind of important factor that no one really understands. It’s usually inside the battery pack. It handles the charging and discharging of the individual cells. Where this comes into play majorly is if you have a battery capable of doing hundred amp output and you have an ESC capable of putting out a hundred amps and you have motors capable of taking a hundred amps. But you BMS is 20 amps and that’s all you’re going get. It’ a limiting factor that prevent you from potential problems caused by excessive amps. As we said if the battery pack is the reservoir, then BMS is the spigot or faucet that allows the water/power to come out of the reservoir. Our Lycaon boards are all equipped with BMS, so you can rest assured that our boards are safe to ride.

Motor Wattage: Most people think that 300 Watts must be twice as good as 600 Watts. Does it really mean for these motors?  One of the reasons why it’s so confusing is different manufactures use different data to set that number. But the number basically means is on a 600 Watt motor, the manufacture is sure that 600 Watts this motor can run definitely in any circumstances and temperatures and it’s going to run safely. That doesn’t mean that you can’t hit it with 2000 Watts every once in a while and get a huge performance for a second and then have it drop off. That is just the standard amount that you would feed this board to make it bulletproof. Motor that’s rated higher watts has more potential safe power, but that alone doesn’t mean that it performs in a more powerful way.

So you could have board that has 300 Watt motors and it might dust a board that’s rated to 3000 watts. The biggest thing is the higher wattage, the more the motor can cool itself. So if you are running at a hundred percent all the time, it’s not good to run a lower watt motor especially if you are feeding it more watts than it was originally designed for. You’ll eventually burn out the magnets and copper. What a lot of people will notice is over time if they’re running motors that aren’t strong enough, braking and acceleration will get weaker and eventually a motor will just die. Currently, both Lycaon G and Lycaon GR adopt two 480 Watts motors, a power that is totally enough for primary level riders and electric skateboard beginners.

ESC: ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) is probably the most confusing aspect and it’s the thing that’s in between the battery and the motors. ESC feeds a certain amount of power out and a certain amount of power for braking. It’s all pretty defined and you can’t change anything. For VESC (Vedder Electronic Speed Controller), there’s a million dials in the software that allows you to tune every single part from the immediate power, the sustained power, to the way it brakes. There are temperature sensors in the motors. You’ll know if you are under an extreme circumstance and your motors are starting to get hotter than they should for safety. It will start to dial back a little bit of the amperage until they get back to a safe temperature.

Hope this article gives you some insight on jargon and terms of electric skateboards when you’re purchasing for your new board. When you are getting into a new field, you have to spend some time on related knowledge. If you are not sure which e-skateboard to buy, have a look at this passage and check out our Lycaon boards, you may find your ideal board with reasonable price and excellent performance!