If you're just beginning to research how to build your own electric skateboard, you'll be inundated with text describing the parts used to build your electric board or the functions of the parts. There is also a large use of abbreviations and acronyms that some people may not understand.

The purpose of this article is for all of us to learn more about skateboarding terminology, especially for beginners to skateboarding. The words you'll find in this article may not just be about electric skateboards, but they have to be related in some way to building or riding an electric skateboard. These words may just be technical words that describe physics, or engineering acronyms, or newly installed ESK8 terms.

Baseplate: The part of a truck bolted to the deck and attached to a hanger. The bottom plate contains a passage for the pivot cup and the kingpin.

BEMF: Back Electro-Motive Force. When the magnet is rotated in the copper coil, it generates an electric current. Where there is current, there is voltage. This is the basic working principle of a generator. As the motor rotates, it generates a current in the opposite direction to the current used to power the electromagnetic field in the motor.

Bushings：A part of a truck, usually made of ethyl carbamate, allows the hanger to move when attached to the bottom plate. The bushing directly affects the handling of the board and is often replaced to achieve the desired effect on performance.

COMPONENTS HOUSING A protective case or cover of some type for mounting to an electronic assembly below deck. It can be secured with screws, glue or strong double-sided tape. Plastic and aluminum are commonly used to make shells.

Deck：The flat standing surface of a skateboard, usually laminated maple.

Drivetrain：Is a set of components that transfers power from the motor to the wheels. This does not include the motor that produces the power. So basically the driveline of the electric board is made up of four key parts.

The Motor Pulley, The Wheel Pulley, The Drive Belt, The Motor Mounting Plate, and Truck Clamping Parts, referred to as the Motor Mount

DD Dual Diagonal Mounted motors：One motor is mounted on the front truck and the other on the rear truck, in a diagonally opposite position.

DR Dual Rear Mounted Motors：Both are mounted side by side on the rear truck. Dual drive electric skateboard with two independent motors.

ESC：Electronic speed control 

This three-phase control is what the ESC (electronic speed controller) is for - it produces (ideally, but not always) a sinusoidal voltage curve that drives the motor. You can't just plug in a BLDC motor and expect it to spin - you need to somehow control the electromagnetic field. Therefore, use ESC. (Beginner shorthand: VESC is a special type of ESC, better suited for electric skateboards, designed by Benjamin Vedder.) ERPM (electronic revolution per minute)

Enclosure：A box or lid designed to protect electronic equipment fixed to a circuit board is usually fixed to the bottom of the deck.

Brush motor and brushless motor: Brushed motors now use physical "brushes" to make electrical contact with the motor's commutator to change the direction of the electromagnetic field as the rotor rotates - keeping the field in front of the permanent magnet. (Note that the rotor of the brush motor generates the electromagnetic field, not the stator.)

The reason we don't use brush motors is that the brush commutator system increases the friction loss of the engine. And, of course, there is an additional component that may now wear (the brushes) and cause the entire motor to fail. There are other reasons, mainly related to the amount of torque a motor can produce (in this respect, brushed motors are inferior to brushless motors).

BLDC (Brushless DC) motors, obviously, have no brushes. So, how do we get it to rotate? In simple terms, a BLDC motor runs on a three - phase system. There are three voltages across the motor windings. These voltages control which windings have what strength of the magnetic field. In effect, each individual winding generates its own magnetic field, which, together with all the other magnetic fields, adds up to a single electromagnetic field pointing in any direction we choose, even if the direction is not directly aligned with the winding pairs.

The BRUSHLESS OUTRUNNER is a motor that rotates outside - not inside - a common motor used in the manufacture of DIY electric skateboards that rotates the housing around its windings.

FOC: field oriented control

In terms of motor control, there are several important variables that we have not addressed. These are all:

Start at rest;

Know where it actually points to the electromagnetic field;

Vary the speed without throwing everything off balance.

These are more or less FOC's responsibilities. Before we can perform any of the above operations, we need to know where the rotor is. We can use a set-up with a sensor to measure it directly (ideal, but more expensive) or the sensor set-up is to guess the BEMF (back electromotive force) based on the rotor position.

Grip tape: is attached to the top of the deck with an adhesive to increase friction between the deck and the skater's feet.

HANGER: A part of a skateboard truck that holds the axle in place and pivots on the floor of the truck.

KEYWAY & KEY: The keyway is a slotted part located in the shaft and in the hole of the pulley, which contains a key, usually a small rectangular piece of metal, of the same size as the groove. They are used to lock the pulley and shaft in a fixed position. This is a very reliable way of securing the pulley to the shaft and can handle high speed and torque output without causing the pulley to slip.

Lipo: lithium-ion polymers are a common battery chemical

Nose: The front of the skateboard, bolted from the front of the truck to the end.

Series: Putting two identical batteries in Series 5 doubles the voltage.

When riding an electric skateboard, due to rapid acceleration or other sudden changes in speed or direction, your face is inadvertently facing plants.

THANE: Skateboard Wheels are usually made of polyurethane. THANE is an abbreviation.

Tail: The rear of the skateboard, bolted from the rear bogie to the end bogies: Front and rear axle components that connect the wheels to the deck and provide steering capability for the skateboard.

Wh: Watt-Hours is a way of expressing the total amount of power in a battery. Wh = nominal voltage X ampere Hours. Therefore, a 10-volt battery with a capacity of 10Ah is 100Wh

Wheelbase: Distance between the front and rear wheels, measured between the innermost two sets of truck holes

XSYP: Description of a battery in a battery, where X is the number of batteries in series and Y is the number of batteries in a parallel-group. For example, 3S2P means 3 batteries in series and 2 batteries in tandem. A total of 6 battery cells are combined into one battery.