DIY Moonboard Cost Estimate Spreadsheet

We've been thinking of building a home Moonboard so I did some calculations to estimate the cost based on the different hold sets and with and without LED. Thought this might be useful to others so here you go.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NMgxvFkAV0Pl0LS8omPUdIk4ptC8RiEdCFB2NGX315s/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks,

I’d recommend the screw on t-nuts instead of the prong style. SO worth it down the road having to deal with spinning t-nuts. Not as big of a deal on a moonboard where you don’t reset the holds often - but it’s not that much extra money for the happiness it buys. 

Rich Liang wrote:

Just some heads up, from a quick glance...

A)the build your Moonboard plans are not accurate....

-vertical T nut spacing add up greater than than 4'

-I somehow only used ~5x3"/80mm bolts and ran out of 2"/50mm bolts, order more 2"/50mm bolts. The moonboard hold map doesn't tell you which holds use which bolt length

B)Buy more TNuts incase of stripped T-nuts. Buying T-Nuts and Bolts together from a climbing hold company will probably save on shipping

C)You may also want to add smaller than 2" woodscrews for set-screws, I used 1-1/4", can also use to fix stripped t-nuts

D)Lumber for:

 -kick board framing is missing, unless ur omitting

-attachments to studs/freestanding supports

E) You may also want to paint the plywood?

Good luck!

Rich,

I am following the plans laid out by Moon here and the bolt recommendations that they make as well.  Certainly there will be a few odds and ends to pick up but this estimate structure will get you pretty close. Funny to see how much of the cost goes into lumber and supplies versus holds!

Sean Peter wrote:

I’d recommend the screw on t-nuts instead of the prong style. SO worth it down the road having to deal with spinning t-nuts. Not as big of a deal on a moonboard where you don’t reset the holds often - but it’s not that much extra money for the happiness it buys. 

For sure. That was the plan. Rock Candy sells the screw on style that we have used before when building volumes. Should be linked in the file.

If you are on a budget and want to reduce costs, I'd suggest forgoing the LED kit. Yes, the lights are cool and convenient, but are expensive and not really neccesary. Once you get used to the board you can memorize problems pretty quickly, and I find that it is a good mental exercise for beta recall. The LEDs are a new addition to the Moon Board concept, and you can get by just fine without them. Savings: $700.

The yellow Original holds are mainly useful to a V8/5.13 and stronger climber. They are fairly small and tweaky, and problems on the yellow holds are hard and fingery. If this is for your home wall, and you are not at that level, skip them for now. You can always buy them later and add them in. There are still 1000s of problems without them, including all of the moderates. If you (or others using the wall) want harder problems, though, the yellow holds are worthwhile. Savings: $220.

So the cheapest, starter level Moon Board I'd suggest would be Sets A and B, and no LEDs. This brings down the start up cost by a lot. You can buy more holds and reset to the Masters setup later if you want.

JCM wrote:

If you are on a budget and want to reduce costs, I'd suggest forgoing the LED kit. Yes, the lights are cool and convenient, but are expensive and not really neccesary. Once you get used to the board you can memorize problems pretty quickly, and I find that it is a good mental exercise for beta recall. The LEDs are a new addition to the Moon Board concept, and you can get by just fine without them. Savings: $700.

The yellow Original holds are mainly useful to a V8/5.13 and stronger climber. They are fairly small and tweaky, and problems on the yellow holds are hard and fingery. If this is for your home wall, and you are not at that level, skip them for now. You can always buy them later and add them in. There are still 1000s of problems without them, including all of the moderates. If you (or others using the wall) want harder problems, though, the yellow holds are worthwhile. Savings: $220.

So the cheapest, starter level Moon Board I'd suggest would be Sets A and B, and no LEDs. This brings down the start up cost by a lot. You can buy more holds and reset to the Masters setup later if you want.

JCM,

Good beta. Thanks for that. Thinking I will likely build it to be adjustable to 25 degrees as well. And probably add some holds from some of the local shappers as well, pinches, jugs and shitty feet. 

I wouldn't bother making it adjustable to 25 degrees. Just my opinion though

Hobie Ponting wrote:

JCM,

Good beta. Thanks for that. Thinking I will likely build it to be adjustable to 25 degrees as well. And probably add some holds from some of the local shappers as well, pinches, jugs and shitty feet. 

The whole point of the Moon Board is that it's standardized. If you're going to build a custom board, you can save a ton of money by not buying the Moon holds.

Paint the wood with sand finish paint.  Add extra paint so that you can smear.

Idaho Bob wrote:

Paint the wood with sand finish paint.  Add extra paint so that you can smear.

Have you ever used a moon board?

Idaho Bob wrote:

Paint the wood with sand finish paint.  Add extra paint so that you can smear.

Paint is cheap, but it's going to add a lot of time to paint and wait for it to dry. I've yet to see anyone smear on a moonboard.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

The whole point of the Moon Board is that it's standardized. If you're going to build a custom board, you can save a ton of money by not buying the Moon holds.

Wrong. The  Moon board has a lot of excess space between holds. You  can easily fill in that space without affecting the ability to use the moon holds. This lets you have a fully functional standard Moon board, but also some more varied holds or some jugs to warm up on.

David Kerkeslager wrote:

The whole point of the Moon Board is that it's standardized. If you're going to build a custom board, you can save a ton of money by not buying the Moon holds.

David,

Thanks for the message. Our board will be a standard MB but as previously mentioned there are many "open" T-Nuts that I can increase the versatility of the board by adding other types of holds that Moon doesn't supply. I'll still be able to climb all the problems on the app from the 2016 set.

Alexander Blum wrote:

I wouldn't bother making it adjustable to 25 degrees. Just my opinion though

Any particular reason? Are all the boulders and routes you climb 40 degrees?

Alexander Blum wrote:

I wouldn't bother making it adjustable to 25 degrees. Just my opinion though

With 25 degree he can adjust for the new masters set later if he wants to. At 25 the yellow school holds and new wooden holds become more usable to sub 13 climbers. If you’re training for somewhere like smith thinner problems at the lower angle would be pretty useful.

If you use chalkboard paint you can easily mark problems w/o the need for led.

My gym has the led kit and it’s kind of nice to look at while planning a new problem, but not so useful on the wall. It’s the feet I would like reminders for, but unless you cut all the time you can’t see led below the hold anyway.

Hobie Ponting wrote:

David,

Thanks for the message. Our board will be a standard MB but as previously mentioned there are many "open" T-Nuts that I can increase the versatility of the board by adding other types of holds that Moon doesn't supply. I'll still be able to climb all the problems on the app from the 2016 set.

Re: Additional holds/not Moonboard holds, we added an additional 5x12 t-nut grid between the Moonboard t-nut grid for an additional 180 t-nuts. We've got it setup to use a lot of these additional t-nuts with juggier holds for warm-ups/easier-than-V4 problems. Occasionally one or two of the extra holds get in the way of a Moonboard problem so we take the hold off. So long as you don't add huge holds in the extra spots, it's generally not a problem. 

I didn't track the cost because I didn't want to know just how much we ended up spending.   

Your construction estimate is at least $200 off with misc. supplies.  You shouldn't build a Moonboard with 2x4's without mid span support unless you want serious flex, upgrade to 2x6 DF minimum for a 12'span.  If you want to make it adjustable you should plan to add $250 -$350 for the hinges, wench, and chain/quick links/eye bolts for your back-up.  Also realize you will need 12' of height if you want to adjust to 25 degrees and have a 12" kicker.  You need 2 lbs of 3" screws minimum for the frame, and 5 lbs of 2" deck screws for the sheets.  You forgot the 7/16 drill bit, have no wedge bolts or lag bolts for anchoring the wall, and no cross bracing ( 2x3's work best for this).

FYI the last fixed angle moonboard I built had $750 in material costs not including bolts or holds.  

Kevin Stricker wrote:

Your construction estimate is at least $200 off with misc. supplies.  You shouldn't build a Moonboard with 2x4's without mid span support unless you want serious flex, upgrade to 2x6 DF minimum for a 12'span.  If you want to make it adjustable you should plan to add $250 -$350 for the hinges, wench, and chain/quick links/eye bolts for your back-up.  Also realize you will need 12' of height if you want to adjust to 25 degrees and have a 12" kicker.  You need 2 lbs of 3" screws minimum for the frame, and 5 lbs of 2" deck screws for the sheets.  You forgot the 7/16 drill bit, have no wedge bolts or lag bolts for anchoring the wall, and no cross bracing ( 2x3's work best for this).

FYI the last fixed angle moonboard I built had $750 in material costs not including bolts or holds.  

Kevin,

Thanks for your comments. Its funny, all I did was take the directions on Moon's site and get a cost estimate. Lots of people have thoughts on the structure they suggest. Happy to upgrade to 2x6 especially since that isn't where most of the cost comes from. 

 It’s an easy mistake to make.  The Moon board as spec’d by the PDF is built with rough sawn 2x4’s and has mid span tie backs to the wall. So dimensional 2x4’s are under sized, and without the tie backs it will be prone to deflection. 

JCM wrote:

If you are on a budget and want to reduce costs, I'd suggest forgoing the LED kit. Yes, the lights are cool and convenient, but are expensive and not really neccesary. Once you get used to the board you can memorize problems pretty quickly, and I find that it is a good mental exercise for beta recall. The LEDs are a new addition to the Moon Board concept, and you can get by just fine without them. Savings: $700.

The yellow Original holds are mainly useful to a V8/5.13 and stronger climber. They are fairly small and tweaky, and problems on the yellow holds are hard and fingery. If this is for your home wall, and you are not at that level, skip them for now. You can always buy them later and add them in. There are still 1000s of problems without them, including all of the moderates. If you (or others using the wall) want harder problems, though, the yellow holds are worthwhile. Savings: $220.

So the cheapest, starter level Moon Board I'd suggest would be Sets A and B, and no LEDs. This brings down the start up cost by a lot. You can buy more holds and reset to the Masters setup later if you want.

If you or a friend has microcontroller programming experience, you could make up your own LED kit for I would say a quarter of the price.  You don't even need a real microcontroller, you could just use a babytalk Arduino.

Go to Digikey for parts and grab a microcontroller devkit from a vendor.

I see on their site they have a phone app to control it.  Unnecessary cost in my mind.  I would just have a little control panel on the side that you can select modes or do a pseudo-random route.  If I had a garage or knew someone setting one up near me, I would give it a try.

jg fox wrote:

If you or a friend has microcontroller programming experience, you could make up your own LED kit for I would say a quarter of the price.  You don't even need a real microcontroller, you could just use a babytalk Arduino.

Go to Digikey for parts and grab a microcontroller devkit from a vendor.

I see on their site they have a phone app to control it.  Unnecessary cost in my mind.  I would just have a little control panel on the side that you can select modes or do a pseudo-random route.  If I had a garage or knew someone setting one up near me, I would give it a try.

I have a feeling that the moonboard controller isn’t based on the ESP or something similar. The adafruit blue fruit would be perfect for it.

As far as “baby talk”, I assume you mean “has an off-the-shelf compiler to turn a human-readable program into assembly (or whatever)” which describes virtually every micro controller on the market. If you’re doing direct register programming, you’re talking an fpga or maybe a PLC.

Honestly, efficiently building a controller for a moonboard would involve a lot of intermediate EE tricks in addition to some clever programming. Charlie-plexing, designing and implementing an HMI, ESD protection (what with all the chalk...); this would be a serious undertaking for a one-off hobby project.