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King Song KS16S 840Wh - initial impressions


Dr Mick

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On 30/05/2017 at 3:11 PM, esaj said:

I'm fairly sure that the "Hello King Song"-greeting still played with the S even after changing the warnings to beeps, but I'd have to double-check. On the B, the greeting is also turned off when the warnings are set to beeping.

That is correct. KingSong is stubborn about this welcome message as this is their form of advertising, like the famous "Hello Moto". At first I was surprised it can't be turned off, but now I actually like it :)

We were discussing this issue with KingSong and suggested a firmware update with the ability to change the volume to minimum or turn it off completely, as sometimes users don't want to get too much attention when powering on the wheel. We are still pressing on this matter, but there are several new firmware updates scheduled (currently under alpha or beta testing phases, and one still under development) so don't expect it to be released too soon. However you can expect some new real features.

Right now, it is possible to disable the welcome message in the classic KS-16C.

On 31/07/2017 at 6:41 PM, KingSong69 said:

Has nothing to do with "grey import"...

All Kingsongs sold in China/Asia and so also over Aliexpress run under KSwheels! only registered resellers in US and europe receive the Kingsong paded wheels....So totally normal!

That's correct. Also, the classic KS-16B for Asia was equipped with LG batteries instead of Panasonic, which were (the LGs) performing worse. It's possible it's the same story with the KS-16S, but I don't have any KS-Wheel 16S to check this out.

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The top speed on the 16S starts to get limited below 30% battery. Meaning, if the battery dips to 25% on an incline, the top speed (and tilt back) is about 32 kph at that exact moment. Once the battery recovers past 30%, the top speed is 35 kph again. I tried to measure the top speed curve, but it was surprisingly hard as the battery level constantly moves around a bit. I think it was something like 32kph @ 25%, 28kph @ 20%, 23kph @ 10%, and 15 kph @ 0%. I find the implementation smart and very reasonable.

My 16S (fw 1.02) does not say "Hello", as I turned off the voices in the app version 1.4. Power on is silent, power off has one beep.

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1 hour ago, Justina said:

That's correct. Also, the classic KS-16B for Asia was equipped with LG batteries instead of Panasonic, which were (the LGs) performing worse. It's possible it's the same story with the KS-16S, but I don't have any KS-Wheel 16S to check this out.

I dont know why you call the LG 840wh Batteries worse...they are exactly in the same range and operating as good as the Panasonic/Sanyo!

When you put a high amp draw on them they even give some wh more(LG green, Sanyo/Pana red):

609-10A.png

I have one of the ugly illegal imported  "asia KSwheels" KS18S 1680wh...meanwhile Kingsong is using the "good" Sanyo/Panasonic GA 3500mah cell over it's complete product line, the main reason is as simple as it can be:

The cell is cheaper than the LG :-)

1 hour ago, Justina said:

We were discussing this issue with KingSong and suggested a firmware update with the ability to change the volume to minimum or turn it off completely, as sometimes users don't want to get too much attention when powering on the wheel. We are still pressing on this matter, but there are several new firmware updates scheduled (currently under alpha or beta testing phases, and one still under development) so don't expect it to be released too soon. However you can expect some new real features.

The new 18S does not have the "Hello Kingsong" anymore....instead it is greating you with "Bluetooth is connected" :-)

The Firmware upgrade ability is one of the most underrated Feature of Kingsong. On my old 18A from 1.15 to 1.25 on each Firmware update the Motor Driver/drive behaviour got better and better! I am really looking Forward to see what KS will do on their new "S" line in improvements....

  

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12 hours ago, sanman said:

How about the abrasion resistance / toughness of the exterior shell?

I have the silver shell and I'm going to swap it out for the white one. Silver looks great, but in practice it's too delicate. The glossy finish on the silver shell has a big disadvantage: Any scratch, be it ever so small, will scratch away the glossy finish and reveal the matte silver paint. The result is very visible and annoying, without any way to heal it. Bigger scratches also remove the silver paint, revealing the white plastic underneath, which is even more visible and impossible to repair. I would say abrasion resistance is very low, by no means comparable to a car finish. Overall toughness of the shell (regarding things that could break) seems OK, except for the black semi-transparent LED covers. One of mine already broke. This happens when you drop the wheel somewhere off-road and it lands on its side such that a stone or root is the first thing to hit it somewhere at the LED cover. There is probably nothing to improve about that, just mentioning that these covers will break sooner or later (except the wheel is only used on level surfaces, where nothing sticks out high enough to hit the LED ring first). On a flat surface, the first thing to hit the ground should be the side covers, so nothing will happen to the LED covers.

The white shell of my NB1 was very user friendly. Small scratches could be healed completely using a suitable polish. Deeper ones could be healed by using fine and then super-fine sand paper, followed by polish (paste). Even if not treated, small scratches on the white surface were hardly visible. This is completely different with the silver shell of the KS16S. Luckily, white shell sets are available as replacement parts, are not really expensive and hopefully not too hard to swap out. I expect the KS white shell to be similarly user friendly as the NB1 shell.

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1 hour ago, KingSong69 said:

609-10A.png

I have

  

Seeing this graph reminds me of something: Using the full capacity would require to discharge the cells down to 2.5V. Does KS really allow this? Whats the final cell voltage when KS reports 0% battery left? I was assuming it must be 3V, which would mean we get 2100mAh out of the 3500mAh cells. The reason I was assuming 3V:

A Li-ion cell which is discharged below 3V has to be charged back to 3V using a pre-charge phase, which is usually rated 0.1C (350mA in this case). On a 4p pack like the KS16S, that would be a maximum charging current of 1.4A until cell voltage reaches 3V, but the standard charger delivers 2A, let alone people using 4A or even 8A chargers.

So either they stop before the cell voltage drops below 3V, or they stick with a 2A charger on purpose, since it is almost operating at pre-charge level anyways (500mA instead of 350mA is probably still OK), or their chargers implement the pre-charge phase correctly. Any 4A or 8A charger would have to implement pre-charging correctly, otherwise the cells may be damaged.

Anyone who could shed some light on this? If the cells are really discharged below 3V, I would not use any charger > 2A unless I know it can do a proper pre-charge.

 

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34 minutes ago, Christoph Zens said:

Seeing this graph reminds me of something: Using the full capacity would require to discharge the cells down to 2.5V. Does KS really allow this? Whats the final cell voltage when KS reports 0% battery left? I was assuming it must be 3V, which would mean we get 2100mAh out of the 3500mAh cells. The reason I was assuming 3V:

Dont worry...they  only go down to about 3,3 Volt and not under 3 Volt.

And: this graph Shows behaviour on continuous 10 amp draw, thats unrealistic for our EUC's...in normal driving you are mostly drawing under 10 Amp on a 4parallel System like the KS16.(which means just 2,5Amp for each of the 4paralell 16cell setups) 

I only choose this graph as it shows that the LG and Sanyo cell are nearly identical in behaviour and that the LG is all, but not worse!

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51 minutes ago, KingSong69 said:

Dont worry...they  only go down to about 3,3 Volt and not under 3 Volt.

Oh, that totally makes sense. And drawing less means we can get more juice out, that's true as well.

The same applies for charging. I came across a site which claimed that fast charging (really fast, at 1C), can be slower overall when a full charge is required, than charging at say 0.5C. This is (apparently) because when charging at 1C, the cell ends up with much less charge when its voltage reaches 4.2V, so the following CV phase, where current is limited, takes much longer until the cut-off current is reached and the cell is 100% full. According to their figures, charging at 1C would require the CV phase to top off at least 20 to 30% remaining charge (slowly), whereas charging at 0.5C would lead to an almost full cell when reaching 4.2V, so the final top-off phase would be so short, that the overall time for a full charge would be less compared to a 1C charge. I did no verify this claim, but I found it interesting. In general, I think it's true that higher charging currents will lead to less capacity in the cell when it reaches its max. voltage.

However, if the user needs a quick recharge from say 20% to 60%, a 1C charge would in fact be twice as fast as a 0.5C charge.

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23 minutes ago, Christoph Zens said:

The same applies for charging. I came across a site which claimed that fast charging (really fast, at 1C),

:-)

 1C would mean a Charge rate of 3,5 Amp per parallel 16cell Setup, which means 4x3,5Amp = 14Amp Charge Rate to reach 1C  for your KS16S.

I doubt that someone is using this Charge rate :-)

Even Charging a KS16 840wh with 4 Amp is just about 0,3C ....and so can still be called slow

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3 hours ago, Christoph Zens said:

Luckily, white shell sets are available as replacement parts, are not really expensive and hopefully not too hard to swap out. I expect the KS white shell to be similarly user friendly as the NB1 shell.

If it's just the outer shell, it's relatively easy to swap (only hard part are the plastic clips, I hate those), not that the inner shell is much harder. I've opened up the B a couple of times (not the S, still), but AFAIK, the shells are the same. There's some images (among others) showing the procedure here:  

 

I got my KS16S as white, not that I was thinking about how the abrasions and scratches show, but simply because I liked the color over silver or black :D

 

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1 minute ago, esaj said:

If it's just the outer shell, it's relatively easy to swap (only hard part are the plastic clips, I hate those), I've opened up the B a couple of times (not the S, still), but AFAIK, the shells are the same. There's some images (among others) showing the procedure here:  

 

I got my KS16S as white, not that I was thinking about how the abrasions and scratches show, but simply because I liked the color over silver or black :D

 

Great, thank you for the hint, I can really use this. It's always good to know what to expect when opening something new. Often times, you can't look inside how things work unless you got it apart, which is not easy if you don't know where to start...

When I ordered mine, white was not an option (yet). Only black and silver were available. Later on, when I saw your pictures of the white unit, I checked back at 1RadWerkstatt and white was suddenly an option. Well, he has the white shells in stock, so I can get them pretty easily.

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6 minutes ago, Christoph Zens said:

Great, thank you for the hint, I can really use this. It's always good to know what to expect when opening something new. Often times, you can't look inside how things work unless you got it apart, which is not easy if you don't know where to start...

Yeah, I checked the pictures too before opening the unit, the hard part are the plastic clips around the edges (not on the dark led-covers, they come off pretty easy). Still managed to open it without breaking any of the clips (luckily they're pretty short, so they shouldn't snap off easy).

shell's hooks.png

3.png

Screwdriver left some small marks around the edges on the B when I opened it, maybe something softer (plastic?) could be better there if you're worried about it. The shell just snaps in place when putting it back in, so if you're changing to new outer shells, then it shouldn't matter that much.

 

6 minutes ago, Christoph Zens said:

When I ordered mine, white was not an option (yet). Only black and silver were available. Later on, when I saw your pictures of the white unit, I checked back at 1RadWerkstatt and white was suddenly an option. Well, he has the white shells in stock, so I can get them pretty easily.

I was wondering if they just put white B/C shells on mine, as they don't have the "Sports"-emblem on the side, just the "normal" King Song-logo... not that I mind, actually it's better if it's indistinguishable from the B, since S isn't technically legal here (too high motor power) :whistling:

 

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14 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

At what battery level does the wheel turn into a Ninebot? Maybe 25%???

This video says it goes all turtley at 50 percent? That would be bad. I could live with 25. (See comment at 5 minutes 42 seconds if it doesn't cue to there.)

 

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Just now, dmethvin said:

This video says it goes all turtley at 50 percent? That would be bad. I could live with 25. (See comment at 5 minutes 42 seconds if it doesn't cue to there.)

 

Oh, that's for the KS14S, we were talking about the KS16S and I can confirm from riding that very wheel that it still goes 35kph below 50%.

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7 minutes ago, esaj said:

I was wondering if they just put white B/C shells on mine, as they don't have the "Sports"-emblem on the side, just the "normal" King Song-logo... not that I mind, actually it's better if it's indistinguishable from the B, since S isn't technically legal here (too high motor power) :whistling:

That could really be the case, because I can't find the KS16S in white in any other shop. It doesn't look like white is an official color for the KS16S.

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8 minutes ago, dmethvin said:

This video says it goes all turtley at 50 percent? That would be bad. I could live with 25. (See comment at 5 minutes 42 seconds if it doesn't cue to there.)

I've ridden mine down to 20% (50km of fast riding, on slower pace I've had way over 30% after 50+km), and the tiltback does come earlier after 25%, although I didn't know the speeds. But mrelwood above has recorded the speeds:

5 hours ago, mrelwood said:

The top speed on the 16S starts to get limited below 30% battery. Meaning, if the battery dips to 25% on an incline, the top speed (and tilt back) is about 32 kph at that exact moment. Once the battery recovers past 30%, the top speed is 35 kph again. I tried to measure the top speed curve, but it was surprisingly hard as the battery level constantly moves around a bit. I think it was something like 32kph @ 25%, 28kph @ 20%, 23kph @ 10%, and 15 kph @ 0%. I find the implementation smart and very reasonable.

My 16S (fw 1.02) does not say "Hello", as I turned off the voices in the app version 1.4. Power on is silent, power off has one beep.

 

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5 minutes ago, esaj said:

S isn't technically legal here (too high motor power) :whistling:

I'd be quite a bit more concerned about the top speed, 35 vs 25 km/h. :P The way I ride on open straights, I'm pretty sure my lightning fast speed is slightly more revealing than the worn out "sport" text behind my leg! :D

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1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

I'd be quite a bit more concerned about the top speed, 35 vs 25 km/h. :P The way I ride on open straights, I'm pretty sure my lightning fast speed is slightly more revealing than the worn out "sport" text behind my leg! :D

"Why, of course, officer, you can try out the maximum speed of the wheel yourself. Me? No, I wouldn't dare to try to ride it at maximum speed. Oh, you can't ride? Well, see this sticker here, it's 'only' 800W..." ;)

EDIT: Actually, I'm much less worried about the restrictions nowadays, because over the summer, I attended a small party at childhood friend's big sister's house. Turns out her husband is a local police officer, and of course I was there with my wheel (I did have one beer there, but that was several hours before I left). We chatted a bit about it, and his opinion was that normal police officers don't have the time or interest to go around checking the wheels, and they aren't even that clear on the exact restrictions, and as long riders don't endanger people or otherwise cause trouble, they couldn't care less (professionally, of course they might be personally interested in the wheel).

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I got the slow down when I hit 40% battery buuut I have the 1st and second alarm disabled and the tilt-back and 3rd alarm set to 28km/h so something odd is going on here.

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3 hours ago, esaj said:

"Why, of course, officer, you can try out the maximum speed of the wheel yourself. Me? No, I wouldn't dare to try to ride it at maximum speed. Oh, you can't ride? Well, see this sticker here, it's 'only' 800W..." ;)

EDIT: Actually, I'm much less worried about the restrictions nowadays, because over the summer, I attended a small party at childhood friend's big sister's house. Turns out her husband is a local police officer, and of course I was there with my wheel (I did have one beer there, but that was several hours before I left). We chatted a bit about it, and his opinion was that normal police officers don't have the time or interest to go around checking the wheels, and they aren't even that clear on the exact restrictions, and as long riders don't endanger people or otherwise cause trouble, they couldn't care less (professionally, of course they might be personally interested in the wheel).

That's what I would expect. Police, like the rest of us, generally operate in a common sense fashion. And common sense says that if you're behaving in a safe manner you'll be ignored by the police.

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19 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

At what battery level does the wheel turn into a Ninebot? Maybe 25%???

:furious:  Hey it's not the size of the battery that matters - it's what you do with it!  Am I right, am I right @Jonathan Tolhurst?  Besides, sometimes you just want a quickie ride and not a marathon, tantric Sting sort of journey.  :whistling:

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2 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

:furious:  Hey it's not the size of the battery that matters - it's what you do with it!  Am I right, am I right @Jonathan Tolhurst?  Besides, sometimes you just want a quickie ride and not a marathon, tantric Sting sort of journey.  :whistling:

Just for you @Hunka Hunka Burning Love, I'll add that this was really a desire that I was seeking. The Ninebot is such a lovely machine (particularly yours) that it's cool that the 16S conveniently turns into one at the witching hour (ahem, battery level).

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On 7/31/2017 at 0:41 PM, KingSong69 said:

Has nothing to do with "grey import"...

All Kingsongs sold in China/Asia and so also over Aliexpress run under KSwheels! only registered resellers in US and europe receive the Kingsong paded wheels....So totally normal!

Hello, I'm quite heavy (5'8", 250 lbs) - do you allow the possibility of having a Kevlar tire or tire-liner factory-installed? Because the tire wheel is hard to remove, if you get a flat - and tire sealant won't work if it's a larger puncture or gash.

https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/flat-tire-prevention.html

 

 

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10 minutes ago, sanman said:

Hello, I'm quite heavy (5'8", 250 lbs) - do you allow the possibility of having a Kevlar tire or tire-liner factory-installed? Because the tire wheel is hard to remove, if you get a flat - and tire sealant won't work if it's a larger puncture or gash.

https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/flat-tire-prevention.html

 

 

Yeah, hello back....

btw.: Did you read my signature? ;-)

 

Beside that...

Until January i had a weight of 105kg(231 lbs)!

As long as you use a real powerful wheel like Ks18,Ks16,Acm, v3s your weight should not be that big of a problem!

On Fb there is a guy with 125kg driving a ACM....works flawless!

 

You just have to forget your idea of a lightweight 10kg EUC...that will not work!

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2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Just for you @Hunka Hunka Burning Love, I'll add that this was really a desire that I was seeking. The Ninebot is such a lovely machine (particularly yours) that it's cool that the 16S conveniently turns into one at the witching hour (ahem, battery level).

Well played Mr. Backe, well played.  :efefd0f676:

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