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The Gotway Gods Destroyed My ACM


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It had to happen eventually. This morning I met Andy (@Sven) at Chino Hills State Park for an exploratory ride. Neither of us had ridden this area before. Andy had his Monster and I was riding my ACM today (it can climb any hill).

The ride started nicely enough but we eventually started on the dirt and gravel trails. During on epically long very steep section Andy's Monster overheated with a resulting tilt-back, and within 5 seconds my ACM self-destructed. It was a long hike out :(

In this video (thanks Andy for all the additional video footage) you can see the ride and where I crash and burn as the ACM gives out on me. Then, back in my workshop I open the ACM and show the carnage inside (massive amounts of melting connector housings and wires. Oh, and the control board is toast.

Seeing the melted wires first hand (and my riding weight is 170 pounds) tells me that I will never again (until they make design changes) ride any of my Gotway wheels for extended (>15 seconds) periods up very steep hills. It's clear that the insulation isn't up to the task. Mind you, I'm talking very steep hills, where you are crawling up.

Enjoy the video

 

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Oh man I was gonna go for a roll, but I think I'll stay indoors for now.  :blink:  Glad you guys made it home okay with no helicopters involved!

Between your ACM dying and Rehab's near death experience, gulp, yeah, best to do something safer...  You guys posted within minutes of each other...

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Marty this is quite an amazing video, thanks for sharing all this. I think we have learned a lot. Hopefully Gotway is paying attention, obviously larger gauge wire is needed.

For now I will keep the hills to a minimum on my ACM. Glad you are ok

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3 minutes ago, Mrd777 said:

Marty this is quite an amazing video, thanks for sharing all this. I think we have learned a lot. Hopefully Gotway is paying attention, obviously larger gauge wire is needed.

For now I will keep the hills to a minimum on my ACM. Glad you are ok

Thanks. Keep in mind that this was a very steep, long hill. I won't do those any more (I'll walk it up with the trolley handle). But any hills were you can be cruising at 5+ mph should be fine.

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That was a good forensic post incident video.  I think it reaffirmed a lot of what we have been discussing over the past many months.

The take home messages I got from this video are:

1.  Don't climb steep hills for extended periods of time without cooling down sessions every now and then.

2.  Always ride with either @Ando Melkonyan, @Sven, or @jrkline.  :thumbup:

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4 minutes ago, Sven said:

It was great ride, though it ended so soon. .. 

it was an honor hand carrying your wheel down the hill(s) lol

lets conquer this park soon

We will tackle this hill again. I'll try again when I get my new MSuper this week. I'm pretty sure though that I'm going to walk the wheel up the steep parts. Until Gotway redesigns the wiring harness I will no longer trust any of their wheels on extremely steep hills.

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1 minute ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

That was a good forensic post incident video.  I think it reaffirmed a lot of what we have been discussing over the past many months.

The take home messages I got from this video are:

1.  Don't climb steep hills for extended periods of time without cooling down sessions every now and then.

2.  Alway ride with either @Ando Melkonyan, @Sven, or @jrkline.  :thumbup:

:roflmao::D  You got that right. Never ride without a backup team :cheers:

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1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

Seeing the melted wires first hand (and my riding weight is 170 pounds) tells me that I will never again (until they make design changes) ride any of my Gotway wheels for extended (>15 seconds) periods up very steep hills. It's clear that the insulation isn't up to the task. Mind you, I'm talking very steep hills, where you are crawling up.

We both had bad days days! Sorry buddy!  I hope GW is listening! I have now lost my enthusiasm for my ACM! Please share some up close photos of the wires! Damn GW!!

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Just now, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Do you have an idea of the gradient or angle of the hill? 

Unfortunately no. I still need to download my GPS data so it may be embedded there. I'll post something later if I find it.

What's funny (I have a strange sense of humor) is that we were testing this route for your ride when you join us in July. Needless to say, we will not be taking you on these trails :D

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3 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

We both had bad days days! Sorry buddy!  I hope GW is listening! I have now lost my enthusiasm for my ACM! Please share some up close photos of the wires! Damn GW!!

Sure, I'll take some pictures. The video is pretty clear though.

I still have faith in my Gotway wheels, but I will no longer stress them to extremes (very steep hills) until the wiring harness is redesigned. That ain't going to happen for a few years if we know anything about Gotway.

But they are still fantastic wheels under most conditions. Don't lose faith @Rehab1

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I'm sorry to hear about your ACM Marty.  Such a disappointment I'm sure.  I appreciate you documenting and sharing this all with us.  It's valuable information...hopefully Gotway will take note and make improvements.  Gotway should supply a free control board just for the testing you did for them. I'm glad you didn't get hurt.  I hope you were able to pick up your new Msuper this weekend to dull the pain a bit.  Thanks again.

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My old MSuper V2 had kicked me off one time on a steep incline. Pedals to the back, slow down and then making tiltsforward/ backwards. After temp was fine under the threshold it stopped tilting. I waited some other 15 minutes and than rode very gentle the next km. Maybe they killed this warning at the new models or rised the threshold to much. It's a freaks business and no real engineering.

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16 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Sure, I'll take some pictures. The video is pretty clear though.

I still have faith in my Gotway wheels, but I will no longer stress them to extremes (very steep hills) until the wiring harness is redesigned. That ain't going to happen for a few years if we know anything about Gotway.

But they are still fantastic wheels under most conditions. Don't lose faith @Rehab1

If I remember your ACM did not have the upgrade 14 awg wires. That would help with carrying the current and dropping the wire temperature. I still liked my 14AWG silicone wires on my first ACM motor mod. They were rated for high temperatures and had 4 Xs the number of strands per wire for better conductivity! 

Being I almost died today I am loosing faith.

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14 minutes ago, Sketch said:

I'm sorry to hear about your ACM Marty.  Such a disappointment I'm sure.  I appreciate you documenting and sharing this all with us.  It's valuable information...hopefully Gotway will take note and make improvements.  Gotway should supply a free control board just for the testing you did for them. I'm glad you didn't get hurt.  I hope you were able to pick up your new Msuper this weekend to dull the pain a bit.  Thanks again.

Thanks Matt. Fortunately when the wheel gives out on you while hill climbing you aren't going very fast. Just a little rolling on the ground ;)

I don't think Gotway pays too much attention to their English speaking customers.

No, @Jason McNeil didn't get into town until today. I still might meet up with him later in the week, but one way or another I should have a new MSuper by the weekend. Until then I'm down to only one Gotway wheel (my Monster) :cry2:

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For future designs, I wish they could make an easily swappable control board.  It's small enough that with a few smartly design thumb screws and automotive grade connectors, one could easily disconnect it and install a new one in minutes.  They wouldn't need all that white anti-vibration glue.  Maybe an encased one like what IPS tends to use would be a good idea.

The difficulty would be the MOSFET to heatsink junction, but maybe some sort of tape covering conductive foam on a mini-sink that joins the larger one would work. Bracing the capacitors to the control board would be wise with an onboard bracket of some sort (maybe nylon snap).

It's interesting to note that the Monster started beeping as it likely detected the temperature starting to spike but the ACM didn't.  I wonder whether a better temperature sensor right in the heatsink or on the MOSFETs would help, but in this case the melting wires shorting out likely caused the MOSFET to explode moreso than them heating up.  Maybe motor, wiring, and heatsink sensors would allow more careful monitoring.

It would be interesting to find out whether some sort of CVT could be incorporated into an EUC.  Rockwheel had geared system on one of their wheels and some Gotway Mtens were geared.  Heavy duty climbing could benefit if the motor wasn't stressed as much.

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7 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

If I remember your ACM did not have the upgrade 14 awg wires. That would help with carrying the current and dropping the wire temperature. I still liked my 14AWG silicone wires on my first ACM motor mod. They were rated for high temperatures and had 4 Xs the number of strands per wire for better conductivity! 

Being I almost died today I am loosing faith.

Yes, maybe the new motors are better, but I think their existing wiring harness still scares me a little. They needs bigger axle wheels so that they can use beefy wires and lots of heat insulation. I still feel fine about my Gotway wheels under less strenuous conditions.

OK, so you've hinted at your problems in this thread twice. I'm now off to find what misery you've written about elsewhere. I may be afraid to look :ph34r:

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4 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

For future designs, I wish they could make an easily swappable control board.  It's small enough that with a few smartly design thumb screws and automotive grade connectors, one could easily disconnect it and install a new one in minutes.  They wouldn't need all that white anti-vibration glue.  Maybe an encased one like what IPS tends to use would be a good idea.

The difficulty would be the MOSFET to heatsink junction, but maybe some sort of tape covering conductive foam on a mini-sink that joins the larger one would work. Bracing the capacitors to the control board would be wise with an onboard bracket of some sort (maybe nylon snap).

It's interesting to note that the Monster started beeping as it likely detected the temperature starting to spike but the ACM didn't.  I wonder whether a better temperature sensor right in the heatsink or on the MOSFETs would help, but in this case the melting wires shorting out likely caused the MOSFET to explode moreso than them heating up.  Maybe motor, wiring, and heatsink sensors would allow more careful monitoring.

It would be interesting to find out whether some sort of CVT could be incorporated into an EUC.  Rockwheel had geared system on one of their wheels and some Gotway Mtens were geared.  Heavy duty climbing could benefit if the motor wasn't stressed as much.

Good points.

The Monster runs about 10 degrees c hotter than my ACM and MSuper. So it makes sense that Andy's Monster stopped before my wheel overheated (which is never did - but the cables melted - a subtle difference).

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47 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Unfortunately no. I still need to download my GPS data so it may be embedded there. I'll post something later if I find it.

What's funny (I have a strange sense of humor) is that we were testing this route for your ride when you join us in July. Needless to say, we will not be taking you on these trails :D

So while I am still gutted (for you) I am also somewhat excited... But don't go out of your way for me - as someone who "lives remote" even just seeing  and discussing the wheels I am interested in is invaluable - and any ride at all (even around the block) would be fantastic.

Having said that, I notice that the Chino Hills State Park is fairly close to the Chino branch of Tilted Kilt - so I completely understand if this becomes a suitable unicycling venue for you and your crew.

FYI - I am working to cancel some of the more mundane plans that I had, so I should be free from Saturday (8 July) afternoon onward if that works better for you? I land at ~12:40 and need time to clear immigration, et cetera - but if later Saturday is preferable to Sunday, just let me know

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12 minutes ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

So while I am still gutted (for you) I am also somewhat excited... But don't go out of your way for me - as someone who "lives remote" even just seeing  and discussing the wheels I am interested in is invaluable - and any ride at all (even around the block) would be fantastic.

Having said that, I notice that the Chino Hills State Park is fairly close to the Chino branch of Tilted Kilt - so I completely understand if this becomes a suitable unicycling venue for you and your crew.

FYI - I am working to cancel some of the more mundane plans that I had, so I should be free from Saturday (8 July) afternoon onward if that works better for you? I land at ~12:40 and need time to clear immigration, et cetera - but if later Saturday is preferable to Sunday, just let me know

I picked Chino Hills specifically because of the Tilted Kilt :D

Unfortunately I think a different venue might be better. Griffith Park is perfect for entertaining visiting wheelers (much closer too) and we are more likely to get a group of riders. Let me know if you'll be able to get to Griffith Park (more details to follow) by 5pm July 8th. We can do an evening ride which is great fun. I'll schedule the group ride here after you let me know. If you look in the Local Groups forum you will see some Griffith Park rides so you'll have a flavor of what to expect. July 8th would be more mellow for you and shorter.

BTW, I don't have extra safety gear. I'm not a safety Nazi so however you ride is truly fine by me :)

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