Rider222

I am the ORIGINAL OP (Rider222), and yesterday, after all these years, my wife's BLACK minipro hit a small pot hole on the sidewalk, and her minipro twisted right, causing her body to twist, and she fell forward and got hurt. Luckily just bruises and scrapes. This minipro then kept spinning in circles, right. She was riding behind me so I didn't see it happen. I reset her minipro and then I took over and kept driving that unit over the same pot hole, and after a few tries, I was able to repeat that event; it threw me off forward and it kept spinning in place, exactly the same. This pot hole was minimal, and not much difference than any normal uneven surface. Again, we are long time experts on these and have been over extreme surfaces; in comparison this pot ho This black minipro for years seemed stable, and all of a sudden within 5 minutes was able to have the same problem occur twice. I then ran my white minipro of that same pot hole dozens of times and was not able to repeat any problems. I switched minipros with my wife, so I then drove the problematic minipro probably 5 miles back to the van, down sidewalks, gravel roads, etc, (cautiously of course), with no further problems. We don't ride these too much anymore, months can go by between uses, but now I can't trust the black one. And, now i feel I really can't trust any of them. This problem is slightly different than the one in my original post. My original WHITE minipro shot 90 degrees right, and just kept shooting forward. This BLACK one spins right and keeps spinning in place.

What you are describing is VERY different than the issues described in my original post. Your issue isn't the very rare intermittent exceeding dangerous issue I was having. Your unit is showing itself to not be functioning properly. Obviously something has broken on your unit; maybe the factory can help get your unit fixed

Sounds like you have the opposite "left" veering variation, which is probably somehow highly related to my "right" veering problem. Or, is your left wheel actually locked up? Anyhow, I have no answers, my errant machine is still in pieces, retired. My new unit hasn't yet malfunctioned, but we aren't riding them as much lately either. Problem only happens when you least expect it. Wear HELMET and be safer.

So in your case, did your Minipro always have noticeably odd issues, or, does it seem to be getting worse over time? Did your issues only become noticeable after a firmware upgrade? What I'm asking is if a "logical" change (programming) could be causing your issue, or, is some component is gradually (or instantly) failing. I feel MY Minipro probably always had this issue, firmware upgrades over time, didn't change anything. Again; MY "veering right" issue happened extremely rarely, and, possibly (see my original post) very early on. And, MY veering issue was ALWAYS extreme; instant 90deg veer right, during my riding high speed straight ahead on smooth/fairly smooth surface, hitting slight bump. After I was certain a problem existed, I tested for hours riding slow in an empty asphalt parking lot paying full attention to oddities, and twice I might have felt it "twitch" right". That's when I called it quits on that unit. That unit is now stripped down to it's bare parts in which I did full visual inspection of all parts/traces/solder joints using magnifying glass and could find nothing odd. I have never felt any oddities on my other two Minipros [yet]. But we haven't had the opportunity to ride them anywhere near as much lately. I'll post if I feel anything odd.

When the problem happened to me, my gut feeling was that either it was an "edge case" algorithmic problem, or, more likely an actual physically bad component/connection/trace. When the unit has acted up, there was always a vibration/bump involved, but always your normal fairly common minimal bump. I typically ride (hundreds of hours of experience) over extremely bumpy off roading/dirt/gravel roads with no sign of any problem. So having this errant Minipro randomly veer right, while riding full speed on an otherwise common smooth sidewalk with the vibrations only being somewhat normal expansion joints is what makes it this issue so randomly odd, and scary. And, I could never repeat the problem in a controlled manner. I spent hours trying to repeat the problem and never could. The problem would only repeat under normal riding, when I would least expect it.

I'm glad other people are locating this thread, and discussing this issue. The first time the veering happened to me (per my OP above), I was going full speed straight on my hard dirt/gravel driveway. Something I had done hundreds of times previous to this accident, and many hundred times since. I had never even came close to losing control at any other time. Sure, off-roading, you always feel a bit of highly controllable slippage, corrections, etc. But from going to 99.999% of the time feeling safe being in complete control, to 0.001% of the time to absolute complete uncontrollable veering right fighting for your life, is a very strange and scary concept if you've never experienced it. The first time you say "what the hell just happened". The second time you say "that was not an accident and I'm not getting back on that crazy thing!" You feel that somebody else just took control of the unit and is trying to kill you!

I certainly kept wondering at first if the veering problem was caused by an edge case, sensor/algorithm issue, but as it only happened with that one Minipro unit (so far), and have not yet experienced with either of my other two Minipro's; I'm pretty sure that one errant Minipro was (or became) defective. I'm hyper sensitive to the issue, so if I ever feel that again (or any oddity no matter how small) I will not ignore it. I'm not talking of course about normal/odd algorithm concerning wheel slippage on unstable sand, or rocks.

Please wear helmets. I guarantee you will NEVER have an accident; that is, until you do. I will never again ride any segway without a helmet. A good analogy to give you to relate concerning this veering issue: If you are driving your car down a road, or freeway, and instantly your steering wheel (and all controls) randomly disconnect, and your car makes an abrupt hard right turn... Very scary.

What Zephyrzone is describing, is exactly how I would describe the issue. The difference, in my case, the issue was extremely intermittant, making it impossible for me to repeat/track down. In YOUR case, the problem is showing itself much more repeatable, so you might actually have a chance to locate the problem. It's a very eerie and gut wrenching feeling to have this otherwise stable unit, randomly veer out from under you. You can't ride what you can't trust.

The solder joints look perfect. I'm very good at electronics, and have much experience with lead tracing, board inspections, etc. My concern is even if I re-solder, I just can't trust my life on that one, since I can't be certain problem got fixed. If I can't actually trace down the problem, then I can't consider it fixed. My gut feeling is there is problem of a glitch with the steering sensor circuit. I may eventually replace that whole circuit and try again. Also I've taken it apart so many times, I've broken a connector pin off the main board to the tail light assembly; that's when I gave up and decided I had enough and I was done with that unit. Unfortunately this problem is what I would call a life or death, worst case type of issue (having your body mass twisted around then ejected forward at 10mph). The black Minipro I ride daily ever since, never showed any signs of safety problems. I just got a brand new white Minipro yesterday and road for 4 hours yesterday and so far that one feels solid/safe, no problems but obviously I'm gun-shy and will be constantly keeping an eye on ANYTHING that feels odd. The black Minipro is the one my wife uses and I feel that one is stable so will continue to let her to only use that one for now. And my wife has also confirmed that she has never felt any odd issues. I've told my wife to tell me if when ANYTHING feels odd, no matter how small. The errant white Minipro every now and then, would have a "hint" of oddity; an occasional hint/feeling at jumping right especially going over sidewalk bumps/off-roading. I would ask myself did I just feel an oddity, or, was it trying to correct/overcorrecting/slip, and would just be unsure. But that time that it did a complete unsafe right veer at 10mph ejecting me (per my description in above previous post) I knew 100% for certain that something was wrong.

I appreciate the reply and will of course look into it, but this doesn't "feel" right to me as being the problem. I often practice riding on just one foot, and then the other foot, so I know what exactly "normal" feels like. I'm basically an expert at riding on/off road (forward and backwards) so I know normal. Doesn't make sense to me that the foot sensors would cause an emergency/immediate 90deg veering to the right. As you can imagine, a random unplanned 90deg turn while cruising straight 10mph can only end up in disaster. Worse part is at such an abrupt turn while going fast, your body gets spun around so when you get thrown off forward, your body is spun backwards, so it's nearly impossible to land on your feet. My opinion, is when hitting a "bump" and when the rare malfunction occurs, that it gets a fake sensor glitch input to make a quick veer right, and then to continue go straight (Minipro doesn't continue spinning right) If I continue to try to trouble shoot, I would probably first switch the wheel motors, and then the foot sensors, but would be very surprised if this makes any difference. My guess is there is an intermittent direction control sensor circuit problem, which seems to probably be triggered by a very rare physical bump/vibration. I've tried to purposely trigger problem by random vibrations, bumps, etc, and it rarely can be triggered (I've never been able to purposely trigger it), and is extremely intermittent. What make this so scary since there is no way that I could ever be certain that it got fixed. Also, I want to make it absolutely clear that it has never veered left; only right. Also, for additional info battery level is irrelevant.

I've seen [only] one old thread kind of discussing this, without satisfaction, so thought I would start up a new thread, as I can't be the only one with this safety issue. Bought my white Mini-pro brand new about 6 months ago off Amazon. Actually bought two, the black Mini-pro isn't showing any signs of problems. After the first couple weeks of running the one in question, on dirt/gravel road of being 100% stable, while driving straight, the Minipro made a quick right turn (veering right) throwing me forward off, twisting me (right), landing on my back, banging my head, knocking me out for who knows how long. Took me several weeks to recoup. I immediately bought a bike helmet and never road again without the bike helmet. To this day, I don't know what caused that event. Very stable riding since then. Except, about a month later, while riding straight on a city sidewalk, feeling the vibrations connecting each sidewalk slab, and being completely stable at all times, the Minipro instantly veered right, throwing me off forward again, this time I caught myself and landed on my feet. The Minipro shooting across 6 lanes of heavy commute traffic, before coming to rest, on the other side embankment. Luckily nobody was killed, and no accidents as cars were slamming brakes, swerving everywhere. Upon internet researching and found that one other forum thread, I took the whole thing apart and reseated all connectors, and, checked everything including traces and solder joints with a magnifying glass, could see no issues anywhere, every thing looks good. Yes, the steering magnets are secured, and all screws tight. And, yes, I've updated the firmware/software, and factory reset everything multiple times, and, I'm an experienced hardware/software techie, and, not stupid. I re-assembled everything and all looks good, and rides extremely stable nearly 100% of the time. I've ridden it very slowly for many hours, and twice I "felt" hints of it wanting to dart to the right after hitting slight bumps. I currently have this Minipro in pieces, and will keep it for spare parts, but can no longer trust it. Maybe once I eventually swap out all the pieces I can track down the errant part, but other than spare parts I don't the interest to try to figure this out, and, how could I ever be certain? The intermittent problem could be life threatening, is so rarely random, it just is not repeatable. I'm not asking for anybodies help. I'm asking to see if YOU have experienced this exact intermittent and extremely unsafe issue. And, if this issue is solely with the Ninebot Mini-pro only.