LesC

Pinging this thread again to see if anybody has any opinions. Thanks.

Hello all. I'm acting on a life long dream and will be living in Maui (!!). Can't wait. Moving from Marin County in California to Maui in November. I have a Ninebot S .. converted basically to a MiniPro (with the detachable kneebar). I have upgraded to M4M hybrid tires, and have two batteries (the original 236Wh in addition to a 320Wh battery I bought). I do not have the original shipping box, although I doubt things would fit in it anyway because of the bigger tires. So, does anybody have experience in shipping these things from one location to another? Will there be any issue in just packing this into one or two boxes and having FedEx or UPS (or even the USPS) shipping it, knowing there are these relatively large batteries? Thanks in advance for your advice.

@kristof_explorer ... Nice!! Thanks for posting. I actually was thinking of exactly what your first prototype did ... have some type of tensioning straps to make it very easy to attach/detach, but was very afraid of it not being able to securely hold the battery. You confirmed my suspicions!! Sorry you had to lose a control board in the process. Nice little setup! So, it sounds like if nothing else, you can replace that one bolt with a wing nut that you can hand loosen and tighten? That would eliminate the need for the one tool.

@kristof_explorer ... Oh, interesting about the "releasable mechanism" to do the quick battery exchange! Do you mind showing some pictures of what this looks like? I was thinking of somehow jury rigging this as well, but didn't want to risk the battery falling off. What I decided to do is simply dedicate a power screwdriver that always has a 3mm hex nut on it. That way, I can take off all four screws, swap batteries, and tighten the screws again ... probably in less than one minute I would guess.

There is already a well-read (and very interesting!) thread about the 59.5V versus 63.0V charger. https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/6346-battery-capacity/ If you have time, read the entire thread. Bottom line, 63V charger DEFINITELY makes a difference. Segway/Ninebot probably does not provide the 63V charger because of battery life, which that thread will explain. No extra power ... just more range. I do notice that the max top speed starts "dropping" after I get to about 40% charge or around there. i.e. normally beeps around 11mph, but once I reach about 40%, it'll start beeping around 10.5mph, then progressively lower and lower. I believe it does this to try to conserve as much battery life as possible as you're getting into the "reserve" range.

Sorry for the delayed response. I've been away from this site for a bit. But I finally got caught up on some of the recent chatter. At first, I used my stock Ninebot S on a golf course about 4 times -- with the stock tires and the smaller 236wh battery. I weight about 195-200 pounds. I did NOT carry my bag, but rather pushed or pulled a cart ... to be conservative as I tested out the range. Also, these were on very flat courses (Sunnyvale GC in Sunnyvale, CA and Moffett GC). I also babied it to be safe (i.e. no quick acceleration, did not meander around the course unless I had to). I BARELY made it around the course on a single charge twice. Once, I ran out of juice on the 17th hole. The last time was with me carrying my bag (no pull cart). I didn't want to risk it and I put my Segway on my buddy's cart at the turn while I continued on the rest of the 9 holes. The charge showed it was down to 45% already after 9 holes. I found that I able to make it around if I stayed on the paved golf paths as much as possible. But if you have to spend most of the time on the grass (like at Moffett which doesn't have paths throughout the course), you will NOT make it through a full round on the stock battery, especially if you're going to carry the bag. I then upgraded the battery to the 310wh battery. No issues whatsoever getting around any golf course, INCLUDING with the bag on my back, which obviously is much more convenient once you don't have to worry about range . And I don't have to baby it ... and can drive it around the course much more freely, looking for other people's golf balls, etc. Re the tires ... So, I quickly realized that it is a bit slippery on the grass with the stock tires. This is especially true if the grass is just a bit wet. It is most obvious when you get off the paved path onto the grass. Even light rough causes you to be careful otherwise it will slip, or at the very least, you are WORRIED about it slipping. So, after I put the hybrid tires on it, it is much better on the golf course. No issues on the grass, even if it's mildly wet. Also, because they are a bit larger than the original tires, it eats up the bumps better, and especially the transitions between long/short grass, or between the paved path to the grass ... all I can take confidently now. Finally, RE charging. If I charge the larger battery with the normal 59.5W charger, the app will "show" 100% charged, and even show that there are 5700mAh on it... and the voltage goes no higher than 59.5W as you would expect. The range will "show" that it can go 18 miles. So I tried it, and was able to get around the golf course fine, but with only about 10-20% charge left, typically. But it was fine. Then I got the 3rd party charger (63W). I charge it by first topping off with the 59.5W charger .. then I additionally top it more with the 63W charger (for about an hour) and monitor it with the app. I get it to about 62W or so before I unplug the charger. The app will still show about 18.3 miles or so, and the mAh will show about 5736 or so. So it doesn't look like much improvement. BUT ... it DEFINITELY goes farther ... without question. I'm thinking that I can go about 3 holes or so before the mAh drops below 4800 which was not true before. And ... at the end of the round, I typically have well over 30% charge left on the same course where I had 15% charge before. Sometimes, I even finish the round with 45% left (on a warm day)!! I hope this helps.

That 17.7 km/h is equivalent to about 11mph, which is the limit that I have always gotten on my Ninebot S. So, that is the normal max speed. I would say definitely feel comfortable to update your firmware.

So, joining this great thread after I recently got an additional 310Wh battery (in addition to my standard 236Wh battery than came with my Ninebot S). I wanted a battery that would let me comfortably use the device on a golf course and go through 18 holes (carrying my bag) without any issues. The smaller battery would either not make it, or barely make it with a ton of range anxiety ... and that's only if I try to baby the battery and stay on the paved paths as much as possible. I definitely get more range with the 310Wh battery (charging with the standard 59.5V charger), but I also got a 3rd party 63V charger recently in order to fully charge it (to get close to the 19m range I should get if I top off the battery fully). It definitely works ... getting noticeably more range when I charge the battery to something like 61.5 - 62 V rather than just 59.5 V. After 18 holes, I typically still have over 40% battery life left. Nice. I'm experimenting with how much I need to charge the battery without having to push the charge level too much. Now, like others, I was a bit concerned about using this non-Ninebot 63V charger, so my solution is to first fully charge the battery using the 59.5V charger. I am pretty comfortable with leaving that unattended if need be. After that is done, I then swap chargers and then charge it for a bit longer using the 63V charger. I would say in less than one hour with the 63V charger, I can get the battery close to fully charged (certainly over 61V), and I can stay closeby to the system while it's charging for that one hour or so. Haven't had any issues at all using this process.

I actually ended up getting a 3rd party charger that works fine. (much cheaper than the M4M version). It perhaps may not be as reliable, but it does seem to fully charge the battery to ~63V when I need it. I use it to "top off" the charge after I have fully charged the battery using the standard 59.5V NInebot charger. So it's only plugged in for an hour or so while I can oversee it.

I kept checking ebay for weeks. Never had anything show up until I got lucky one day finding a seller wanting to sell a brand new one for a reasonable price. I was the highest bidder. Never found a good 63v charger though that wasn't suspicious looking or clearly not Ninebot. So I ended up buying from a Hong Kong vendor and willing to wait the month for delivery.

Well, I guess I can answer my own question now that I received the new 310 Wh battery. I easily finished a round of golf with about 24% battery life remaining. And that was without babying the device at all ... not feeling like I had to stay on the cart paths as much as before. The hybrid tires are a must, IMHO, if you're going to use this for golf courses. Now, I have not received my 63V charger yet, so I only topped off my 310 Wh battery using my 59.5 V / 2.0 amp charger. But it LOOKS like I still got the full >5700mAh charge on it, and the app said I got 18.5 miles when it was fully charged. I did not measure the voltage on the battery, though. From what I've been reading in this forum, I had expected to only see the app show it being at around 4800mAh or something like that. So, not sure if indeed I was at 5700mAh like the app said (it actually had 5723mAh at the full charge) or it was the app just "rounding up" when it really was at 80% charge. I'll try to put a volt meter on it next time, but also compare it using the 63V charger once that comes in a few weeks.

I have a Ninebot S that I have added M4M hybrid tires. I take it to the golf course and barely can make 18 holes with it and relatively flat courses, although I usually can make it. But it is surprisingly gets pretty darn close to depleting the battery. Last week, I barely got back to my car with the device beeping at me because I was at 7% battery left. I'm hoping if I swap out the stock battery (236 Wh / 4300mAh) with a MiniPro pre-2018 battery (310 Wh / 5700mAh) that this would now comfortably get me through a round of golf. I have read a few places that I would need to use the bigger charger as well (i.e. the 63V version rather than the 59V version that comes stock with the Ninebot S), but I can get one of those. Has anybody here had expertise in doing exactly this and getting more range? I also understand that the app may not necessarily show the right information, but as long as I get more range, I would be more than happy. Thanks. /LesC

One quick and probably very obvious observation after taking it out to a golf course to try the hybrid tires out for the first time. If you take the Ninebot/Segway out on grass/dirt/gravel, etc., the tires will be filthy. I'm used to taking the unit out with the stock tires and quickly wiping off the tires before throwing it into the trunk of my car. With the hybrid tires, I probably spent a good three minutes per tire to get all the dirt out from all the nooks and crannies. Good thing I have a hard bristle brush and towels in the back of the car (for my golf equipment).

My More4Motion hybrid tires arrived today and I gave myself plenty of time to install them based on what I've been reading. Put three zip ties on, two crow bars and two tire irons, and soaked the tire with olive oil. Man, it was still difficult. I spent a good 45 minutes on it and was getting frustrated.Then, my wife walks in and says "Can I help?". I didn't know the best way to use her, so I told her to just to hold the tire hard and squeeze it while I continued to work around the tire. Well, that second set of hands made all the difference! In less than one minute, we had that tire on (I only had to shimmy the crow bar one more time).So, we tried the other tire. Still used the zip ties and the olive oil. I immediately had her hold onto the tire and squeeze. Man, we got that tire on in less than a minute TOTAL! I hardly even needed to use the crowbar. It popped right into place with her squeezing.SO ... get a second pair of hands! Lesson learned. You won't regret it. I'll play with the fender tomorrow. Looks pretty straight forward. Just need to decide exactly what type of adjustment I want to do with it. I made do what Zero4Z did and make it non-permanent.