Poll: Have you experienced an unexpected shut-off while riding?

[Aslak Gronflaten]

I've been riding my no-brand (look like a solo-wheel? Bought in Malaysia) EUC for about nine months - I live on top of a hill and use it all the time to get to places. Going up and down has never been a problem. Two days ago I was going flat over the parking lot over to my mailbox, at a very moderate slightly faster than walking pace, when the wheel abruptly slowed to a halt. As it did so the pedals tilted forward, so I didn't manage to run off, but instead fell face forward, knocked the chin on the asphalt (seven stitches) , bruised hands, knees and elbows, plus sprained my wrists (no fractures luckily). The wheel lay with a long continuous beeping sound after the fall. Switching it on and off made it seem normal again, but I was too injured to ride it back home. 

Now, the wheel showed two lights out of four for battery level, but I had taken it down and up my hill the day before, and if the indicators are no longer to be trusted because of battery age, it's possible the power level was lower than that.

I had not read about these shut-down problems before I started googling after the accident. Could this have been the BMS thing? Can anyone guess what my wheel actually is? Currently, are there any brands where this sudden shut off has not happened (excluding pushing it over limits, which I'm not apt to do) - that I should get instead of what I have? I doubt I'll trust my wheel again.

[steve454]

You'll be fine, just charge it up and don't worry about it happening again.  But don't go below 50 %

[steve454]

On 5/11/2016 at 1:57 AM, tjcooper said:

New problem with the MoHoo:

I have been using the MoHoo only to learn better how to "hop up" and not use training wheels.  Seems to work fine for the first 10-20 minutes.  Then I have several things starting to happen.  If I am going forward (4-6 mph) I have the abrupt stop (face plant)  that I have detailed and put the pictures on YouTube for everyone.  But when I am doing the static "hop up" tests, I am now seeing the MoHoo just dropping out of gyro balance when I put a load on it (like jumping up and trying to stop from going forward or backward).  Tonight I had something new happen.  After 10 minutes to "hoping up" and tried to use my other foot and the EUC just stopped balancing on every attempt.  SO I tried with my hand on the handle to just push down on petals (virtually) and give it significant force in the push.  After a couple of "pushes" the gyro just stopped balancing and the wheel just rolled like a bicycle.  Reset the button and start over and the same things happens many times.  I was only making the petals move like 1-2 degree of downward slant to emulated the lean of going forward.   I had seen this in the past when I was riding for 20 minutes and assumed it was me just loosing my balance.  But in this test my hands had "perfect balance" as I rolled the wheel forward and back.   It only took a few degrees of tilt forward or backward and the shut down happened.  Needless to say I stopped practicing because that is a great way to do Nute's "arss plant".

The clincher was that after I had recharged the system (only 41 watts put into battery) that my "hand roll" could not cause the failure to happen again.   I think this really points to a failure in the battery system.   I wish Banggood would give me permission to tear apart the battery and put leads on all cells to see if I have a "weak sister" in the 16 cells.   I would then put it under strong resistive load and see if any of the cells buckled under the current load.   Banggood is really pushing me to accept the IPS I130 as my replacement.  I really want the Ninebot E+ where I pay the difference, but they say they cannot ship that unit to the USA any more.  I have even offered to have them ship it to USA without a battery and I would buy one over here and install.  Still waiting to see what will be the outcome.

BATTERY SPOT WELDING:  I have done spot welding on NiMd batteries for years for my RC airplanes.  We used to believe that only spot weld was good enough for the 100-500 amp systems we flew.  But later we all found that wire mesh strips with solder could do everything we needed and not require special equipment for assembly.  There are "hammerhead" soldering irons that will heat both the positive and negative ends of two batteries simultaneously and allow them to be fast pushed onto the wire mesh and get great connectivity.

Early on we all experimented with spot welding.  Dumb as it seems, we just charged up a 10,000 microfarad capacity to 12 volts DC and just shorted that to our "two nail" assembly on the battery tip (or base).  By just adjusting the size of the capacitor and the voltage applied, we could get perfect welds each time.  We wasted a few NiMd dead cells finding out what was the proper capacity, but once that experiment was done, we could get repeatable welds every time.......we did waste a few nails trying to get the proper spacing on the tin strips.  FYI.

     tjcooper

I think it might be moo ho send it to the recyclig facilities.

[Chuts]

@Aslak Gronflaten I believe this is the X3 (Internally anyway, as the shell can be interchanged)  This is the grand daddy of the EUs originally designed for Airwheel but re-branded too many time to count.  

Unfortunately all wheels have to potential to shutdown, in terms of over speeding or over torquing (usually due to hard acceleration or going up an incline).  Especially if you are down to half battery.  Having an EU with a powerful motor and large capacity battery will make it safer but not fool proof.

You might actually be at the stage where you are "faster than your wheel".  In that you have gotten to a stage were without knowing it you are putting more demand of your wheel than what it can provide.  It maybe time that you need to upgrade.

[Xoltri]

I had a shutdown and faceplant last week on my CXM wheel with 130wh battery.  Battery is new last year and fully charged, but the wheel is about 3 years old.  Luckily the top speed is only about 12km/h so I wasn't really hurt.  It has happened once before too, both times on level sidewalk, and of course downtown in front of people.  

I did some troubleshooting on it and determined that the switch was faulty.  This is what my switch looks like:

 

With the unit on, if I twisted the light grey plastic where the wires connect to, I could get the unit to reset itself.  Meaning that it would briefly stop balancing, then do it's startup long beep and then start balancing again.  Of course when I was riding, the unit shut off, I fell on my face, then it was on the ground making the long beep noise it does when it falls on its side.

So maybe some of your problems with shut offs could be due to a faulty switch.  I replaced mine with one I got at a local electronics store.  It cost me $40 CAD but hopefully will fix the problem.

[Pingouin]

Hi,

I had a shutdown while riding very soft with my F528, since then it is still under repair, maybe it will never roll again, motheboard must be out of service.

I also had a shundown due to overspeed with my gotway (35km/h) and too strong acceleration, since then I don't go faster than the warning beeps

[tjcooper]

UPDATE on MoHoo faceplant machine:

It has been awhile and I have many posts on the BMS battery solution thread.  But I thought I would pass along what the last 9 months has taught me.  The problem was not with the MoHoo .....cheap as it is.  The problem was with the Samsung BMS in the system.  Even above 90% charge the battery would occasionally trigger the shut-down FETs and I would go for a faceplant.  While my system is not exactly the battery system described in the BMS SHUNT thread, but just shorting the P- to the B- connections the FETs were effectively removed from the system.

GOOD NEWS:  no more face plants.  The P- to B- connection has stopped the shut offs and the whole system seems to work as designed.  I now feel that if I add the second battery pack in parallel I will have a good and safe reliable machine.   It has taken over 9 months to start learning the EUC, feel the pain of many face plants,  tear apart the system,  seek help in getting a SHUNT to work,  testing the result.  With the great help from the EUC group, I have finally over come the problems and can feel relatively safe in riding my first machine.   MORAL OF STORY:  buy the good machine (Ninebot in this case for my 2nd machine) first and spare yourself the 9 months of pain and uncertainty.  Again, thanks.

    tjcooper

[Blackwheel Jack]

I will volunteer to reduce the percentage slightly by reporting that I have completed a full year of riding on my Airwheel Q3 with no shutdowns.

I know they are not a high reputation brand, they appear to have stopped development, the Q3 is only capable of about 7mph but, nevertheless, it has carried me around a City environment for several hundred miles without a hitch.

That said, I have been careful to back off as soon as it beeps and I cruise just below lean back speed so I have not pushed the boundaries.

[Snurre]

Today I was practicing around the neighborhood on my first EUC, an almost new Airwheel X3. It has served me well for a few km but even though I've charged it only once I find that I have hit the limit on this machine as it almost constantly beeps and also my shins look like something fresh from the torture chamber. The X3 was what I could find immediately off the shelf in my home town before gaining the insights coming from this forum.

Anyway, as I was trotting down the street in a gentle fashion, this time keeping under the beep level, I approached a corner that I've turned around many times before. I leaned into the turn and and the wheel gave a single beep and then... WHAM! The asphalt took a very sudden meeting with my butt. Ouch! My hands, elbows and butt are now double their size but there was no bloodshed except for maybe some massive internal hemorrhage (just kidding). Well, I lost my breath and breathing is still painful but I will probably survive. I was always wary of falling forward and it had never crossed my mind that I would ever be dropped off backwards. I don't stand out in terms of weight (83kg) so the machinery shouldn't have been overloaded from a simple low speed turn but I am at loss as to what really happened. The thing just dumped me, no tilt-back or warning other than a single beep.

As they say: "when you fall off the horse..." so I restarted my wheel showing 3/4 charge and rode the 500m back home without incidents although veeery slooowly. I'm a bit scared now and what really am looking for is some reassurance (again) from you experienced people that, given the antiqueness of the X3, this kind of behavior is not present in the more contemporary wheels. And I sincerely hope that the V8 due here on Monday shows no such tendencies. Still, I am going to be very uneasy the upcoming kilometers before I can regain any trust.

PS
Any good products for butt-protection?
DS

PPS
To all my enemies: "Almost brand-new Airwheel X3 for sale. Cheap."
DDS

[Shoe73]

@Snurre It is my understanding from many discussions on the forum here that Airwheels are not particularly high quality design-wise, they are basically the equivalent of the "generic" wheels except they have spent a ton of money on advertising to build a brand name. 

Look at some of the wheels reviewed on the forum here for better quality: Kingsong, Gotway, Ninebot, Inmotion, IPS. They are generally pricey, although IPS has some less expensive models, and a very good safety record. The Ninebot one E+ has come down in price these days as well. 

[marc]

1. Brandless EUC 300W 15km/h 8km range (value of 90$ in china): motor cut-off due to exceeding speed limit (=15km/h). I did not fall since my speed was only 15km/h so that I could continue running without EUC and could stop afterwards. I have done 500km with this EUC.

2. Gotway Msuper V2 1000W nominal 62km range: (FORWARD?!) pedal tilt at 42-44km/h, I did not fall since I leaned back immediately. It was not a motor cut-off but motor continued working at constant speed however I leant forward. That is the reason for forward pedal tilt. Normally pedal tilt means backwards pedal tilt to avoid to lean forward. After having ridden 5000km with Gotway Msuper no motor cut-off is experienced.

[Aslak Gronflaten]

After almost two months of not daring to get on the wheel, I've tried again a couple of rides. Five minutes ago I was out just crossing the parking lot going walking speed and on flat asphalt, and suddenly the thing stops and I fall forward getting scraped knees and hands. Not as bad as last time, as I was wary. But at least I know that wheel should never be ridden again (I'm thinking an Inmotion VF5 ? Anyone know the safety level of this beauty?).

However , I also know that even though I was expecting it to fail, I still wasn't able to land on my feet. When I just got the wheel, I used to crash, or it'd stop on a crack, and I'd always just keep going, landing on running feet. Maybe it's because the shutdown is, although sudden, not an instant stop, so I start falling forward instead of just keeping horizontal momentum.

I was also considering a Ninebot Minipro, as you can stand still with it, but the fact that your feet are trapped, and that you can accidentally bump into or hook something on the control sticks make it seem hazardous.

[Chriull]

On 22.9.2016 at 2:44 PM, marc said:

...

2. Gotway Msuper V2 1000W nominal 62km range: (FORWARD?!) pedal tilt at 42-44km/h, I did not fall since I leaned back immediately. It was not a motor cut-off but motor continued working at constant speed however I leant forward. That is the reason for forward pedal tilt. Normally pedal tilt means backwards pedal tilt to avoid to lean forward. After having ridden 5000km with Gotway Msuper no motor cut-off is experienced.

For a backward pedal tilt the wheel needs to have some power/speed reserve - if this reserve is not available anymore it's just physics that the wheel has to lean forward if you still accelerate/go over a bump/the incline increases/one gets some additional headwind/etc...