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My V10F dismantling


Nils

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I took the time this Friday to pick apart my V10F, with the intent of inspecting the waterproofing and sealing the battery better. I did shoot a lot of videos during the process, and was thinking that I'd publish an edited version, but after attempting to edit everything I realized that it won't happen so I'll publish a summary here instead.

I have a 125xxx wheel, which I believe would make it the second batch (manufactured in May). My understanding prior to opening up the wheel was that it would have a seal between the two wheel halves, but obviously not any battery casing as this was just recently introduced. I did not have the Inmotion DYI kit, as I bought mine from China and the official stance from Inmotion SCV seems to be that this batch is A-OK. I did contact Inmotion USA about the possibility of actually buying a kit from them, and they actually offered to send me one free of charge (kudos!). Unfortunately only the shipping itself would be $130 to Sweden. Since the battery casing didn't seem to be great anyway from I've read here on the forum I opted for sealing the battery myself, which also meant I could get it done right away.

I had a look at the "InMotion V10 Disassembly For Repair and Tire Change" video by Inmotion USA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9aotD8IlEw), and the DYI kit instructions posted by Jeffrey (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Meq5YVzhvslDQN_gCdZrMDad8O3SmcQLuhHWuxf89q4/edit). The dismantling itself was time consuming but presented no real problems apart from the stuff you'd expect when dismantling anything, a screw with a damaged head, spending way too much time finding the right bits, misplacing them and searching for them again, etc.

Regarding the state of waterproofing of the wheel I found that it had indeed a silicon seal applied at the joint between the two shell halves. It was fully intact in my wheel and seemed to stick reasonably well. It is this seal that in itself was deemed insufficient by Inmotion USA and eWheels, and one can imagine that with enough miles on the wheel this can start to disintegrate. The battery compartment was completely dry with no signs of water, which was what I expected given that seal was intact and since I've not ridden the wheel in wet conditions given the dangers. The battery wrapping was likewise intact with silicon in the cable cutouts , and seemed to be better applied than the one I saw pictures of from Ecodrifts autopsy of a first batch wheel. The pack had cushioning foam strips at the sides and underneath.

As said I didn't have the kit and thus no battery casing, but instead added three additional layers to the battery pack, 2" electrical tape followed by self amalgamating silicon tape followed by another round of electrical tape. It's pretty tight in the battery compartment, and with the additional layers the battery fitted very snugly. I applied some additional silicon to the heat sink and the cover joints and joined the wheel case again. I applied a generous sturdy silicon seal to the shell joints and after letting it cure I also covered the seal with some heavy duty waterproof duct tape to protect it better. We'll see how well the tape holds, I'm thinking I'll probably open up the wheel partly again at some point later to inspect how it's faring.

After that I put everything together, and reattached the side pads with some thin double sided adhesive tape. All in all I'm pretty happy with the result, and feel pretty comfortable riding this now. What I'm not so pleased about was that I failed to place the reset button cable back correctly :crying: I was looking at the cable earlier and didn't identify it correctly, then time was running short and I ended up proceeding with the work..  I realized my mistake right after applying the case seal, but at that point I really, really did not want to redo everything. Perhaps I'll open it up again and fix that at some point, but my current feeling is that it will probably never happen -_-. Anyway, don't make that same mistake if you're going the DYI route yourself. Also, I'm not sure whether the DYI kit comes with loctite (don't think it does), but I applied that to pretty much screws as I reinserted those, you should make sure to get some yourself if you don't have it before putting stuff together again.

Well, I'm done for now, and I hope everyone else has good success with their mods. Also a disclaimer, please don't do anything yourselves that you're not comfortable with and certainly don't look to this post as anything that's guaranteed to work - I'm happy with it but you should all take responsibility for your own decisions or leave it to your dealer. 

 

 

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:thumbup::clap3:Great post. Especially the last sentence.

I wouldn't use any Loktite. Tried it with my pedal screws, and regretted it. It's unnecessary even there, and a bitch to open. Applied to the internal screws, I'd be worried it would destroy the screw holes on the next disassembly.

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49 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

:thumbup::clap3:Great post. Especially the last sentence.

I wouldn't use any Loktite. Tried it with my pedal screws, and regretted it. It's unnecessary even there, and a bitch to open. Applied to the internal screws, I'd be worried it would destroy the screw holes on the next disassembly.

Well, we'll see I guess, and it would also depend on what strength you use. For what it's worth the screws had loctite on them (or whatever similar thing they've used) when I unscrewed them,  so I chose to reapply some for those screws when reinserting them again.

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1 hour ago, Harold Farrenkopf said:

No loctite provided in kit. What loctite number did you use? Will need to get some. Thanks. 

I used the blue one, medium strength. My version doesn't have a number on it, but looking around it seems like it would be 243 (and I believe 242 was an older formula). But apply it at your own risk, perhaps @meepmeepmayer is right about it causing issues, the blue one is designed so that you should be able to loosen it with hand tools though. The purple one is weaker if you're concerned about that aspect.

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If it helps you, I used (not too much of) 243 and had to pry open my pedal screws with hammering and whatnot, it was pretty tight. It the thread was a metal insert in a piece of plastic, it would likely have broken out.

The less likely it is you will ever disassemble anything, the more you might just loktite it. But in general, I think Loktite just isn't very necessary, maybe check/tighten the screws once a year (and check the pedal ones every 2 months) and that's fine.

I guess it's a matter of personal taste. Nothing wrong with Loktite either:efee47c9c8: I would recommend using the weakest thread locker available, if you use one. That should easily do the job.

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Do not recommend loctite threadlocker on plastic. It should only be used for metal to metal parts. From http://www.loctiteproducts.com/p/t_lkr_blue/overview/Loctite-Threadlocker-Blue-242.htm 

Not Recommended For

  • Use on plastic parts, particularly thermoplastic materials where stress cracking of the plastic could result

It sounds hokey, but if it's a metal screw going into plastic, use white or wood glue instead.

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14 minutes ago, Elder Meat said:

Do not recommend loctite threadlocker on plastic. It should only be used for metal to metal parts. From http://www.loctiteproducts.com/p/t_lkr_blue/overview/Loctite-Threadlocker-Blue-242.htm 

Not Recommended For

  • Use on plastic parts, particularly thermoplastic materials where stress cracking of the plastic could result

It sounds hokey, but if it's a metal screw going into plastic, use white or wood glue instead.

I would fully expect the screw holes to have metal inserts, so it would be metal-to-metal. I can't see any EUC being manufactured without using machine screws into proper metal inserts that have been molded into the case.

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8 hours ago, FreeRide said:

I would fully expect the screw holes to have metal inserts, so it would be metal-to-metal. I can't see any EUC being manufactured without using machine screws into proper metal inserts that have been molded into the case.

Right you are, there are metal inserts for at least most of these screws. If I recall correctly there were also some smaller ones that might have gone into plastic directly, but one should be able to tell, and you can also see clearly on the screws whether there were thread lock there previously. I only applied loctite to the screws where there were previously some.

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Screws that have preapplied threadlocker (easily seen as solid blue coating on the screw itself) are different than the liquid stuff. The issue isn't the threadlocking material, it's the carrier liquid that's designed to penetrate thin cracks and will attack thermoplastics. If you think you can apply a meaningful amount of liquid loctite in such a way that it only comes into contact with the screw and screw insert threads, and not any of the surrounding plastic, then more power to you.

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