Things the manufacturers don't tell you.

[Jerome]

4 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

Sorry but I have to respectfully disagree with you and side with @LanghamP

There are two kinds of people. Those that follow the rules and those that don’t because experience tells them it doesn’t work.

Similar to people who cross intersections in the middle of the road and wait on the concrete barriers between traffic vs having to deal with getting hit going along the crosswalk on a 4 way intersection with turning vehicles. 

Just because it’s the rules doesn’t make it the safest option or best option. Experience tells me that most of the time calling out won’t even register in a distracted pedestrians mind and they’ll do something completely unpredictable trying to figure out what they just heard. 

Have you ever tried to tell someone something who wasn’t paying attention? How many times have they said “what?” and struggled to understand what you just said. Screaming at them from a distance that you’re coming on the left doesn’t work much of the time. You have those people that can’t even tell their left from right and actually go IN to the path you tell them you’re coming in.  

Of course you should slow while passing them, but experience once again tells me that most people will not act erratically right before you pass and dive into your path. Once again you should only call out if they are blocking the path by straddling the middle. Oren times people on one extreme side are already giving faster moving people space and don’t want to hear a biker screaming at them something they’re already doing 

Sorry this topic was not the Thread topic. I have created a proper topic thread if you or others wish to continue this discussion. 

[pico]

By now if you have read the above posts you must know that I am just another geeky EE short for "stupid electronics design engineer"

 

You have also realized that all we do for our living are compromises.

 

From a DESIGN point of view, here is what we hate. No Conspiracy theory here, bad enough we have to deal with realities, management and production woes.

I have limited myself to only stuff that relate to our wheels. I try to keep it simple.

 

Heat and thermal runaway: The worst. Components self destroy in a matter of seconds, they may cause failure in surrounding components.

Wide temperature range: Can make a design next to impossible.

Connectors: Failure point.

Sensors: Failure point.

Mechanical switches: Failure point.

Touch or capacitive switches: A no no for outside use. (Did you hear that InMotion EEs?)

Anything mechanical: We just don't like the sound of it.

Tolerances: Hard to deal with. Most of our wheels motors are still wound manually.

Features: An added feature is often causing more headaches than it's worth.

Humidity: Horrible, horrible what more can I say.

 

Here is what we like:

 

Black boxes with well documented specs and ins and outs. This speeds up our design. Ex Bluetooth modules.

Sealed circuits and compartments: Vibration and humidity resistance. 

Easily serviceable defective modules.

Minimum amount of connectors.

Over rated components: If it were for the EEs we would all the time use the best, we have enough problems to solve.

 

AGAIN, you will note the contradictions.

 

Technically here are the changes I would like to see in our wheels: 

 

We are still using the same brush less motor design that powers early CD ROM brush less motors 30 years ago. (with better magnets I must concede)

I would like to see a move to more compact transverse flux brush less, sensor less motors.

More torque, more power density and a chance to have proper bearing and magnet sealing.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven hardness of pedals. Like a modern automatic transmission, the wheel will guess the driving style in less than 2 seconds and act accordingly.

Of course: Better batteries with wider operating temperature range and lower internal resistance.

 

As always, these are personal opinions and feel free to disagree and prove me wrong. I am still eager to learn...

[RockyTop]

9 minutes ago, pico said:

By now if you have read the above posts you must know that I am just another geeky EE short for "stupid electronics design engineer"

Yep! And I thought you were a normal person. But noooooo !!   You are one of us!  Great post by the way.  

Are there any normal people here? 

[pico]

Of course my retired(read retarded) EE mind had to forget one of the BIG killers.

 

In things that EE's hate add: STATIC electricity  to Heat and Humidity.

 

This is why when I hear someone wants to open his wheel for preventive maintenance and change boards etc...All I think of is carpets, I say again, Nooooo!!!!

And those that still do, some nuts and washers are there for a reason: Grounding.

 

BTW: To all manufacturers:

This is TOTAL nonsense that a user has to expose a board to change a tire!!!

[DanCar]

Rant:

Another thing they don't tell you is that EUCs are designed for seemingly smaller asian feet.  Someday we might get an American sized EUC, with 30 cm long pedals and higher off the ground so pedals don't scrape often on slow tight turns.

The recent improvements from 20 cm pedals to 25 is great, but only on Inmotion V10F and $100 adder for King Songs.

Without these bigger pedals your feet will hurt if you are above average size and don't wear boots.

[pico]

3 hours ago, DanCar said:

Rant:

Another thing they don't tell you is that EUCs are designed for seemingly smaller asian feet.  Someday we might get an American sized EUC, with 30 cm long pedals and higher off the ground so pedals don't scrap often on slow tight turns.

The recent improvements from 20 cm pedals to 25 is great, but only on Inmotion V10F and $100 adder for King Songs.

Without these bigger pedals your feet will hurt if you are above average size and don't wear boots.

Well, I did not want to over react to your post.

You are right, sort off, but...

I am not sure the manufs ignore the US "footprint". This is a much bigger can of worms than you realize from a design point of view.

I am not sure I really want to enter into a counter rant of 300 words. 

Suffice to say that pedal shape, height, length, angle and wheel sensitivity are a blend that is not as trivial as one may want to think specially considering the different riding styles  that our wheels have to deal with.

Enough said, for the moment...

BTW this is why some people have so many different Wheels, they ride one for the "mood" they are in..

[esaj]

On 2/23/2019 at 7:14 PM, pico said:

AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven hardness of pedals. Like a modern automatic transmission, the wheel will guess the driving style in less than 2 seconds and act accordingly.

Everything else made sense except this... I'm no AI expert, but saying that the "pedals are AI-driven" sounds like marketing hype, what would that actually mean? 

[pico]

Just now, esaj said:

Everything else made sense except this... I'm no AI expert, but saying that the "pedals are AI-driven" sounds like marketing hype, what would that actually mean? 

In my world there is no hype.

If you have driven a late model Honda Fit, you will quickly notice that the car kind of guess what you want. Performance or Economy. I would just like to have a similar algorithm for wheel hardness or sensitivity...

Cruise or Wild. I don't want to take my phone out to change sensitivity while I am riding...(Could open another can of worms, as usual)

[esaj]

2 minutes ago, pico said:

In my world there is no hype.

If you have driven a late model Honda Fit, you will quickly notice that the car kind of guess what you want. Performance or Economy. I would just like to have a similar algorithm for wheel hardness or sensitivity...

Cruise or Wild. I don't want to take my phone out to change sensitivity while I am riding...(Could open another can of worms, as usual)

Ah, ok, that makes sense, although I wouldn't call that "AI"... my mind was opening a whole another sort of a can of worms, where you try to train a neural network to understand what the rider wants and not end up in a total disaster when it suddenly acts very unexpectedly...

[Scatcat]

On 2/22/2019 at 11:12 PM, meepmeepmayer said:

It would be quicker and easier to list the things the manufacturers tell us and the things they don't lie about

"Manual... what's that?" Quote by every single manufacturer.

-

Don't be scared by some reported failure rates. These are dealer-aggregated failures for any reason (DOA wheels, ... - anything).

A wheel just dying mid-ride and faceplanting/crashing you is extremely, absurdly rare. We know from experience. It simply just doesn't happen. Some exceptions may be older and weaker wheels up to the V8 (which may have weaker electronics or are too easily overpowered), but certainly not the newer and stronger ones.

But it's nice that you understand the fundamental principles of EUCs: you can overpower any wheel by principle (just go fast enough and ignore the warnings), and also any electronics failure during riding means a horrible faceplant. Every rider should "get" that. That's why the protective gear one needs anyways (for crashes you or others cause) is also the insurance against this extremely, extremely rare occurrence.

I can't recall a single reported mid-ride electronics failure faceplant on any modern wheel where the reason was just "stopped working without excuse".

You didn't read my report about my GT16 turning off while I was going 30kph? Probably BMS failure, as the battery packs was the oldest part of the EUC... and it was V1, which contained a bad batch of BMSs AFAIK. The likelihood of other GT16s failing in the same manner? For V2 and V3, very slight.

But it does happen. And if we don't refurbish and replace stuff continuously it will eventually happen to 100% of the wheels that see heavy use.

[ir_fuel]

2 hours ago, pico said:

In my world there is no hype.

If you have driven a late model Honda Fit, you will quickly notice that the car kind of guess what you want. Performance or Economy. I would just like to have a similar algorithm for wheel hardness or sensitivity...

Cruise or Wild. I don't want to take my phone out to change sensitivity while I am riding...(Could open another can of worms, as usual)

Honda Fit and performance in the same sentence.

It all makes sense now

  

[ir_fuel]

5 hours ago, DanCar said:

Another thing they don't tell you is that EUCs are designed for seemingly smaller asian feet. 

I have EU shoe size 45 and have no complaints about the pedals of my Z10 or GT16, tbh.

[pico]

14 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

Honda Fit and performance in the same sentence.

It all makes sense now

Lol!

Touché! ( but I don't own one...)

[ir_fuel]

3 hours ago, esaj said:

Everything else made sense except this... I'm no AI expert, but saying that the "pedals are AI-driven" sounds like marketing hype, what would that actually mean? 

Pffff ... you should stay with the times. The functionality he described has existed for years now on euc's. It can be found in the Pulse Glider, to give one example.

 

[meepmeepmayer]

1 hour ago, Scatcat said:

You didn't read my report about my GT16 turning off while I was going 30kph? Probably BMS failure, as the battery packs was the oldest part of the EUC... and it was V1, which contained a bad batch of BMSs AFAIK. The likelihood of other GT16s failing in the same manner? For V2 and V3, very slight.

I file a Rockwheel GT16 V1 under "old wheel"... nothing one could even buy nowadays any longer.

1 hour ago, Scatcat said:

But it does happen. And if we don't refurbish and replace stuff continuously it will eventually happen to 100% of the wheels that see heavy use.

So many people with >10000km on their wheels, and still no such reports. I find it much more likely that wheels will simply be thrown away because they're old and worn before any failure happens. But I guess if you try and ride until something happens, finally something will happen eventually.

[ir_fuel]

26 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

if you try and ride until something happens, finally something will happen

Now there is something nobody can deny  

[Rehab1]

3 hours ago, esaj said:

Everything else made sense except this... I'm no AI expert, but saying that the "pedals are AI-driven" sounds like marketing hype, what would that actually mean? 

Are you sure? 

 

 

[Unventor]

On 2/22/2019 at 11:50 PM, Heyzeus said:

given that all will fail eventually for certain components it would be good to know the expected mileage or duty life of the component from the manufacturer.

like if King song says that on average they expect their boards to last somewhere between 5000 to 8000 miles then that would be a good thing to know, so one could engage in some preventative maintenance like say replacing the controller board at 5000 miles.

I really don't think it is that syraight forward. Both electronics and mechanical parts are combined to make up an EUC. That itself makes predictions difficult. I will add more later to why. But in short it has to do with environment and how an item is used.

[pico]

18 hours ago, Scatcat said:

it does happen. And if we don't refurbish and replace stuff continuously it will eventually happen to 100% of the wheels that see 

It's very hard not to agree with your statement...

My suggestion to manufs would be the following.

4 USER serviceable modules.

Wheel/motor/pedals module. 6+6+2 screws. The last two screws for a sealed connector for 3 phases and Hall sensors.

Battery modules. Parallel additional ones if and when needed. Smart leveling implemented to avoid inrush currents from high voltage module to low voltage ones.

Controller module.

Chassis module, contains all wirings for the above modules. Including MECHANICAL on off switch.

 

Of course, if possible standardization across the brand and (yeaah sure!!????) manufacturers.

 

 

 

 

[Scatcat]

35 minutes ago, pico said:

It's very hard not to agree with your statement...

My suggestion to manufs would be the following.

4 USER serviceable modules.

Wheel/motor/pedals module. 6+6+2 screws. The last two screws for a sealed connector for 3 phases and Hall sensors.

Battery modules. Parallel additional ones if and when needed. Self leveling implemented to avoid inrush currents from high voltage module to low voltage ones.

Controller module.

Chassis module, contains all wirings for the above modules. Including MECHANICAL on off switch.

 

Of course, if possible standardization across the brand and (yeaah sure!!????) manufacturers.

User serviceable modular design sound swell.

Another thing that should be all pervasive is an industry standard for a self-check routine in the EUC. 

Reporting on battery health, bad cells, BMS errors, control board overloads, exceptions or any abnormalities and so on. Presented in an easy to evaluate interface:

Battery check - pack A: 90% health, no degraded cells / pack B: 92% health, no degraded cells / pack C: 85% health, one degraded cell 70% health / pack D: 87% health, no degraded cells
BMS check: BMS A: no errors / BMS B: current spike reported, within normal parameters / BMS C: compensatory balancing slightly outside normal parameters / BMS D: no errors
Control board: Gyro A: all reports normal / Gyro B: all reports normal / Gyro C: all reports normal / Capacitors: within normal parameters / MOS: All mos within normal parameters
Firmware: Exceptions within normal parameters.

Total system health 90%, you're good to go!

[esaj]

1 hour ago, Scatcat said:

User serviceable modular design sound swell.

Another thing that should be all pervasive is an industry standard for a self-check routine in the EUC. 

Reporting on battery health, bad cells, BMS errors, control board overloads, exceptions or any abnormalities and so on. Presented in an easy to evaluate interface:

Battery check - pack A: 90% health, no degraded cells / pack B: 92% health, no degraded cells / pack C: 85% health, one degraded cell 70% health / pack D: 87% health, no degraded cells
BMS check: BMS A: no errors / BMS B: current spike reported, within normal parameters / BMS C: compensatory balancing slightly outside normal parameters / BMS D: no errors
Control board: Gyro A: all reports normal / Gyro B: all reports normal / Gyro C: all reports normal / Capacitors: within normal parameters / MOS: All mos within normal parameters
Firmware: Exceptions within normal parameters.

Total system health 90%, you're good to go!

Sounds like the FMI-codes/levels/whatever you call them (Failure Mode Identifier) in automotive standards, they tell additional information about (suspected) problems with some value ("data", which could be anything like in case of an EUC, battery cell voltage, motor RPM, component temperature or angle reported by IMU etc.) by indicating how severely out of whack the value is from what it should be, or how it's otherwise suspicious:

FMI  SAE Text
0  Data valid but above normal operational range - Most severe level
1  Data valid but below normal operational range - Most severe level
2  Data erratic, intermittent or incorrect
3  Voltage above normal, or shorted to high source
4  Voltage below normal, or shorted to low source
5  Current below normal or open circuit
6  Current above normal or grounded circuit
7  Mechanical system not responding or out of adjustment
8  Abnormal frequency or pulse width or period
9  Abnormal update rate
10  Abnormal rate of change
11  Root cause not known
12  Bad intelligent device or component
13  Out of calibration
14  Special instructions
15  Data valid but above normal operating range - Least severe level
16  Data valid but above normal operating range - Moderately severe level
17  Data valid but below normal operating range - Least severe level
18  Data valid but below normal operating range - Moderately severe level
...

Although I highly doubt EUC manufacturers would adopt standards from automotive industry

[Scatcat]

45 minutes ago, esaj said:

Sounds like the FMI-codes/levels/whatever you call them (Failure Mode Identifier) in automotive standards, they tell additional information about (suspected) problems with some value ("data", which could be anything like in case of an EUC, battery cell voltage, motor RPM, component temperature or angle reported by IMU etc.) by indicating how severely out of whack the value is from what it should be, or how it's otherwise suspicious:

FMI  SAE Text
0  Data valid but above normal operational range - Most severe level
1  Data valid but below normal operational range - Most severe level
2  Data erratic, intermittent or incorrect
3  Voltage above normal, or shorted to high source
4  Voltage below normal, or shorted to low source
5  Current below normal or open circuit
6  Current above normal or grounded circuit
7  Mechanical system not responding or out of adjustment
8  Abnormal frequency or pulse width or period
9  Abnormal update rate
10  Abnormal rate of change
11  Root cause not known
12  Bad intelligent device or component
13  Out of calibration
14  Special instructions
15  Data valid but above normal operating range - Least severe level
16  Data valid but above normal operating range - Moderately severe level
17  Data valid but below normal operating range - Least severe level
18  Data valid but below normal operating range - Moderately severe level
...

Although I highly doubt EUC manufacturers would adopt standards from automotive industry

They probably won't but something like the FMI-codes would do wonders both for rider protection and for customer service.

[ir_fuel]

I think this is great, but contrary to cars, people don't buy an EUC and run it for 10+ years.

[Planemo]

I don't see why not though. Battery packs can be re-celled and aside from a tyre every now and then and a wheel bearing even less frequently, there's not a lot else to wear out. People keep E-bikes for many years, with 1000's of KM.

[pico]

The Wh conspiracy or why the + versions suck(under some circumstances)   Ex V5F+  Ninebot E+

 

480Wh is 480Wh right?

 

Well, it depends what cells you are using, at what temperature and at what current (read also configuration, 2P, 3P etc...).

 

Read the spreadsheet of any battery and you will find that the Wh is specified at a certain current and temperature.

 

Cells for a given form factor and chemistry are optimized for capacity OR current capability(read low internal resistance). 

 

It turns out that if you are looking at super acceleration the + versions usually suck while they will carry you further at a reasonable speed.

I also suspect that many plus versions do more poorly at low temperatures.

 

So a typical conversation may go like this between EEs and management/marketing:

 

MM   They love our wheel but customer complain that there is not enough range!

EE    There are those new 4.200mah cells but their internal resistance suck.

MM   So what? Slap in a new battery pack with those cells and make some more bucks and start charging premium! Just call it the XXX + !

EE     ???

 

Again, please feel free to correct or object, I am still willing to learn...