WARNING: Gotway Nikola production (assembly) issue [Solved]

[Rudy Sijnke]

18 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Ah yes, now I remember. Sorry, I follow so much stuff that I sometimes forget who has done what. I'm considering ordering the 2100wh version to one-up you 

Marty, this actually will be released? I'm on the fence of getting one myself... Also wondering if it comes out in either white and black borders... 

Keep us updated:) 

[Scully]

22 hours ago, Heyzeus said:

I really wish we could get a company like Honda or Toyota, that follows or atleast attempts to follow industry best practices when it comes to manufacturing/assembly, quality control, software/app development and has ISO standards as part of their normal routine, developing EUCs

Not that there wouldn't still be qc issues or potentially recalls and other problems, but I would just love to see their take on the vehicle and how their development compares to gotway and kingsong.

Unfortunately, i imagine besides not being popular enough there are too many liability issues for Honda/Toyota/etc to get into this business right now

You might not have to wait too long - Ford have recently invested in 'spin' the electric scooter rental business

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Patton250 said:

Here are the pictures he sent me. He called it a “monster of a board”. I assumed it came from the monster. I’m probably wrong. Sorry. 

No. He was just using "Monster" as a descriptor - "Monster MOSFETs".

Those are the replacement Nikola control boards. Look at the bottom picture. See the label on the control board - "Gotway Nikola / 84V"

[Marty Backe]

37 minutes ago, Rudy Sijnke said:

Marty, this actually will be released? I'm on the fence of getting one myself... Also wondering if it comes out in either white and black borders... 

Keep us updated:) 

Absolutely. Jason told me that he was the one to get Gotway to stuff more batteries in the Nikola. He is getting a shipment of the 2100wh Nikola's in. Contact EWheels if you want to be placed on the waiting list.

[Rudy Sijnke]

16 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Absolutely. Jason told me that he was the one to get Gotway to stuff more batteries in the Nikola. He is getting a shipment of the 2100wh Nikola's in. Contact EWheels if you want to be placed on the waiting list.

Good to know and, I know that Jason is topnotch, however: I live in Europe and shipping will cost me a fortune, lol. I think for this I will go for Greenfashion... Dealt a lot with Chen... Thanks for the confirmation, Marty😎👍

[Patton250]

20 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

No. He was just using "Monster" as a descriptor - "Monster MOSFETs".

Those are the replacement Nikola control boards. Look at the bottom picture. See the label on the control board - "Gotway Nikola / 84V"

Cool thanks man. So problem solved? Thoughts? 

[Marty Backe]

24 minutes ago, Patton250 said:

Cool thanks man. So problem solved? Thoughts? 

I'll get my board Monday or Tuesday, install it, and then start testing.

[Patton250]

Just now, Marty Backe said:

I'll get my board Monday or Tuesday, install it, and then start testing.

You the man. Thanks!!!

[wongster]

Let me warn all Nikola owners right now to stop using your Nikolas in the interest of safety.

Read on before deciding whether I should be excused for making such an arrogant statement.

 

Hello guys,

My name is Darren and I wish to start off by saying thank you for all the informative details not only on the Nikola but the other EUC wheels as well.

This forum has been a constant treasure house of updates for me and my wheeling buddies in Singapore and I wish I had contributed more to it.

I weigh 102kg (220 pounds) and have been using my euc ( a collection of mainly GW & KS wheels ranging from ACM1/Tesla/MSX/Monster/Nikola, KS16S/KS18S/KS18L, Inmotion V8, Ninebot1p,/Z10, Rockwheel GT16) as a transportation tool in my daily commute between home and office. I love having the option to switch between the different wheels depending on my mood and intended destination.

My most recent addition, the 84V 1600Wh Nikola was a joy to wheel for all of the 84km total mileage it clocked before I experienced a power-cut a few days ago.

I have not had the chance to push my Nikola beyond 35km/hr (21 mph) for the entire 84km.

 

The Nikola was in top condition prior to the power-cut., with about 80% battery level, cruising at about 15km/hr (9.3 mph). on a straight flat cement pavement.  After leaving it powered on resting against the wall of an air-conditioned cafe for 3hrs. the power-cut happened 10 minutes into my wheeling session. The gyro could not be engaged after the lightly scratched Nikola was powered on, which then emitted a continuous series of beeps with the ring of LED lights on. I had to get a friend to drive me home with the now dead Nikola.

It scared the crap out of me cos I wasn't expecting a power-cut under these low-stress parameters.

I suffered only shallow cuts on both knees and left elbow but the real pain and torture was not understanding why it happened.

I took my Nikola to my Reseller the very next day and upon taking out the control board, we discovered 3 fried Mosfets.

GW claimed that to date, there are just 6 such cases reported globally, out of 600 units shipped, excluding mine.

 

Upon some digging online, I found Phil's 2-parter Utube video explaining in detail what might had been the cause of Marty's and my burnt Mosfets. Thank you Phil for helping the euc community to understand what might had been the cause of the power-cut, specifically,  the layer of "glue" that was found on 3 of the 12 Mosfets ( which are the ones that got fried, the other 9 Mosfets with no glue were spared) 

 

Am I  paranoid or perhaps I "over-reacted" by my plea for all Nikola owners to stop using their Nikolas immediately, until GW announces a conclusive explanation as to the specific cause of my power-cut, and a permanent fix?

Besides swapping out the smaller Mosfets for the older bigger ones, (and removing the"glue" perhaps, replaced with thermal paste maybe?), nobody knows what other improvements or revision were made to the control board being shipped out to Marty as we speak.

In view of the above, and the fact that my Nicola had a power-cut under zero or low-stress conditions (unlike Marty's case whereby his Nicola was intentionally pushed to its limits on "Over-Heat" Hill}, I will no longer trust any of the 600 units of Nikola out there now.,,, statistics be damned. It is not relevant whether any Nikola has done 100km or 10000km, stressed at 50km/hr or survived any steep climbs and still going strong..  As long as it is using the same control board with the 3 Mosfets mounted with a layer of "glue" (or due to other faulty components), this batch of Nicolas are all ticking Time-Bombs.

So is it simply a case of my Nicola having a relatively thicker layer of "glue" than all the other Nicolas out there, thereby exhibiting a lower tolerance and as such under the mildest of wheeling parameters, the Mosfets burnt out due to a short-circuit which led to the power-cut (despite surviving the first 84km crusing at much higher speeds not exceeding 35km/hr)?

 

Or maybe the "Glue" had nothing to do with the fried Mosfets? Maybe the smaller Mosfets are the real culprit? or Maybe its something else entirely? A lot of "Maybe"s here...I will leave the trouble-shooting to GW.  Until then, my group of Nikola owners will not be deploying our Nikolas at all.

 

In the meantime, for the popular Distributors/Resellers out there (Example Ian/SpeedyFeek UK, Jason/E-Wheels/USA etc), don't just stop at advising your current Nikola customers to avoid stressing out their Nikolas by keeping to lower speeds.

 

It does not matter whether this "Glue" crap is due to "Creative Assembly" or whether GW is trying to pinch pennies here by avoiding a much more laborious and time-consuming assembly process of the Mosfets using thermal paste and Mica sheets) , the very fact that this had happened raises a question mark about whether the proper checks and tests (like King Song's Aging test on all wheels before shipping) were carried out stringently?

Again, it does not matter whether GW had documented an arduous journey to Tibet using the Nikola which survived the challenging terrain.  

As long as the root cause of why the Mosfets burnt out remains unclear, it would be prudent not to use your Nicola for now.

 

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether the new Tesla2 (with integrated Anti-spin sensor & speakers), the MsuperX, the 100V  Monster are sharing the same basic Control Board as the Nikola?

It is 6am in Singapore now and i apologize for not being able to respond to any comments until the evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to post here. 

[LucasD]

Nihil novi, your burned mosfets had hot glue on top of them. I would say that one newbie mounting person was responsible. Hard to tell exact % of boards v1.

It seems though that they learned they lesson and improve on new boards (v2)...

[Rywokast]

54 minutes ago, LucasD said:

Nihil novi, your burned mosfets had hot glue on top of them. I would say that one newbie mounting person was responsible. Hard to tell exact % of boards v1.

It seems though that they learned they lesson and improve on new boards (v2)...

it seems to me a no brainer that everyone who owns a nikola right now should open up the wheel and inspect the board.. i know its annoying but whats more annoying opening up your wheel or faceplanting onto concrete and smashing up your new 2000 dollar wheel... you can get the parts locally or from somewhere like digikey for a few bucks and easily fix the problem yourself, dont have to be an electronics engineer to screw some mosfets on to a heatsink.. these ones specifically are already cut out and adhesive.. just remove the original pad and any glue or residue, then stick this on.. of course better to try to get a replacement board with better mosfets but thats not always an option, but thanks to @Phil McLaughlin you now have a video guide.

if you are absolutely clueless and think that you might blow something up or electrocute yourself, then ask a friend who at least has a minimal amount of knowledge about electronics or read up online.. it may seem daunting but its actually a very simple procedure that absolutely anyone should be able to do.. dont be foolish and think oh its just a small percentage its not gonna happen to me... no, it is a fact that this is how they were assembled and essentially every single nikola is susceptible to going off at any time, sure you might have been very lucky and there is LESS glue on your board so with very low stress it could be fine, but for how long nobody can say... dont gamble, get a new board or do it yourself right away

Edited July 1, 2019 by Rywokast

[meepmeepmayer]

17 minutes ago, wongster said:

Let me warn all Nikola owners right now to stop using your Nikolas in the interest of safety.

The glue definitely was the problem. You show the symptoms of every other case: the glued mosfets are the ones that died.

The TO-220 boards alone are perfectly fine on their own. They are still equal or better than the earlier Tesla or even ACM/msuper V3 ones. No reason to assume there is a problem there.

The new control board (as sent to Marty) has bigger mosfets/packages and is (essentially) the awesome MSX/Monster board. They already used that one on the 100V Nikola from the start. They also changed to adhesive heat transfer pads so no worker is tempted to use glue to keep them from falling off during assembly.

The Tesla board is at most as good as the TO-220 board. I don't know what mosfets/package they use on the Tesla board, but it is no bigger than the TO-220 (or even smaller), you can see that.

-

But you're absolutely right: Any Nikola that isn't confirmed glue-free is a ticking time bomb and should not be ridden. Which is every Nikola with a board assembled before someone told Gotway to stop the glue crap (last week of June, the date can be seen on the sticker on the board). As your example shows, no high stresses are needed for a failure, just bad luck (or simply enough time?).

There is no excuse for Gotway to do nothing and keep saying "but only so few cases...", it's only a matter of time before the others fail. They need to do a board recall.

I really wonder now if any other non-Nikola boards have glue. It could still be that some have but didn't die due to the bigger TO-247 board (on the MSX or Monster).

Thanks for your warning and another report about the glue problem.

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, wongster said:

Let me warn all Nikola owners right now to stop using your Nikolas in the interest of safety.

Read on before deciding whether I should be excused for making such an arrogant statement.

 

Hello guys,

My name is Darren and I wish to start off by saying thank you for all the informative details not only on the Nikola but the other EUC wheels as well.

This forum has been a constant treasure house of updates for me and my wheeling buddies in Singapore and I wish I had contributed more to it.

I weigh 102kg (220 pounds) and have been using my euc ( a collection of mainly GW & KS wheels ranging from ACM1/Tesla/MSX/Monster/Nikola, KS16S/KS18S/KS18L, Inmotion V8, Ninebot1p,/Z10, Rockwheel GT16) as a transportation tool in my daily commute between home and office. I love having the option to switch between the different wheels depending on my mood and intended destination.

My most recent addition, the 84V 1600Wh Nikola was a joy to wheel for all of the 84km total mileage it clocked before I experienced a power-cut a few days ago.

I have not had the chance to push my Nikola beyond 35km/hr (21 mph) for the entire 84km.

 

The Nikola was in top condition prior to the power-cut., with about 80% battery level, cruising at about 15km/hr (9.3 mph). on a straight flat cement pavement.  After leaving it powered on resting against the wall of an air-conditioned cafe for 3hrs. the power-cut happened 10 minutes into my wheeling session. The gyro could not be engaged after the lightly scratched Nikola was powered on, which then emitted a continuous series of beeps with the ring of LED lights on. I had to get a friend to drive me home with the now dead Nikola.

It scared the crap out of me cos I wasn't expecting a power-cut under these low-stress parameters.

I suffered only shallow cuts on both knees and left elbow but the real pain and torture was not understanding why it happened.

I took my Nikola to my Reseller the very next day and upon taking out the control board, we discovered 3 fried Mosfets.

GW claimed that to date, there are just 6 such cases reported globally, out of 600 units shipped, excluding mine.

 

Upon some digging online, I found Phil's 2-parter Utube video explaining in detail what might had been the cause of Marty's and my burnt Mosfets. Thank you Phil for helping the euc community to understand what might had been the cause of the power-cut, specifically,  the layer of "glue" that was found on 3 of the 12 Mosfets ( which are the ones that got fried, the other 9 Mosfets with no glue were spared) 

 

Am I  paranoid or perhaps I "over-reacted" by my plea for all Nikola owners to stop using their Nikolas immediately, until GW announces a conclusive explanation as to the specific cause of my power-cut, and a permanent fix?

Besides swapping out the smaller Mosfets for the older bigger ones, (and removing the"glue" perhaps, replaced with thermal paste maybe?), nobody knows what other improvements or revision were made to the control board being shipped out to Marty as we speak.

In view of the above, and the fact that my Nicola had a power-cut under zero or low-stress conditions (unlike Marty's case whereby his Nicola was intentionally pushed to its limits on "Over-Heat" Hill}, I will no longer trust any of the 600 units of Nikola out there now.,,, statistics be damned. It is not relevant whether any Nikola has done 100km or 10000km, stressed at 50km/hr or survived any steep climbs and still going strong..  As long as it is using the same control board with the 3 Mosfets mounted with a layer of "glue" (or due to other faulty components), this batch of Nicolas are all ticking Time-Bombs.

So is it simply a case of my Nicola having a relatively thicker layer of "glue" than all the other Nicolas out there, thereby exhibiting a lower tolerance and as such under the mildest of wheeling parameters, the Mosfets burnt out due to a short-circuit which led to the power-cut (despite surviving the first 84km crusing at much higher speeds not exceeding 35km/hr)?

 

Or maybe the "Glue" had nothing to do with the fried Mosfets? Maybe the smaller Mosfets are the real culprit? or Maybe its something else entirely? A lot of "Maybe"s here...I will leave the trouble-shooting to GW.  Until then, my group of Nikola owners will not be deploying our Nikolas at all.

 

In the meantime, for the popular Distributors/Resellers out there (Example Ian/SpeedyFeek UK, Jason/E-Wheels/USA etc), don't just stop at advising your current Nikola customers to avoid stressing out their Nikolas by keeping to lower speeds.

 

It does not matter whether this "Glue" crap is due to "Creative Assembly" or whether GW is trying to pinch pennies here by avoiding a much more laborious and time-consuming assembly process of the Mosfets using thermal paste and Mica sheets) , the very fact that this had happened raises a question mark about whether the proper checks and tests (like King Song's Aging test on all wheels before shipping) were carried out stringently?

Again, it does not matter whether GW had documented an arduous journey to Tibet using the Nikola which survived the challenging terrain.  

As long as the root cause of why the Mosfets burnt out remains unclear, it would be prudent not to use your Nicola for now.

 

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether the new Tesla2 (with integrated Anti-spin sensor & speakers), the MsuperX, the 100V  Monster are sharing the same basic Control Board as the Nikola?

It is 6am in Singapore now and i apologize for not being able to respond to any comments until the evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to post here. 

 

Thanks for your failure report, and I'm glad you're OK.

Not that I needed your confirmation, but your case is the 3rd one that we have pictures of and the failure mode is identical. And the fact that they have all failed under different stress conditions tells me that everyone who owns a Nikola with the original control board should not ride it until they get a replacement. Unfortunately it appears that the majority of riders in the world don't know anything about this Forum.

I think it's safe to say that everyone in the Forum knows of the issue. And I've posted a few detailed reports in Facebook. That's all I can do. It's Gotway that should should really be proactive but it's not clear that they will be.

It's sad because this will taint the Nikola probably forever. I would recommend that people only buy from a dealer that they can fully trust to confirm that their Nikola has the new control board design.

My board is arriving tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll post some high quality pictures of the board and will most likely tackle Overheat Hill Wednesday morning.

Tagging @Jason McNeil so he knows of this third failure.

Edited July 1, 2019 by Marty Backe

[Chriull]

11 hours ago, wongster said:

After leaving it powered on resting against the wall of an air-conditioned cafe for 3hrs. the power-cut happened 10 minutes into my wheeling session.

Just an (off-topic) thought to this description - leaving a powered on EUC resting against the wall for 3 hours is imho a very bad idea. The manufacturers got the "stand-still" case very good under controll with their firmwares - the times of the burned motherboards/mosfets at (almost) standstill are (afaik) over!

But this could still be some not neglectable stress for the wheel - So maybe this was the "preconditionig" for the "low stress" bailout afterwards?

 

[Smoother]

11 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

I really wonder now if any other non-Nikola boards have glue. It could still be that some have but didn't die due to the bigger TO-247 board (on the MSX or Monster).

It would appear that only boards with 12 mosfets are susceptible because these are the boards with the inaccessable second row of 6.  No glue is used (I would hope) on a row of mosfets that are easy to access and align during assembly.

49 minutes ago, Chriull said:

Just an (off-topic) thought to this description - leaving a powered on EUC resting against the wall for 3 hours is imho a very bad idea. The manufacturers got the "stand-still" case very good under controll with their firmwares - the times of the burned motherboards/mosfets at (almost) standstill are (afaik) over!

But this could still be some not neglectable stress for the wheel - So maybe this was the "preconditionig" for the "low stress" bailout afterwards?

 

I was wondering about this three hours power-on rest.  A bit weird.  But then I remembered that once I charged my KS14C up to 100% before a ride and then couldn't take the ride.  I left it powered up, light on for hours to reduce the battery charge a bit.  No harm done unless somehow this lead to a cracked axle 

And @wongster your post and all the other burn outs clearly prove that the glue is the culprit; only glued mosfets are burning up, so why you back-tracked on the reason for the problem later in your post, is a bit confusing.  Glad you made it through mostly ok.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Smoother

[Nils]

On 6/30/2019 at 1:14 AM, maltocs said:

Speaking of the 100V 1845WH  Nikola Plus ordered direct from China, If it was according to the estimated time the aliexpress page quoted, it would be here already. I emailed them this week and asked about the status. They said it was sitting in HK awaiting the outcome of the Trump/China trade deal. Today's headlines read "Trump says ‘there will be no reduction in the tariffs’ currently imposed against China" Not sure if I should just back out now or keep waiting. 

They said once it leaves HK, it would be 2-3 weeks.

If this keeps up I guess they might have to implement something similar to what they're doing for Europe destinations, i.e. ship by boat to some other location first and send from there.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Nils

[kelec_947]

Hi everybody,

I would like if New MSX (with new rear light) and TESLA V2 (with anti spin and speakers) are affected by this problem.

What type of mothercard and mosfets for this two wheels ? Because i saw that is a problem with Tsla V2 for example..

[Nils]

8 minutes ago, kelec_947 said:

Hi everybody,

I would like if New MSX (with new rear light) and TESLA V2 (with anti spin and speakers) are affected by this problem.

What type of mothercard and mosfets for this two wheels ? Because i saw that is a problem with Tsla V2 for example..

In the thread @Topkek says "I don’t know anything about the issue other than hot glue having something to do with it", but I don't where this comes from. There aren't any cases of any MSXs failing due to this issue that I'm aware of.  Some more knowledgeable than me will for sure chime in regarding the Tesla, but as I recall the V2 has the same board as the original one, with 12 MOSFETs and one row in the middle which could be a reason for the same faulty assembly. Still, one should pause before making hasty presumptions, and perhaps @Topkek has more information regarding his faulty wheel?

[Lilvodka]

8 minutes ago, Nils said:

In the thread @Topkek says "I don’t know anything about the issue other than hot glue having something to do with it", but I don't where this comes from. There aren't any cases of any MSXs failing due to this issue that I'm aware of.  Some more knowledgeable than me will for sure chime in regarding the Tesla, but as I recall the V2 has the same board as the original one, with 12 MOSFETs and one row in the middle which could be a reason for the same faulty assembly. Still, one should pause before making hasty presumptions, and perhaps @Topkek has more information regarding his faulty wheel?

I haven’t removed the board to check, so your right I shouldn’t really make hasty presumptions.  Hopefully mine is a one off.  I was playing music at a little less than full volume a lot of the time before cut off, not sure if this is relevant.  

[Chriull]

23 minutes ago, Topkek said:

I haven’t removed the board to check, so your right I shouldn’t really make hasty presumptions.  Hopefully mine is a one off.

So the board is dead? In the other thread "just" a cut-out was mentioned, which is very often used for an overlean.

23 minutes ago, Topkek said:

 I was playing music at a little less than full volume a lot of the time before cut off, not sure if this is relevant.  

No. The speakers have nothing to do with the motor driver mosfets.

Just if they destroy the voltage converters, if the music uses the same as are used for the rest of the motherboard (uC, etc...) the wheel is out of order, too.

[US69]

5 minutes ago, Chriull said:

So the board is dead? In the other thread "just" a cut-out was mentioned, which is very often used for an overlean.

Knowing that from another Group...the Wheel cut out while totally normal 15mph riding, no overlean

….and yes, Wheel is dead

6 minutes ago, Chriull said:

The speakers have nothing to do with the motor driver mosfets.

Just if they destroy the voltage converters, if the music uses the same as are used for the rest of the motherboard (uC, etc...) the wheel is out of order, too.

That would be a bummer...to have another bottle neck installed with the Speakers....

[Nils]

1 hour ago, US69 said:

That would be a bummer...to have another bottle neck installed with the Speakers....

It sure would, but let's just have a breather here before we go off on this this more theoretical tangent. Let's just follow the evidence and see where that might lead us.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Nils

[Lilvodka]

1 hour ago, Chriull said:

So the board is dead? In the other thread "just" a cut-out was mentioned, which is very often used for an overlean.

No. The speakers have nothing to do with the motor driver mosfets.

Just if they destroy the voltage converters, if the music uses the same as are used for the rest of the motherboard (uC, etc...) the wheel is out of order, too.

From a lot of time on my v8, I would estimate that I was travelling at no more than 15mph; was just maintaining constant speed when it cut out on flat road.

I received the Tesla last Wednesday, rode it Friday night around hundreds of cyclists then Saturday short ride to shops then Sunday morning it cut out.  Didn’t get opportunity to test it off-road or do any high speeds.

Sorry to bring this up in the nikola thread.  

[maltocs]

7 hours ago, Nils said:

If this keeps up I guess they might have to implement something similar to what they're doing for Europe destinations, i.e. ship by boat to some other location first and send from there.

Is THAT how you guys receive wheels in Europe?? So time-consuming! And who handles and pays for secondary shipping?? I would imagine ewheels is suffering the same delays from the trade wars so it would be somewhat pointless for me to cancel and order though jason if my goal is to get it faster. If they ship TODAY, the summer will already be half over before I get it.

[Marty Backe]

22 minutes ago, maltocs said:

Is THAT how you guys receive wheels in Europe?? So time-consuming! And who handles and pays for secondary shipping?? I would imagine ewheels is suffering the same delays from the trade wars so it would be somewhat pointless for me to cancel and order though jason if my goal is to get it faster. If they ship TODAY, the summer will already be half over before I get it.

Pssst. You only live ~15-miles from me. Where I live, summer is 365-days long 

P.s. I don't think (but I don't have any direct knowledge) the trade wars add any delays. It's just additional fees (tariffs).