Nikola 100V Plus review/wheelog/journal 🦓

[Patton250]

36 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Didn't Chris buy this from EWheels? Why wouldn't it be covered by warranty? The video shows everything and clearly the wheel experience very little stress relative to what most of us put our wheels through.

I think fixing it entails some cleaning and a new control board. Easy enough to do. A couple of hours and he'll be running like new again.

 That’s why I asked my friend. I really don’t know. I would think it would be covered because Jason is pretty cool and I agree that what he did should not have caused an electrical problem like that. 

[chrisjunlee]

14 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

wheel lyfe^TM

You should take the parakeet riding with you. Fashion a little perch on your shoulder or helmet. Maybe it will like it, sitting in the wind and enjoying the sense of the world zipping by. You can call it "Speedbird^TM"

OMG. So Friday, I had to transport the birdo in this. It has a mesh screen, for the birdo to see out.

So I'm zipping around on the pre-💥Nikola, holding him in front of my chest, and he's having a blast just chirping along.

The looks of bicyclists as I pass them, a chirping googly eye wheel 😂.

Edited September 23, 2019 by chrisjunlee

[Patton250]

19 minutes ago, chrisjunlee said:

I don't know much about burnt wheels, and not sure if I can trust a self refurbished 60+ kmh wheel. We'll see .

I've thought about that comment all day, and it's puzzling. I got really worked up when my 16X vibrated too much. I don't know why I'm so chill about the Nikola blowing up.

Aww, thanks for asking <3 

I went down at ~2pm. Lyfted back to work to drop the wheel off, and was back with the crew by 4pm. It was hilarious, their jaws dropped when I rolled back in: "You really came back?! And wtf, you have a 16X just lying around?! CAN WE TRY?" We stayed out and rode till midnightish

I was wearing the e-wheels wrist guards + leatte dual axis knee braces. It was kind of fun sliding. Only 'injury' is this denim abrasion (inside of jeans rubbing my knee) - that's a first for me:

Parakeet for scale 🦜.

You guys are so nice XD

I know @Marty Backe's sitting back grinning "how you like em wrist guards now"? Yeah yeah, whatever :p 

I'll say that although I wouldn't have broken any bones, without any gear, the scrapes and bruises alone would've killed my entire day of riding. Instead, I was out within an hour, without *any* sore spots, as if nothing had happened. 

 I’m glad you’re OK. Definitely the gear kept you from getting more busted up that’s a fact. I can’t fathom going 32 mph like I was today on my Nik+ and dumping it on pavement without protection.  Road rash city (at the least)  for sure. 

[chrisjunlee]

6 minutes ago, Patton250 said:

That’s why I asked my friend. I really don’t know. I would think it would be covered because Jason is pretty cool and I agree that what he did should not have caused an electrical problem like that. 

Wow, I didn't even think about the e-wheels warranty! If this is covered, I'm stoked 😊. I just hope it doesn't come out of Jason's pocket (as in, I hope it's either insured or Gotway provides the parts).

17 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

If you really don't want your wheel, I buy it from you so you at least get a little money out of it 

I certainly hope you send the video to Jason and tell him you'll need a new control board. He'll either offer to send you one gratis or give you a price.

That's nice of you!

This is something I want to ship back in - just need to figure out how to get the box out of storage, pack it up and drop it off - without a car . I guess I can do it with ~$60 in uber/lyft trips.

I miss having a homelab - used to have a nice setup with a large ultrasonic bath, re-work station, 3D stereo inspection microscope, etc. Now I'm just a rebel living out of airbnb's

[Marty Backe]

2 hours ago, Patton250 said:

 That’s why I asked my friend. I really don’t know. I would think it would be covered because Jason is pretty cool and I agree that what he did should not have caused an electrical problem like that. 

I know  And that's why I offered my opinion 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Marty Backe

[greentung]

21 minutes ago, chrisjunlee said:

Wow, I didn't even think about the e-wheels warranty! If this is covered, I'm stoked 😊. I just hope it doesn't come out of Jason's pocket (as in, I hope it's either insured or Gotway provides the parts).

That's nice of you!

This is something I want to ship back in - just need to figure out how to get the box out of storage, pack it up and drop it off - without a car . I guess I can do it with ~$60 in uber/lyft trips.

I miss having a homelab - used to have a nice setup with a large ultrasonic bath, re-work station, 3D stereo inspection microscope, etc. Now I'm just a rebel living out of airbnb's

I am sure your high tech office has a full service mailing facility for Fedex, UPS, or USPS pickup. But, if that is not an option, I can drive you to a mailing facility. Or if you want to do it the fun way I can help you carry it. You on the 16X and me on the Nikola+. We can carry your broken Nikola front-back or side by side to the drop off location.  

Edited September 23, 2019 by greentung

[Marty Backe]

19 minutes ago, chrisjunlee said:

Wow, I didn't even think about the e-wheels warranty! If this is covered, I'm stoked 😊. I just hope it doesn't come out of Jason's pocket (as in, I hope it's either insured or Gotway provides the parts).

That's nice of you!

This is something I want to ship back in - just need to figure out how to get the box out of storage, pack it up and drop it off - without a car . I guess I can do it with ~$60 in uber/lyft trips.

I miss having a homelab - used to have a nice setup with a large ultrasonic bath, re-work station, 3D stereo inspection microscope, etc. Now I'm just a rebel living out of airbnb's

Rest assured, Jason has no insurance and the Chinese companies offer no "free" parts. It'll cost him money but that's the price of doing business. Of course he pays wholesale prices for spares.

You're not the first person to claim warranty service. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. And worse case, if you had to buy the control board, it's a few hundred dollars at most.

But it sounds like you're not a DIY kind of guy 

[Jon Stern]

4 hours ago, chrisjunlee said:

 

 

I'd like to see the GPS from your GoPro when the wheel went pop! I suspect that for an instant you were moving faster than you ever were when riding the wheel. 

[greentung]

I think you should wrap your Nikola after it’s repaired in bright yellow vinyl. Change out the eyes to white pupil on black. Then slap on two red patch, yellow rubber oblong ears, and a lightning bolt tail. 

I am christening your wheel the Nikola+ Pikachu edition. It’s shockingly fast and explosively electrifying. 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by greentung

[Jon Stern]

A friend of mine in my Lotus car club has Pikachu decals on the doors of his yellow Elise, and some kind of Pikachu license plate (I can't recall exactly what it is).

[ir_fuel]

6 hours ago, Darrell Wesh said:

It was weird to see him fall straight forward instead of on his back like most people do on stairs. 

Maybe the wheel failed on the last step and that's what made him fall, more than the impact of the stairs being the actual problem?

 

BTW didn't anyone notice the pinched wire in the disassembly video? 

[Chriull]

8 hours ago, chrisjunlee said:

== Explosive Day💥, Saturday 9/22/2019 ==

...

I follow - and fall at the 6th step. The wheel slides down maybe half a step. I'll repeat that for emphasis: the wheel slides half a step. That is the extent of the impact. Here's the video (crank up the volume, sound is low):

You noticed that your battery pack's wrap is broken on the right side? But no burn marks there?

The quality of the video showing the motherboard is unfortionately very "bad" - But it seems looking at a picture of an intact nikola board

there are two big capacitors on the side with the mosfets. In your video there is just one to be seen und something big/strangely looking hanging above the wires? Maybe the remains of the second one?

Cooked/vaporized and then burning electrolyte could be an explanation of this mess?!

The metalic/"shiny" remainders on the wires/MB are molten solder/metal parts?

You have some high quality/resolution pictures of your MB?

 

8 hours ago, chrisjunlee said:

Looking through the log [2019_09_21_13_01_42.csv], we can gain some interesting insights:

At first glance, you would think to look for max current spikes or temperature - but remember these are readouts from sensors. Each sensor readout corresponds to just *one* point in the overall system. 

This was the first thing that jumped out to me: 

...

This are some very "unsteady/jittery" samples  but at least 0.1sec the almost 200A and then ~0,3-0,4 seconds 140-200A... Nothing the Mosfets could survive (easily)...

 

[Tazarinho]

11 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

You fall was exemplary btw. Not on the hands, just with stretched out arms, with the impact nicely distributed it seems.

The video is also a good argument against the "Oh I can easily run off a fall at lower speed" people.

Still possible though
The other day I was cruising lazily at 22 km/h on a lush forest trail, hard ground with a sprinkling of sand here and there..., except in one spot it wasn't a sprinkling but a big patch of deep, extremely loose sand. EUC instantly stopped, I didn't. Still landed on my feet! 
Bet it's harder when going down stairs though!

Edited September 23, 2019 by Tazarinho
too many 'thoughs' tooke one or two out :D

[Patton250]

18 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

Still possible though
The other day I was cruising lazily at 22 km/h on a lush forest trail, hard ground with a sprinkling of sand here and there..., except in one spot it wasn't a sprinkling but a big patch of deep, extremely loose sand. EUC instantly stopped, I didn't. Still landed on my feet! 
Bet it's harder when going down stairs though!

Well we do have a few badasses here that feel they can handle a 20 MPH + fall with little to no personal injury do to their awesomeness. Age is most certainly a player in this. No doubt a 22 year old can pull off some moves a 50 year old can’t. Either way road rash at my age is extremely undesirable. Chris was well protected and did a great job minimizing the effects of the impact. 

[ir_fuel]

24 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

Still possible though
The other day I was cruising lazily at 22 km/h on a lush forest trail, hard ground with a sprinkling of sand here and there..., except in one spot it wasn't a sprinkling but a big patch of deep, extremely loose sand. EUC instantly stopped, I didn't. Still landed on my feet! 
Bet it's harder when going down stairs though!

It's called luck.

 

[Tazarinho]

55 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

It's called luck.

Partly luck for sure. Doing parkour/freerunning probably also helps.
But I do believe that riding a lot does improve your core strength and balance a lot. Aside from two falls in the first weeks of riding, every time I dropped the wheel, I have stayed upright. However I am fully aware that this by no means means I will always be able to run it off, and I keep riding fully protected and as vigilant to the path ahead as possible.

[Tazarinho]

1 hour ago, Patton250 said:

Well we do have a few badasses here that feel they can handle a 20 MPH + fall with little to no personal injury do to their awesomeness. Age is most certainly a player in this. No doubt a 22 year old can pull off some moves a 50 year old can’t. Either way road rash at my age is extremely undesirable. Chris was well protected and did a great job minimizing the effects of the impact.

I think I can handle some sub-20 mph falls with no personal injury.
However I also think that one can have 6 mph crash and be seriously injured. Therefore I ride fully protected and try to be vigilant to my surroundings as much as I can.

And I fully agree on how Chris handled the fall, I certainly did not mean to imply that he should have stayed upright and I'm glad he is ok!

[meepmeepmayer]

For clarification:

I didn't mean you can never run out a crash, but you cannot reliably run out a crash unless the conditions are ideal. Some people seem to think they can.

2 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

And I fully agree on how Chris handled the fall

Not sure whether he had much of a choice in that moment But the gear certainly counts.

-

We need some detailed pics of the interior and top battery (it must be damaged, right?) please.

5 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

BTW didn't anyone notice the pinched wire in the disassembly video? 

Good find. Didn't realize it was like this before the crash. What wire is this? Some light? I don't believe a strong pinch from the crash on that wire could have caused the fryplosion, though.

[Patton250]

31 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

I think I can handle some sub-20 mph falls with no personal injury.
However I also think that one can have 6 mph crash and be seriously injured. Therefore I ride fully protected and try to be vigilant to my surroundings as much as I can.

And I fully agree on how Chris handled the fall, I certainly did not mean to imply that he should have stayed upright and I'm glad he is ok!

I don’t think you implied that. :-)

[ir_fuel]

42 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

But I do believe that riding a lot does improve your core strength and balance a lot. Aside from two falls in the first weeks of riding, every time I dropped the wheel, I have stayed upright. However I am fully aware that this by no means means I will always be able to run it off, and I keep riding fully protected and as vigilant to the path ahead as possible.

I also have good core strength and balance (if I can say that ... I train several times a week on those things for years now). I still managed to break a bone in my foot at < 10mph. Wasn't with an euc, but with a Onewheel, but that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.It's a balancing device and I fell off.

You can go 20mph, fall of your euc and just hit the wrong tree stump in the forest with your foot while running it off and before you know you break your arm because your body jolted in an unexpected direction and you slammed on the ground.

Call it lucky to be able to run it out, call it unlucky to not be able to run it out, in the end it will still hurt in the last scenario. Wearing protection is taking the unlucky ones into account. Not wearing it is not taking them into account and presuming the combination skill and luck will always save you. 

And even with protection you can still get unlucky (I was completely "geared up" when my accident happened. Not much you can do about 5th metatarsal fractures unless you like completely blocking your ankle somehow ...).

[ir_fuel]

37 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Good find. Didn't realize it was like this before the crash. What wire is this? Some light? I don't believe a strong pinch from the crash on that wire could have caused the fryplosion, though.

That's right, but I doubt those wires have a fuse connected to them. God knows what happens once they wear through the insulation and short circuit.

[Tazarinho]

48 minutes ago, Tazarinho said:

I think I can handle some sub-20 mph falls with no personal injury.
However I also think that one can have 6 mph crash and be seriously injured. Therefore I ride fully protected and try to be vigilant to my surroundings as much as I can.

 

5 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

I also have good core strength and balance (if I can say that ... I train several times a week on those things for years now). I still managed to break a bone in my foot at < 10mph. Wasn't with an euc, but with a Onewheel, but that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.It's a balancing device and I fell off.

You can go 20mph, fall of your euc and just hit the wrong tree stump in the forest with your foot while running it off and before you know you break your arm because your body jolted in an unexpected direction and you slammed on the ground.

Call it lucky to be able to run it out, call it unlucky to not be able to run it out, in the end it will still hurt in the last scenario. Wearing protection is taking the unlucky ones into account. Not wearing it is not taking them into account and presuming the combination skill and luck will always save you. 

And even with protection you can still get unlucky (I was completely "geared up" when my accident happened. Not much you can do about 5th metatarsal fractures unless you like completely blocking your ankle somehow ...).

I think we agree

Hope the metatarsal heals well. I fractured the same bone during a rock climbing fall, took me a few months to climb pain free again.

 

[ir_fuel]

Just now, Tazarinho said:

Hope the metatarsal heals well. I fractured the same bone during a rock climbing fall, took me a few months to climb pain free again.

It's ok. It's just where the tendon attaches to the bone. So no surgery and no cast. It happened on the 31st and I've been walking on both feet again since one week

Still not going to risk riding my euc or onewheel just yet. My doctor would not like that I think  (should be ok ... as long as I don't fall off, lol)

[Marty Backe]

2 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

For clarification:

I didn't mean you can never run out a crash, but you cannot reliably run out a crash unless the conditions are ideal. Some people seem to think they can.

Not sure whether he had much of a choice in that moment But the gear certainly counts.

-

We need some detailed pics of the interior and top battery (it must be damaged, right?) please.

Good find. Didn't realize it was like this before the crash. What wire is this? Some light? I don't believe a strong pinch from the crash on that wire could have caused the fryplosion, though.

The pinched wire is the 5-volt feed to the sound module (bluetooth component).

Edited September 23, 2019 by Marty Backe

[Darrell Wesh]

3 hours ago, Tazarinho said:

But I do believe that riding a lot does improve your core strength and balance a lot.

 

2 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

also have good core strength and balance

It’s not really about core strength and balance.

It’s about reaction time and tendon stiffness. That’s why I advocate plyometrics and sprints to be able to handle an “unexpected dismount”. Your body needs to be able to react quick enough to get the legs up and cycling and your lower leg muscles need to be stiff enough to readily absorb the immense forces as you decelerate.

Not only do you need to be able to absorb the forces, you need to be able to produce them quickly to keep your legs from buckling and you dropping to the ground after one step, as the more steps you take the better (you can’t absorb all the force by landing in a half squat, reason why parkour runners roll after landing from a high drop).

Plyometrics and sprinting are the dominant two things that effectively train both these crucial criteria. 

There had been times where my wheel had fallen from clipping the pedals on a root or falling through too deep a pothole and I was able to subconsciously run off the crash.

The last time my wheel fell was on the mten3 I was attempting to jump up a high curb while approaching it from an angle instead of head on, while on the bike lane going 15mph. I clipped it, landed off balance and the wheel tumbled off but I just shrugged off the momentum with a couple of steps while smiling as onlookers gasped at the crashing sounds the wheel was making. 

I didn’t even have to think about it my body just was able to do it. And I was like “wow, that should have made me fall with it” Or at least stumble and scrape the ground with my hands to keep myself up. But it didn’t. That’s reaction time to the highest degree combined with force production that was able to easily keep my body from buckling.