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Nikola stuck in "fall down" state after... falling


Austin Baez

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So I took a pretty bad spill this past thursday. I got a nice blackout level concussion and so don't actually remember exactly how it happened. My Nikola(84v) isn't working for whatever reason. Here's the relevant info:

The observed pattern:

  1. I turn the wheel on using the button as normal.
  2. The motor gets power for an instant.
  3. the motor loses power and the wheel does 5 1/s beeps
  4. nothing really after that

troubleshooting observations so far:

  • The wheel orientation doesn't matter, the pattern is the same. 
  • everything seems to be plugged in properly, and the wheel ran fine up until the accident.
  • I took the control board apart and the mosfets seem fine. 
    • I didn't originally get ones with the glue, but I replaced the cooling strips with individual ones coated with thermal paste
    • the stock fan broke, so I made a custom solution which utilized the splitter board that powers the bluetooth port and rear light to power 3 smaller fans.
  • The wheel seems structurally okay, except for the stupid walking handle which gets more fucked with each consecutive fall
  • According to the wheellog log, I fell going 20kph, with the temp at 63.(I'll attach the log csv. fall is around row 2458)
  • Im not sure how to do the calibration, but I tried it from the gotway app to the best of my ability to no avail

I can't seem to figure out what the issue is. I can answer any other questions and provide any other details you guys think are necessary. 

fall log.csv

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Wow, hope you're better now @Austin Baez, sorry to hear.

23 minutes ago, Austin Baez said:

but I replaced the cooling strips with individual ones coated with thermal paste.

Is this solution non-electrically conductive? And are you sure when reassembling, every metal part of the MOSFETS were isolated from the heatsink to prevent a short? I've been contemplating doing the @Phil McLaughlin Mod myself, but this part has still got me skittish.

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Wow, that's really disturbing. To have a crash and not know anything about it. To have a concussion that actually erased the memory of the event is really serious.

I assume you weren't wearing a helmet. Lessons for all of us who think helmets are optional.

As Meep says, the error code is telling you that something on the control board has failed. Assuming that you have good power coming out of the battery pack, then I think the only option is to replace the control board. Knowing nothing else, base on your description, I have to assume that your board rework introduced a failure mechanism that resulted in the failure.

Do you remember anything about riding the wheel that day?

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9 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

:shock2: Are you ok?

Yeah, just some abrasions. Luckily I was wearing a helmet. The helmet is cracked and has a dent in it, along with the embedded asphalt. So I get to go try and find a new one that fits my big head. 

Quote

From the beep code list.

That doesn't mean the voltage really is low, maybe the board just got damaged or something else.

Can you charge the wheel? But be extremely careful, I'd be worried about a fire starting with a possibly mechanically damaged battery. So check that the battery packs look good first and you see no other damage anywhere, too. You can also use a multimeter on the charge port to get an idea of the battery voltage (careful, don't short the port by connecting the pins).

Maybe the beeps are also just the fallen over alarm and that might mean the board is damaged?

Never hurts to ask your seller as well.

Looks like that beep code list has the same beep pattern for falling down and extreme low battery. The volt meter on the wheel registers 79.1v. So as far as I can tell, that seems okay. Unfortunately my seller if one of the aliexpress sellers(green fashion), and he promised me the new big mosfet board months ago to no avail. So I've lost all faith in him.

9 hours ago, houseofjob said:

Is this solution non-electrically conductive? And are you sure when reassembling, every metal part of the MOSFETS were isolated from the heatsink to prevent a short? I've been contemplating doing the @Phil McLaughlin Mod myself, but this part has still got me skittish.

I got hundreds of miles on the wheel between doing the mod and failure. If they conductivity was a problem, I figure it would expose itself long ago. But I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

8 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Wow, that's really disturbing. To have a crash and not know anything about it. To have a concussion that actually erased the memory of the event is really serious.

I assume you weren't wearing a helmet. Lessons for all of us who think helmets are optional.

As Meep says, the error code is telling you that something on the control board has failed. Assuming that you have good power coming out of the battery pack, then I think the only option is to replace the control board. Knowing nothing else, base on your description, I have to assume that your board rework introduced a failure mechanism that resulted in the failure.

Do you remember anything about riding the wheel that day?

as per the top of the post, I was wearing a helmet which probably saved my life. That being said, I probably still won't wear knee pads despite both of them losing some level of skin. They get in the way and make riding infeasible. 

I'm leaning towards just getting a new board at this point. It's already been frankensteined in so many ways that it's probably just not worth it to go on with the elevated risk. 

5 hours ago, Jon Stern said:

Please tell us you got checked by a doctor!

Got taken to the ER :D All is good though despite a few flesh wounds.

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27 minutes ago, Chriull said:

Ps.: Strangely the whole log shows no negative currents (regenerative breaking) - even there are strong decelerations with voltage going up above "average" level. Does gotway (still) report no negative currents?

From what I know Gotways never returned negative current values.

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15 hours ago, Austin Baez said:

Yeah, just some abrasions. Luckily I was wearing a helmet. The helmet is cracked and has a dent in it, along with the embedded asphalt. So I get to go try and find a new one that fits my big head. 

Looks like that beep code list has the same beep pattern for falling down and extreme low battery. The volt meter on the wheel registers 79.1v. So as far as I can tell, that seems okay. Unfortunately my seller if one of the aliexpress sellers(green fashion), and he promised me the new big mosfet board months ago to no avail. So I've lost all faith in him.

I got hundreds of miles on the wheel between doing the mod and failure. If they conductivity was a problem, I figure it would expose itself long ago. But I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

as per the top of the post, I was wearing a helmet which probably saved my life. That being said, I probably still won't wear knee pads despite both of them losing some level of skin. They get in the way and make riding infeasible. 

I'm leaning towards just getting a new board at this point. It's already been frankensteined in so many ways that it's probably just not worth it to go on with the elevated risk. 

Got taken to the ER :D All is good though despite a few flesh wounds.

Sorry, I missed the fact that you were wearing a helmet. I didn't think you could get a bad concussion if wearing a helmet - especially at the relative low speeds that we travel. That's worrisome to me. Just curious, was it a full-face motorcycle type helmet?

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On 10/3/2019 at 3:23 AM, meepmeepmayer said:

You can also use a multimeter on the charge port to get an idea of the battery voltage (careful, don't short the port by connecting the pins).

For god sake 😅 don't EVER measure voltage via the charge port you ,WILL eventually short it!

Go ahead and open up the side panels and measure the XT60 (output port) connectors or XT30 (charge port).

You can also get the same connector used for the charge port and then solder 2 wires onto it that you can measure from or make a voltage meter. The stock one on the Nikola seems to be quite inaccurate in my experience (+-2V)

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi @Austin Baez,

 

In your case, I recommend replacing the motherboard since there is no way to fix it (it only has a Hall sensor fault). I have been in this case twice and have successfully repaired it (I refer to many other Gotway wheel owners and they have to do the same as me). If You're lucky, You can send the old mainboard back to the dealer to fix it

P / S: I myself now have 3 mainboards: 1 Inside wheel and 2 have repaired Hall sensors from the manufacturer China 

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