InMotion V8f

[Asphalt]

As a current V8 owner, I'm looking forward to upgrading to the V8F as my daily urban commuter (I have an 18XL for longer trips).

If you're okay with the shorter range and voltage sag, the V8F, like the V8, has many ergonomic advantages over other EUCs (e.g. KS-16S):

• Light weight
• Quick-press power button to turn on/off wheel (Long-press to turn on/off light). 
• Cut-off button under the handle.
• Solid handle.
• Power button located on the handle and can be pressed with your thumb while carrying the EUC. 
• Trolley handle is spring-loaded and can be released with your thumb while carrying the EUC by the handle.
• IP55 rated.
• Stand built into the shell.
• Hinged door for accessing the tire valve.
• Battery status indicator that can be read while riding.
• Shell covers enough of the wheel to make a mud guard unnecessary.
• NO SOUND. Wheel is silent when turning on/off and charging. Okay, this may actually be an unintended side effect of having customizable sound, but I like my wheels silent - particularly useful when you're in an office environment.

And of course, price!

• V8 $899 USD
• KS-16S $1350 USD
• V8f ???

The main reason I'm upgrading from V8 to V8f is for speed. Where I ride, mostly on bike paths, at 30 km/h you can pass most bikes, but sometimes it can take longer than is comfortable/safe. The extra 5 km/h will make passing safer. Also, on long downhill sections you want to be able to keep up with traffic. Finally, voltage sag from 35 to 30 km/h is better than 30 to 25 km/h.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

9 minutes ago, xorbe said:

You could put a 500p 5000A battery pack on the V8, but the controller only has 74 volts nominally to work with under load.  It can't magically force the electric motor to become more powerful.  You'll gain grunt where there was voltage sag before.  But to pony up the peak power, you need more voltage, or a motor with a more hungry winding/magnet configuration, with a controller that can feed it.

That's how I thought with my humble knowledge. 

[Nic]

7 minutes ago, buell47 said:

That's how I thought with my humble knowledge. 

I suspect the motor is more than 800W and is battery limited and the MH1 cells can peak at more than 10A, which is their max continuous rating. The v10 has a lower motor power rating (1800W)  than the v10f (2000W), but that is due to the battery, not the motor as that is identical. But I am knowledge limited in this area.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Nic

[xorbe]

4 minutes ago, Nic said:

I suspect the motor is more than 800W and is battery limited and the MH1 cells can peak at more than 10A, which is their max continuous rating. The v10 as a lower motor power rating (1800W)  than the v10f (2000W), but that is due to the battery, not the motor as that is identical.

Ugh.  At the same voltage, you can push the same motor harder up to a certain degree with firmware changes.  So you add a more current-capable battery, AND also allow the controller to push harder wrt motor energize timing.

Edited October 31, 2019 by xorbe

[Mono]

13 minutes ago, Nic said:

I am just using InMotion specs for estimating

Not sure how this goes together with

5 minutes ago, Nic said:

I suspect the motor is more than 800W

 

7 minutes ago, Nic said:

and is battery limited

The continuous power rating of the battery pack is 1440 W (@3.6V), which is almost twice as much as the motor rating.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

7 minutes ago, Asphalt said:

The main reason I'm upgrading from V8 to V8f is for speed. Where I ride, mostly on bike paths, at 30 km/h you can pass most bikes, but sometimes it can take longer than is comfortable/safe. The extra 5 km/h will make passing safer. Also, on long downhill sections you want to be able to keep up with traffic. Finally, voltage sag from 35 to 30 km/h is better than 30 to 25 km/h.

The only question is, how long can you ride 35 km/h? Probably the manual says again that 25 km/h is recommended. Then I guess that the speed will be throttled down to max. 30 km/h from 80% battery already and 25km/h at 60%.

If I read the bullshit with the fat tire, nothing else is to be expected regarding the speed. 

 

[Nic]

11 minutes ago, Mono said:

Not sure how this goes together with

 

The continuous power rating of the battery pack is 1440 W (@3.6V), which is almost twice as much as the motor rating.

I don't know either ... it is hard to see where InMotion get their numbers from, but I used those as a starting point for estimating. I think @xorbe made a good point about motor energise timing as the motor is performing balance function so won't be running on pure direct current as it is more complicated when balancing. Its probably a messy chopped square wave of variable on time. Plus there is energy regeneration as well.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Nic

[Hatchet]

518wh? wat?

[alcatraz]

Is 1000w enough for 35km/h?

My wheel cutout at 32km/h with 800w 🤔 

I do like the idea of 35km/h in a 14.5kg package. I wonder if the battery design is identical with the V8. Maybe the body is all the same.

Edited October 31, 2019 by alcatraz

[Nic]

10 minutes ago, alcatraz said:

I do like the idea of 35km/h in a 14.5kg package.

Try a Gotway mten3 ... better performance and less than 10kg.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/gotway-mten3-512-800w-motor/

 

[alcatraz]

29 minutes ago, Nic said:

Try a Gotway mten3 ... better performance and less than 10kg.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/gotway-mten3-512-800w-motor/

 

I could consider downsizing to a 14 inch wheel if it were 2.5inch wide, but 16 is quite sweet.

[alcatraz]

I wonder if the mainboard has the newer mosfets?

[Mono]

10 hours ago, Nic said:

Try a Gotway mten3 ... better performance and less than 10kg.

https://www.ewheels.com/product/gotway-mten3-512-800w-motor/

For me, the small wheel diameter and the extremely low pedals (maybe as a consequence of the small diameter) are a deal breaker for a commuter wheel.

[Mono]

7 hours ago, alcatraz said:

I wonder if the mainboard has the newer mosfets?

 

[AdrianT]

22 hours ago, Asphalt said:

Comparing the V8f specs from https://personalelectrictransport.co.uk/shop/electric-unicycle/inmotion-v8f-electric-unicycle/
with the V8 specs from https://www.inmotionworld.com/product/electric-unicycle-inmotion-v8

 

Model	V8f	V8
Top Speed	35 km/h	30 km/h
Range	55-60km	45-50 km
Slopes	30°	25°
Battery	518Wh	480Wh
Temperature	-10℃/+60℃	-10℃/+40℃
Max Load	120kg	120kg
Charger	Input: AC 90~240V Output: DC 84V @ 1.5A	Input: AC 100~240V Output: DC 84V @ 1.5A
Rated Power	1000W	800W
Pedal Height	155mm	151mm
Tire	16*2.125 in	16*1.95 in
Weight	14.5 kg	13.5 kg

 

When the v8f+ comes and if it has 700wh+ i will probably get one, that would be an ideal allround wheel for sure

[KAY GEE]

3 minutes ago, AdrianT said:

 

When the v8f+ comes and if it has 700wh+ i will probably get one, that would be an ideal allround wheel for sure

Good luck with that or rather in your dreams, unless you personally mod the batteries yourself, there is no way of that happening.

[EUC Custom Power-Pads]

The pedal height results only from the tire. According to the data sheet, the V8 also had the 2.125, although later it was delivered with the 1.95. Thus the V8F has the same pedal height as the V8 originally.

Range, Speed and Slope is somehow also probably just a mixture of fairy tales and a reduction in safety reserves.

Somehow I can't get rid of the feeling that the improvements are coming mainly from the marketing department and not from the development department.

The only technical improvement is probably only the cells themselves and that only because the old ones from 2016 no longer exist or the new ones are cheaper.

A great wheel, but they can fool someone else.

Edited November 1, 2019 by buell47

[meepmeepmayer]

2 hours ago, AdrianT said:

When the v8f+ comes and if it has 700wh+ i will probably get one, that would be an ideal allround wheel for sure

They only replaced their 3200mAh battery cells with 3500mAh ones, thus the higher 520Wh capacity. Probably they deliberately didn't change anything that would have required bigger changes (= costly in prouction) to the wheel (e.g. a new shell with more space for batteries). They just use better components (motor, board, battery cells, pedals, ...) wherever possible without changing anything "big".

So there's no more space for more battery in their existing V8(F) design. Also a V8F+ would come close to the V10.

So I would not expect a V8F+ to ever exist. It makes very little sense. It would need quite some re-engineering (as opposed to just swapping in better parts like in the V8F) and it would compete with the V10 which already exists.

[Mono]

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

They just use better components (motor, board, battery cells, pedals, ...) wherever possible without changing anything "big".

Yes, incremental changes make a lot of sense as they leave less room for making big mistakes (like designing pedals which break) and are more cost effective.

Quote

So there's no more space for more battery in their existing V8(F) design. Also a V8F+ would come close to the V10.

In principle there is tons of space under the V8 hood. Just not a compact empty space that is easy to use for an additional compact battery pack. That's where a redesign under the hood would be necessary, but not really a change of the overall shape. More difficult for a (much) wider tire though.

3 hours ago, buell47 said:

The only technical improvement is probably only the cells themselves

It's not, read Jasons post.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Mono

[AtlasP]

On 10/31/2019 at 7:15 AM, Jason McNeil said:

It was only a matter of time before the info leaked, yeah, this is right. ... Official release date is 20th Nov. 

@Jason McNeil - Can you confirm a few of the last details?

• Same trolley handle?
• Same 20s2p config (with 18650's) just using different cells to get the extra Wh?
• Will it be branded as Solowheel and have a "Glide <#>" (Glide 3F?) designation in the US? Or V8F only, like the V10F?
  • [edit: realized I had this backwards and fixed it] Related: Same GX12-4 connector in the US while GX12-3 outside the US? Or all GX12-3 like the V10F?

Edited November 1, 2019 by AtlasP

[Jason McNeil]

Sure thing... 

• Same trolley handle? Yes, retains most of the V8 parts, including the pop-out handle 
• Same 20s2p config (with 18650's) just using different cells to get the extra Wh? Exactly, 3.5Ah MJ1 vs 3.2Ah MH1
• Will it be branded as Solowheel and have a "Glide <#>" (Glide 3F?) designation in the US? Or V8F only, like the V10F? The whole Solowheel-Inmotion partnership dissolved over a year ago, everything is uniformly Inmotion now. 
  • Related: Same GX12-3 connector in the US while GX12-4 outside the US? Or all GX12-4 like the V10F? Both the V8 & V10F connectors are GX12-3s

We can expect US introductory pricing at $1100. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Jason McNeil

[mike_bike_kite]

Any idea what the "F" stands for?

Or the "V" for that matter?

Or the "5", "8" or "10"?

(The "+" bit I could work out)

[houseofjob]

3 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Any idea what the "F" stands for?

Or the "V" for that matter?

Or the "5", "8" or "10"?

(The "+" bit I could work out)

The lineage I believe goes: V5 > V5+ > V5D (China) / V5F (ex-China) > V5F+

V8 > to now V8F

V10 alongside the V10F

 

Not sure, but I wanna say the numbering originally was based around the original series' motor powers (V5 +\- 500W; V8 +\- 800W; then it seems they just ran with it to 10)

The D vs F really feels like it was originally for the oldest V5's models, China Domestic vs Foreign, as the China market tends to favor lower priced, thus lower power models.

In general, I know Asian cultures feel like English nomenclature sounds cooler, but due to lack of English prowess, acronyms are much easier to come up with.

All just educated guesses though.

Edited November 2, 2019 by houseofjob

[mike_bike_kite]

I know that Velo is french for bicycle but I might just be clutching at straws here.

[Herbas]

18 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

So I would not expect a V8F+ to ever exist. It makes very little sense. It would need quite some re-engineering (as opposed to just swapping in better parts like in the V8F) and it would compete with the V10 which already exists.

I don't quite agree with that. Sure, it will require some serious engineering, but V10 is entirely a different class. It's much heavier and cumbersome, while in the city commutting you don't need 2000W motor, nor big batteries.

MCM5 has 1500W/800Wh and 16S has 1200W/860Wh in 37lb/17kg weight, I was personally looking for V8F to be something like 1200-1400W/600Wh in 13-15 kg package. That would not compete with V10 and would be close to ideal short-commutting EUC (when you have plenty of access to power sockets, up to 10 KM one way trip, some hills, not super ideal condition roads/pavements).