Nikola+ 21700

[Kristof Willen]

The old
I'm currently riding a V10, my first EUC which I acquired in August last year.  Learning to ride was though, especially starting/mounting took me 2 weeks in order to be comfortable in traffic.  Fast forward 15 months and 4000km later : apart from some minor quirks, I really really love riding my V10 : the big pedals are a treat, and the V10 rides like a limo.  However, its range of 25-32km got more and more on my nerves, and especially in summer required multiple charges per day. I decide to upgrade to a long distance wheel. 

 

The new
Looking around for a new wheel was easy and yet very difficult.  I wanted a recent 1500+Wh model, so that limited the choice between the KS16X and the Nikola.  It took me months to decide between both.  Both are very fine wheels, but the reports about the water- and dust inlet of the KS16X let me skip this wheel (someone remembers the waterproofing issues of the V10 some months after launch ? I really needed a wheel which I can occasionally drive through some rain without fear of having a brick few days later).  Shame, I really really like the looks of the KS16X, definitively the better looking wheel of those 2, it reminds me of the Z10 with those fantastic LEDs.

I initially was looking at the Nikola+ 2100Wh, but put it down as I feared for the sheer weight (my daily commute has a fairly amount of steps).  As the 100V 21700 model came it out with its double battery pack, it meant better stability and lesser weight, so I was sold.  I acquired the wheel via erides.co.uk, it took about 3 weeks to get it delivered (was out of stock, was sent directly from Gotway to my address).

[Kristof Willen]

Day 1 - the unboxing

Of course I wasn't home when UPS delivered the package, but they placed it at the side of the house, and they called one hour later to check if I had found the package.  Love that kind of service. 

The box : early Xmas !

https://imgur.com/5Kn2PDv

 

Unboxing - random remarks :

• what a small box, was my initial thought.  
• The wheel itself is a beauty.  
• That's a very fat sucker
• black painted pedals !
• the pedals are tiny !
• They still haven't got rid of the startup sound; annoying indeed
• tried a few meters in the garage, tire needs to be pumped up.

The stickers ! No peeling, as they have been changed : the central Gotway logo stickers have been replaced with some kind of plastic pads.  

https://imgur.com/Kjaf0eW

 

Also the 'Gotway Nikola' lettering has been overtaped with some cellophane foil. 

https://imgur.com/orZnZ7S

 

The voltage meter shows 37.8V, which seems insanely low.  Put it on the charger for 2 hours, after that, the meter has 39.7 on the readout.  Hmm - that thing charges slowly.
 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Kristof Willen
potatypoe

[Kristof Willen]

Some comparison with my V10 : the Nik+ pedals initially looked tiny, but I suspect this is because of the relative size against the fat body. Here's a side-by-side image of both wheels pedals : they seem both to have the same length, though the V10 pedals are clearly wider.

https://imgur.com/SEOL4Kw

 

Oohhh-  that fat tire is going to be a delight to ride.  Here's both tires compared :

https://imgur.com/Wa28iFx

 

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Kristof Willen
typoes !

[Mono]

47 minutes ago, Kristof Willen said:

The voltage meter shows 37.8V, which seems insanely low.

If the readout is correct, it is safe to say that the battery pack is defective.

[meepmeepmayer]

I don't think the wheel would even switch on if the voltage was that low. More likely the display is defect or just buggy at the moment.

Look at a precise app (Wheellog), what does it say about the charge status (not voltage, but battery %)? Charge it to full and see how everything looks then.

Edited November 25, 2019 by meepmeepmayer

[Chriull]

1 hour ago, Kristof Willen said:

The voltage meter shows 37.8V, which seems insanely low.

As GW has no charge port protection 37.8V is,  as @Mono already stated a DOA - open a dispute, return it! Dead LiIon cells are no fun - just a faceplant! And you payed good money for it!

Edit: where and how did you measure? What does the app report?

Edited November 25, 2019 by Chriull

[meepmeepmayer]

If the wheel switches on at all, and doesn't beep like crazy when on, that number is wrong.

[Kristof Willen]

22 minutes ago, Chriull said:

As GW has no charge port protection 37.8V is,  as @Mono already stated a DOA - open a dispute, return it! Dead LiIon cells are no fun - just a faceplant! And you payed good money for it!

Edit: where and how did you measure? What does the app report?

 

Well, I'm running ahead of this journal (currently at day 5), but indeed strange things happened with this meter : after some more charging, the readout only showed dashes (normal, as it only has 3 digits, and cannot display values above 99.9).  I contacted erides about the ridiculous low voltage meter issues, the consensus is that one of the segments of the leftmost digit is probably faulty, and that the meter reads out 39.3 instead of 99.3.  To verify once I lower the battery into the 80ties V area. If not, I'm toasted, and Mono probably is right (fingers crossed).

The wheel powers on nicely, no crazy beeping and no problem riding this (current mileage is at 30km).

 

[Kristof Willen]

Day 2 - the try-out
Can you believe I couldn't take a test ride on my new wheel during the first day ? So much to do, so little time.  Same thing today (it's a madhouse here), so I'm taking the wheel for a ride of a few meters on my driveway.  That tire definitively needs some air.  Feels _very_ stable.  So stable I suspect I could ride one-legged.  

Should I try ?

With this new shiny wheel ?

Yes !

Whee - this is easy !  

 

So there you have it.  Never had the knack of riding one-legged ? Not your fault, you just need another wheel !

So much for those one-legged-riding showoffs

More riding this evening...
 

[Kristof Willen]

Day 2 - the after-unboxing

almost forgot to mention what's-in-the-box :

• the wheel (duh)
• A booklet in Chinese
• The pads ! They seem thinner as mentioned in other posts.  However, I'm not going to put those on - for now.
• A reflective gotway jacket !
• a 3A (no-so-fast?) charger - this thing features a _very_ noisy fan. No more desk charging, this is going to make some colleagues aggravated...

 

 

[Mono]

1 hour ago, Kristof Willen said:

the consensus is that one of the segments of the leftmost digit is probably faulty, and that the meter reads out 39.3 instead of 99.3.

sounds reasonable, it also explains why it took so long to charge for added 1.9V

[Mono]

1 hour ago, Kristof Willen said:

this thing features a _very_ noisy fan

annoying, hard to accept for this price tag, IMHO

[Kristof Willen]

Small diversion here.  One of the reasons why I didn't choose for the KS16X was the absence of a tail light.  I'm not that fan of the Gotway-embossed rear light on the Nik+ either for that matter.  I mostly use public roads or the bicycle lanes, last thing I want is a cop pulling me over for the absence of a rear light, and thus using a vehicle which is not compliant with road laws. 

 

Shame that this becomes more & more a trend.  If electric unicycles must become more mainstream, EUC manufacturers should comply with some base vehicle standardizations, like front/rear and braking lights.  I have the impression that the current trend nowadays is to follow the client demand to install color LEDs on the most bizarre places (though I like the KS16X and Nikola LED patterns).

[Mono]

1 hour ago, Kristof Willen said:

EUC manufacturers should comply with some base vehicle standardizations, like front/rear and braking lights

I agree that having proper front and rear lights should go without saying and a braking light is nice to have too, but I don't want EUCs to be considered as vehicles that require a braking light. That would suggest they are vehicles that also need type approval, insurance, and a drivers licence to be operated. I am in favor of keeping EUCs in the category of small electric bicycles which do not require any of these.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Mono

[EvoKnvl]

6 hours ago, Kristof Willen said:

Small diversion here.  One of the reasons why I didn't choose for the KS16X was the absence of a tail light.

Although I think it's a bit low, the 16x has tail lights on the back left and right side.  It's a vertical strip of red leds that blink when braking or when "turning."

[Kristof Willen]

Day 2 - the tryout, take 2

Evening, I pump up the tire.  Initial pressure was 20 psi, pumped it up to 35 psi.  Sun has set already, so doing a 1km drive only, feeling good.  OH-MY-GOD, my first turn at decent speed almost sends me into the bushes, this thing only wants to ride straight.  Is this the gyro effect everyone is talking about ?  Gotta work on my turning technique ! I got this gyro effect in a very tiny form on my V10, when taking turns on high speed.  But here, the effect is much much more prevalent.  Even so that I decide to lower the tilt-back speed to a safer 32kph.

Some more charging, one hour later the meter reads '---' and the LED on the charger is green.  This is *strange*.  Both wheellog and the Gotway app report the battery percentage as 100%.  This is wrong, right ? 

[mike_bike_kite]

  

7 hours ago, Kristof Willen said:

Small diversion here.  One of the reasons why I didn't choose for the KS16X was the absence of a tail light. 

You'd think for a wheel that's so capable of going on the road that they'd think about putting on proper tail lights with brighter brake lights. Actually this should be standard on any wheel. I believe it's actually a requirement in many countries.

Edited November 26, 2019 by mike_bike_kite

[Kristof Willen]

Day 3 - the maiden trip
It's 8 am morning, dawn has started, and I'm off for the first real 10km test.  Careful in the turns, don't want to crash this new shiny thing into oblivion...

I like it.  Smooth, like a magic carpet.  It's weird: it is stable, but turning is wobbly.  Riding a Nik+ at 32kph feels like riding a Porsche 911 in first gear, but think about those scratches, boy ! Gotta work on that turning technique.  How do I turn ? Use the dancing technique @MikeSacristan describes when talking about his KS16X ? How do you dance with a wheel ?  Hips or feet ? 

That 3 inch tire ? Definitively better than a 2.5 inch, small potholes are absorbed better, delivering a smoother ride. 

At times like this I really appreciate my V10, it surely isn't a worse ride than the Nik+.

First 10km mileage and some confidence while riding this beast.  

Here's also the moment where I contact erides.co.uk about the voltage meter issue.  They offer to have a skype meeting in order to clarify this further, I raise my suspicion about the faulty led segment, and we agree upon to wait for verification when the voltage drops below 90%.

[Mono]

30 minutes ago, Kristof Willen said:

Some more charging, one hour later the meter reads '---' and the LED on the charger is green.  This is *strange*.  Both wheellog and the Gotway app report the battery percentage as 100%.  This is wrong, right ? 

Why? The voltage could not have been 39.7V, because the wheel is working as expected, so it was probably 99.7V. That is pretty close to 100%.

[Arbolest]

4 hours ago, Kristof Willen said:

Some more charging, one hour later the meter reads '---' and the LED on the charger is green.  This is *strange*.  Both wheellog and the Gotway app report the battery percentage as 100%.  This is wrong, right ? 

I have heard of this actually! I believe that the tiny voltage meters they use are only good up to 99.9v, so when the battery nears full charge (100.8v I believe...) the meter can no longer display the voltage properly so it changes over to the "---" message, which is basically the same as it saying "Error". As far as I know, it should switch back to displaying numbers normally when the voltage drops down below 100v again.

That said, I have no idea why it is displaying those mystery numbers otherwise. I think erides may be right in saying that the led display is probably miswired... It sounds like the bottom segment of the left-most number is being swapped with the top left segment... I think they're right that if you use your wheel until the voltage drops into the 80's, it will likely start displaying correctly. If this is the case, then it''s not really something you can fix easily, so I would suggest just contacting erides again and asking for a replacement voltage meter, or just taking yours out and finding a cheap drop-in replacement for it on eBay or Amazon.

[Kristof Willen]

Day 4 - the resting day
It is freezing cold, dark as hell, and at 7 am I'm in no shape to steer my new shiny wheel over badly lit pothole filled broken cycle lanes.  No riding later today as well - I'm out for the evening.  A day skipped; a day not on the wheel is a day not lived...

[Kristof Willen]

6 hours ago, Arbolest said:

I think they're right that if you use your wheel until the voltage drops into the 80's, it will likely start displaying correctly. If this is the case, then it''s not really something you can fix easily, so I would suggest just contacting erides again and asking for a replacement voltage meter, or just taking yours out and finding a cheap drop-in replacement for it on eBay or Amazon.

Yes, I'm anxiously awaiting the 80V section, but with this kind of weather, not much riding is going on.  Is it easy to replace a voltmeter ? 

Anyway, this is premium stuff, so I'll definitely ask for a replacement. 

[Kristof Willen]

Day 4bis - the mudguard misery

I couldn't resist : I have dropped the kids at school, and have 15 spare minutes before I need to catch the train, so I decide to test the wheel quickly with the pads attached.  I put them on with some tape, so I can easily remove them afterwards, and go for a 1km ride.  Roads are wet and muddy.  

 

Mixed emotions about the pads : they surely make out for better control, but they cut into my legs.  If only they would be thinner, like the MSX pads...

 

Can I just say the mudguard sucks ? My legs and coat are covered in mud specks, as is the wheel.  And of course I'm all dressed up for the office. Bah. 

And this is only after a 1km ride.  Imagine what my trousers would look like after a 10km commute ! Wear brown clothes, people, brown clothes...

Edited November 27, 2019 by Kristof Willen

[Kristof Willen]

Day 4ter - the mudguard misery, part2

The absence of a proper mudguard bothered me so much i decided to look around for one.  This self-printed mudguard on Thingverse was the most elegant solution I could find.  I've ordered it, should arrive end this week.

 

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3987748

 

[mike_bike_kite]

How does the process of ordering a thing work? If you had your own 3D printer I assume you can just print it or do you need a special type of printer? If you haven't got one then can anybody print it for you if you pay them? and how do you decide a price? Sorry for all questions but it's something I've heard about but not seen in action.