owheely Posted December 2, 2019 Share Posted December 2, 2019 Dawned on me that my Solowheel Glide 3 is over 1.5 years old, 2300+ miles... And aside from maintaining tire pressure, I haven't done any maintenance whatsoever. Is that bad and what should I be doing? I ride it 5 days a week on mostly paved roads. Extreme seasons ranging from high 90s Fahrenheit summers with thunderstorms (have ridden in rain) to 10 degree Fahrenheit winters (sometimes riding in an inch or two of snow). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyTop Posted December 2, 2019 Share Posted December 2, 2019 Not much to these wheels. I would check the pedals for cracks. if cracked replace. (scratches do not count. ) Check to make sure your valve stem is straight front to back as it passes through the rim. If you ride with Check to make sure the low tire pressure the tube pulls the stem and rips the tube. If not straight. let the air out and pull the tube and tire around to get stem straight again. If the telescoping handle is stiff, lubricate with silicone oil , free up and then wipe oil back off. Check to make sure the shell (body) is secure to the pedal hangers. A loose shell causes all kinds of problems. When removing and replacing screws use thread locker. If you do a lot of offloading and you feel capable you might want to open your wheel and check your boards for dust and contaminates. clean with canned air. When your EUC is open, check the wires for damage. I am sure someone will come up with something else for your EUC , I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneta Posted December 2, 2019 Share Posted December 2, 2019 45 minutes ago, owheely said: Is that bad and what should I be doing? Imho, it's beyond bad, it's plain wreckless. Your life can literally be hanging by a mercy of a single Hall wire ready to fall out of a loose crimp barely grasping a 1mm tail of a 28ga. wire (like was the case on my wheel). Or phase wires touching each other and insulation half-melted. Or solder melting or cracking at some joint. Full disassembly and thorough inspection of the wheel perhaps once a month should be EUC Religion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonm42 Posted December 2, 2019 Share Posted December 2, 2019 I'm seeing both ends of a spectrum, here. Perhaps we could meet somewhere in the middle? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxtrotgolf Posted December 3, 2019 Share Posted December 3, 2019 1 hour ago, Aneta said: Imho, it's beyond bad, it's plain wreckless. Your life can literally be hanging by a mercy of a single Hall wire ready to fall out of a loose crimp barely grasping a 1mm tail of a 28ga. wire (like was the case on my wheel). Or phase wires touching each other and insulation half-melted. Or solder melting or cracking at some joint. Full disassembly and thorough inspection of the wheel perhaps once a month should be EUC Religion. I think she was being sarcastic. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneta Posted December 3, 2019 Share Posted December 3, 2019 22 hours ago, foxtrotgolf said: I think she was being sarcastic. Not the slightest. Connectors, wires, capacitors, MOSFETs, resistors, etc. do fail once in a while. Anyone who comes to the world of segwheels from prior experience of building e-bikes and troubleshooting e-scooters, knows that. On average maybe once a year, some electric component on e-bike or e-scooter fails - and while it only results in a stall, on a segwheel it will result in a crash. Here's a recent example of a failed connector on a segwheel: burnt battery connector on @Mike Sacristan's brand new 16X: Fortunately, it was a battery connector, on a system with two battery halves, not a phase wire connector, so no crash occurred, only loss of battery capacity. (BTW, this is a good demonstration of the value of duplicating all essential connectors - battery, phase, Hall.) Regular inspections can detect issues like these early and prevent a possible crash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owheely Posted December 4, 2019 Author Share Posted December 4, 2019 On 12/2/2019 at 5:38 PM, Aneta said: Imho, it's beyond bad, it's plain wreckless. Your life can literally be hanging by a mercy of a single Hall wire ready to fall out of a loose crimp barely grasping a 1mm tail of a 28ga. wire (like was the case on my wheel). Or phase wires touching each other and insulation half-melted. Or solder melting or cracking at some joint. Full disassembly and thorough inspection of the wheel perhaps once a month should be EUC Religion. I genuinely appreciate the candid feedback, @Aneta. My hesitation to opening up the otherwise sealed Solowheel Glide 3 is that I'm creating more risk of loosening a crimp or pushing a wire against another just by the motions of opening it up and fiddling with something that wouldn't have been jostled otherwise. e.g. "here let me make sure this connector is properly seated" so I remove and reseat a connector - boom I've now done wear and tear on the connector that wouldn't have been otherwise. I'm open to my perspective of "self harm" being paranoid, and maybe I'm over confident in just how sealed a Glide 3 is. But what are your thoughts on the risks of a maintenance-induced error? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aneta Posted December 4, 2019 Share Posted December 4, 2019 (edited) 50 minutes ago, owheely said: I genuinely appreciate the candid feedback, @Aneta. My hesitation to opening up the otherwise sealed Solowheel Glide 3 is that I'm creating more risk of loosening a crimp or pushing a wire against another just by the motions of opening it up and fiddling with something that wouldn't have been jostled otherwise. e.g. "here let me make sure this connector is properly seated" so I remove and reseat a connector - boom I've now done wear and tear on the connector that wouldn't have been otherwise. I'm open to my perspective of "self harm" being paranoid, and maybe I'm over confident in just how sealed a Glide 3 is. But what are your thoughts on the risks of a maintenance-induced error? It's possible, but the risk of failure due to negligence is much higher than the risk of maintenance-induced failure. Simply because there are so many factors that can naturally cause failure - vibrations, falls (extreme g-forces), moisture ingress or condensation, wires rubbing on something, capacitors on thin long legs cracking the solder, melted insulation or connector housing due to heat, etc. Careful disassembly and inspection bears much less risk. Although in my case Hall connector did fail due to my inspection: it was completely enclosed in hot glue, so when I removed the glue, I found that wires are falling out of crimps by themselves. I cut this joke off and soldered in a sturdy, secure, and waterproof 5-pin connector: Before, it was like one if these, with only 1mm of wire in each crimp! I'm glad I discovered this during inspection, because if I had a flat tire 40km away from home and needed to take motor out for tire repair, the old connector would fall apart and I'd have a long and painful walk back home! Edited December 4, 2019 by Aneta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mono Posted December 4, 2019 Share Posted December 4, 2019 4 hours ago, Aneta said: Careful disassembly and inspection bears much less risk. How would you know? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musk Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 My approach to maintenance is to keep an eye on anything inside the wheel that other users have identified as problems, but don't disassemble it needlessly. For example, the Ninebot one E+ has a few reports of the battery pack wrapper having holes worn through because of rubbing inside the case. This is easy to inspect and would be a big problem if it happened to me. I suspect that this issue is aggravated by riding style and conditions. If a wheel is vulnerable to sand/water ingress and a rider rides in those conditions, it's going to be a problem when they start doing jumps and that sand is now pummeling the electrical components. Judge how you personally use your wheel, and adapt your inspection to the level of abuse you cause to your wheel. Compared to some of the more extreme riders here, I don't "abuse" my wheel by treating it like a skateboard (taking it off jumps, constantly bailing, etc.) In my eyes, dropping a 50lb device repeatedly (even from successful jumps) will decrease it's longevity/reliability. For a device with zero redundancy, this is too big of a risk for me personally. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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