2.0 firmware for 16S (and 14" ?) makes it SILENT!

[mrelwood]

KingSong seem to have unified the firmwire packages somewhat, and now at least the 18XL, 16S and 14S can all be updated to firmware 2.0. The firmware feature description seemed identical or at least similiar on 16S and 18XL as well.

Especially for the loudest whining wheel of all times, the 16S, this is an immeasurably huge improvement! I just updated on mine (on iOS, Android must be set up for downloads and I don't know how), and the high-pitched whine that has accompanied me for exactly 10 000 km is now gone! Riding a silent KingSong feels suddenly very surreal, despite having ridden my whineless main wheel for the last 18 months. The whine was just so hard-wired to the experience of riding the 16S. I do wish they'd figured out the whineless firmware two years earlier though...

For the power department, the hard mode now struggles noticeably less when riding up a very steep 5 metre long incline to our parking lot. Previously I kept thinking that the wheel must be in medium mode, but it wasn't, the old hard mode had enough play that the bumps on the uneven incline made the wheel feel sloppy and struggling. It is now noticeably tighter, and no longer feels like it has any trouble pushing my 96kg up the incline.

The wheel handles quite differently overall. I only did a few minute tryout, but I could tell that the firmware shares a lot with the 18XL. The firmware in the 18XL (and now 16S) always felt to me like it's trying to be very active and involved. Very different from the MSX, which feels like a medieval brute concentrating on just keeping the pedals level, no matter what. The 16S now feels like it is actively assessing wether you are accelerating, braking, or turning, and it has sort of different processes for each situation. If the behvaviour aligns with your riding style, I can see it feeling like the wheel is dancing with you and predicting your next movement. I'm not sure I'll ride the 16S (my backup wheel), enough to form a personal opinion. But that's how it feels.

For low battery speed limiting or tilt-back behaviour I'd expect that someone who rides the 16S more than me will soon chime in.

[Daley1]

where did u get the bigger battery version of the KS16.?i thought there was only a 840wh?i,m going to sit off updating to any probs are identified and sorted. Do u know what the official KS FW update says?

thx in advance.

Do 

[mike_bike_kite]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

For low battery speed limiting or tilt-back behaviour I'd expect that someone who rides the 16S more than me will soon chime in.

It would also be interesting to know if the range has been affected. Having a more reactive wheel might use more power but improved firmware might balance this out. Someone mentioned that the lights are done differently - any idea what's changed? a brake light would be nice.

[Chriull]

1 hour ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Someone mentioned that the lights are done differently - any idea what's changed? a brake light would be nice.

 

[Chriull]

Just updated my KS16S too  although i promised myself to never do FW updates before they are "approved" by many positive reports.... 

Now directly after the update a calibration process is started (at least if updating with darknessbot) - so if the wheel is lying somehow and not standing upright once updating is finished, it's "unusable" and needs a new calibration.

The progress of the update process is shown with white lights on the led rings.

[Chriull]

6 hours ago, mrelwood said:

Especially for the loudest whining wheel of all times, the 16S, this is an immeasurably huge improvement! I just updated on mine (on iOS, Android must be set up for downloads and I don't know how), and the high-pitched whine that has accompanied me for exactly 10 000 km is now gone!

Yeah - a huge refief for the ears!

6 hours ago, mrelwood said:

For the power department, the hard mode now struggles noticeably less when riding up a very steep 5 metre long incline to our parking lot. Previously I kept thinking that the wheel must be in medium mode, but it wasn't, the old hard mode had enough play that the bumps on the uneven incline made the wheel feel sloppy and struggling. It is now noticeably tighter, and no longer feels like it has any trouble pushing my 96kg up the incline.

I had the impression, that my pedals adjusted somehow while a (slight) incline started?! Imho the dipped slowly a bit forward - have to monitor this in future rides.

While cornering i had the impressions that the pedals dip a bit upwards - or it was just the new feeling because the pedals did not dip downwards anymore while cornering?

6 hours ago, mrelwood said:

The wheel handles quite differently overall. I only did a few minute tryout, 

Me too. But i liked very much this short ride - feels better now. Especially - the S I L E N C E !

6 hours ago, mrelwood said:

For low battery speed limiting or tilt-back behaviour I'd expect that someone who rides the 16S more than me will soon chime in.

Have to change back to alarm beeps from the speech output - just got one "please decelerate" at 35 km/h. Before the tilt-back started. But that's my normal way to ride - I accelerate softly at higher speeds and once the 35 km/h alarm beeps I'm holding the bit lower speed so that the alarms stops and i never really got an tiltback. 

The sampling rate of the reported values in the wheellog/EUC World logs unfortionately got less - now only 2.5 Hz (every 0.4 sec). Should be an insignificant point for as good as everyone but me. 

[mike_bike_kite]

I got bored and did the upgrade using my Android phone. I'll say what happened just in case it helps anyone.

Before you star it's worth ensuring your phone is charged or is charging. Set the time for the phone to turn off at 30 minutes (settings>display>advanced>power off delay?). It's worth turning the LED lights on the side of your wheel if they're turned off as these show progress of the update. Turn off any other apps that might be connected to the wheel first. Open the King song app and connect to your wheel. Go to upgrade firmware and the current firmware should read V1.09. It will ask if you want to upgrade to V2.00. Hit the upgrade button.

If you're lucky it will show the percentage of the update done. It takes about 5 minutes to complete. If you're not so lucky (I wasn't) then you just get a swirling circle with no sign that it's doing anything. After 5 mins I tried reconnecting to the wheel from the app. I also turned the wheel off and on again - not sure if this was a good idea but hey ho. This time when I went for the upgrade it immediately started upgrading with the percentage going slowly up. The LED circle on the wheel also slowly fills up. Weirdly it had set my firmware back to V1.00 when it started.

When the upgrade was complete I turned the wheel off and on again. It does suggest you redo the calibration of the wheel but I haven't done it yet. It had forgotten most of my settings ie speed alarms, riding mode etc. I set them back to what they are normally and then went for a ride. Sadly it's pitch black outside so my ride was just up and down my hallway. The wheel did appear to be silent. I'll take it for a proper ride tomorrow.

[mrelwood]

10 hours ago, Daley1 said:

where did u get the bigger battery version of the KS16.?i thought there was only a 840wh?

You are correct! I got mine from the room next to my toilet. A room most would call a ”workshop”. 

10 hours ago, Daley1 said:

Do u know what the official KS FW update says?

I only gave it a quick glance, since it looked identical to the feature list presented at the 18XL fw 2.0 thread.

 

7 hours ago, Chriull said:

Now directly after the update a calibration process is started (at least if updating with darknessbot)

It did the same when updating with the latest official KS for iOS app. A warning would’ve been in place though... I had no idea it would do that, so I had to re-calibrate right away.

4 hours ago, Chriull said:

I had the impression, that my pedals adjusted somehow while a (slight) incline started?! Imho the dipped slowly a bit forward - have to monitor this in future rides.

Today I rode for about 15 minutes on an updated 18XL, as well as a bit more with my updated 16S. Here’s my theory/assesment of the new firmware behaviour, and why it makes especially the 18XL feel snappier. I’m terribly sorry, but a long and probably a bit incoherent blump of text follows...:

The mechanics of acceleration have been discussed thoroughly from the physics perspective in the ”What determines wheel zippyness”. I’d imagine it to be a bit of a heavy read for most.

What that thread has pointed out though is that while the wheel diameter is the #1 cause, a certain firmware behaviour can make it easier for the rider to achieve more or less lean.

For example, to prevent the rider from accelerating further, the pedals tilt back. Besides making an angle that naturally makes the rider ”fall” a bit downhill, to achieve that angle the wheel must accelerate a bit. When this happens without the rider expecting it, for a short moment the wheel is running away from under the rider, decreasing the rider’s forward lean.

If the wheel reacts absolutely instantly to a forward lean, the wheel will correct the inbalance before the rider even gets to properly lean forward. This will feel like a wheel that accelerates very slow, because it cancels the rider’s attempts of leaning forward. (Combine it with a huge 18x3.0 tire and we have a wheel that is well known to be one of the most sluggish wheels ever made, the MSX.)

To go to the opposite direction, how can the wheel make it easier for the rider to get onto a lean? To let the rider fall forward. Basically a soft pedal mode. But an actual soft mode feels unstable and powerless enough that the rider gets the sensation that it’s best not to lean further, since there is no support. It feels like a faceplant is near.

What we have to do is combine a rock solid hard mode to awaken trust, and a soft pedal mode that allows for an effortless lean. And I feel that the fw 2.0 does exactly that, quite smartly tbh. When you start leaning forward, for a very short moment the pedal mode is soft, but before it starts to actually feel soft, the pedal mode turns rock hard. Ta da! The forward lean required less effort from the rider, but he can still get all the benefits from a rock hard pedal mode. Although, for some reason to me it was easier to feel in the fw 2.0 while braking.

If you are sensitive enough to how the wheel feels, you can feel the fw 2.0 doing exactly this. And that behaviour is what I believe you felt at the start of the incline; the wheel just wanted you to get enough forward lean for the acceleration to feel effortless.

I do feel that the 18XL benefits more from the new behaviour than the 16S does. Naturally, since the large wheel requires a bit of help. Just making the 16S straight up harder would have been good enough for me, since for me the 16S is already the ”small” and ”peppy” (and unstable) wheel.

[Aneta]

Most likely, what was done, they just adjusted PID coefficients (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller) to change the balance between proportional, integral, and derivative terms, which changed the response curve to changes in setpoint.

Quote

The use of the PID algorithm does not guarantee optimal control of the system or its control stability (see § Limitations of PID control, below). Situations may occur where there are excessive delays: the measurement of the process value is delayed, or the control action does not apply quickly enough. In these cases lead–lag compensation is required to be effective. The response of the controller can be described in terms of its responsiveness to an error, the degree to which the system overshoots a setpoint, and the degree of any system oscillation.

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Aneta

[mrelwood]

3 hours ago, Aneta said:

Most likely, what was done, they just adjusted PID coefficients (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller) to change the balance between proportional, integral, and derivative terms, which changed the response curve to changes in setpoint.

Are you saying that you think the ”delay in response” that I think was carefully calculated, is actually just an accident rooted from KS trying to make harder pedal modes than before?

If that’s what you mean, I can’t see how that would be the case for a few reasons:  1) The medium mode has the same behaviour, albeit slower.  2) Other manufacturers (GW, Inmotion, Ninebot) have had zero symptoms about this behaviour when making equally hard or harder pedal modes.  3) The frequency of the controller input sensing has been said or estimated to be in the 400-800Hz range. A delay long enough to make the current behaviour happen would have to be about 50-100 samples. I find that extremely doubtful.

[SpaceT]

Hello I tried to upgrade my ks16s

but something happened and now the wheel has froze  and in the app the firmware is V0.0

i can’t turn off/on my wheel 

any help?

[mrelwood]

Sorry to hear that! The update process is supposed to such that it can be restarted in cases like this. Can you still connect to your wheel with the mobile app?

[mike_bike_kite]

6 hours ago, SpaceT said:

Hello I tried to upgrade my ks16s

but something happened and now the wheel has froze  and in the app the firmware is V0.0

i can’t turn off/on my wheel 

any help?

Can you easily turn the wheel by hand?

Can you turn bluetooth on via the button on the wheel?

Have you tried just restarting the app - can it detect e wheel at all? if so, can you try doing the upgrade again?

 

 

[SpaceT]

I can connect to the wheel but everything is blank it doesn’t even show the model or serial number. It’s like has no firmware.

i press check for updates but it doesn’t find any updates. It says the this is the latest version ( v 0.0).

Maybe I can manually install the firmware? Is that possible?

[Chriull]

25 minutes ago, SpaceT said:

I can connect to the wheel but everything is blank it doesn’t even show the model or serial number. It’s like has no firmware.

That could be as some fault reports in the past - if the wheel "forgets" it's serial number (model) it cannot update anymore as it does not know which firmware has to be installed?!

25 minutes ago, SpaceT said:

i press check for updates but it doesn’t find any updates. It says the this is the latest version ( v 0.0).

Latest firmware v0.0 is also shown if the app cannot connect to the chinese servers.

25 minutes ago, SpaceT said:

Maybe I can manually install the firmware? Is that possible?

There exists some KS admin tool which can achieve this. Maybe your reseller can help out?

Did you update with Darknessbot or the original KS app? You could then try the other alternative?

[mrelwood]

That sounds like it might require the special KingSong ”Soft Tuner” (I think it was called) Android App to enter back the serial number. I’m not completely sure, but no serial number tends to require that.

Are you still under warranty? Your distributor should be able to provide the app and the original serial number, if you don’t have it. If they can’t, you might be able to find the app online. But the serial number must be in correct format.

[Seba]

On 1/13/2020 at 3:21 AM, SpaceT said:

Hello I tried to upgrade my ks16s

but something happened and now the wheel has froze  and in the app the firmware is V0.0

i can’t turn off/on my wheel 

any help?

This is because your wheel is stuck in update mode. In this mode version and serial number are not available, but serial number is still safe in memory of your wheel. So don't be afraid and contact your dealer to get KS SoftTuner app and you will be able to resume interrupted update and your wheel will come back to life

PS. 2.00 is no longer newest firmware. It just has been replaced by 2.01.

[mike_bike_kite]

5 minutes ago, Seba said:

PS. 2.00 is no longer newest firmware. It just has been replaced by 2.01.

What changed?

I knew I should of waited a week before updating. 

Edited January 14, 2020 by mike_bike_kite

[Seba]

2 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

What changed?

I knew I should of waited a week before updating. 

I don't know (I don't have KS-16S), but I suspect that they found some bugs in 2.00 and release this one as a fix.

 

[mike_bike_kite]

I got bored again and tried out the new 2.01 firmware. This made the wheel feel much better and more solid. Interestingly it kept all my settings this time (speed, LED, ride mode). On the 2.00 firmware I felt it doing a few odd things in corners - nothing serious but it just felt like it was rethinking it's balance as I turned. I'd installed new large pedals so I wasn't 100% sure that the issue was me being not used to the new pedals or the firmware. The wheel felt rock solid on 2.01 and it's still silent. Performance is the same and I can't comment on whether the range has changed - probably the same.

I still had the issue with the firmware not immediately downloading onto the wheel. It says it's upgrading the firmware but no percentage shown. Waited a few mins then stopped the app and restarted it. It asked if I wanted to continue with the upgrade and I said yes then it started showing 1%, 2%. It took about 5 mins to load. You need to keep the app open. After upgrading I did the calibration of the wheel. This time I got 2 blocks of wood to rest the wheel on. Obviously the wheel span up when I turned it on but once it had stopped I did the calibration thing - press calibrate, get it level, then press the power button and wait about 5 seconds. I did it twice to be sure.

I strongly suggest doing the upgrade to 2.01 !

[Daley1]

I,m yet to be convinced of better performance .I know there is less of a sound but its certainly doesn't silence the wheel!hopefully someone will do a range test. Surely Kingsong has said somewhere what the benefits to upgrading are and what they effect???

[Chriull]

29 minutes ago, Daley1 said:

I know there is less of a sound but its certainly doesn't silence the wheel!

The high pitched whine is gone!

29 minutes ago, Daley1 said:

Surely Kingsong has said somewhere what the benefits to upgrading are and what they effect???

By now FW 2.0 was taken back and FW 2.01 is available for KS16S. Release notes still states 2.0 ....

[Gasmantle]

Hi all,

Can anyone please tell me how long approx it should take to download the new V2.01 firmware?

I have a KS16s wheel and today got a message on the app suggesting I update from my current V1.08 but when attempting this even after about 2hrs it still hasn't updated. I get a rotating blue circle graphic saying 'firmware upgrade' but nothing happens - surely it doesn't take over 2hrs does it ?

Many thanks 

[mrelwood]

It seems that if the update doesn’t start in a few seconds, it won’t start by itself at all. I’d try first restarting the app, then the wheel as well.

If that doesn’t work, try on DarknessBot (iOS) / EUC World (Android), or on a different OS alltogether (iOS/Android).

[mike_bike_kite]

It should take 5 mins to complete. If you just get the message that it's upgrading the firmware but nothing showing the percentage then stop the app and restart it. It will ask if you want to continue with the upgrade. Just say yes and you'll see the percentage going up. It's worth turning on the LEDs on the side of the wheel as these also show how complete the update is. You'll probably have to set the speed settings, ride mode and recalibrate the wheel when you're finished. Everything should take less than 10 mins.