"Veteran" New brand of high performance EUC's

[mike_bike_kite]

I like this guy's videos but I find it a PITA to get auto generated subtitles in youtube - somehow I've got it so it automatically translates to Armenian and now it won't let me change it back! C'est la vie

[.....]

On 9/14/2020 at 11:27 PM, shellac said:

Some fool eating asphalt riding their Sherman at 40+ mph on the FDR highway at night

 

I have to say, I know suspension is a new thing that just came out, but IMO any wheel that is capable of hitting 40 mph should have it. Not as a comfort issue but a safety one.

Imagine being in a car with no suspension being jostled around on those potholes, it would be horrible. In a non suspended euc it’s just dangerous. Maybe kinda dangerous with suspension also but probably less so.

Having a wheel that goes that fast without suspension is like putting the cart before the horse.

Don’t get my wrong, love the Veteran and probably going to order one, I just think suspension can’t come soon enough. My advice to anyone going that fast is to stick to perfectly smooth and already known asphalt. 

good point, but only is the rest of the machine is reliable as well. I would think that at the core of 'safety' reliable comes before comfort. All things being equal (which they aren't), you would be entirely correct.  As soon as I can get mine to work, I'll be trying to ride it to the next town. Im not sure whats more ludircous: during the day with cellhpne drivers in droves, or at night for the odd drunkard. Im thinking at night, IF the lights are decent. Maybe not tho, as I intend to take a 2 lane winding mountain road and they tend to be pretty dark and full of rocks at night.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but who else is noticing a severe amount of pedal dip forwards after completing 180 turns or more? Its pretty excessive on mine and I've already scraped pedals from it. Definitley an issue, but as long as it doesnt do that shit when Im at speed, it may not be a deal breaker. Freaking smooth as hell riding wheel. Ido think I hit 35 on my first 20 seconds of owning one. It felt more like 30kmh, so maybe it was. I dont see any setting to change it. I updated darknessbot, but it still says hardware not supported. I guess I'll have to update EUCW and try it next.

Edited September 18, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[MrRobot]

1 hour ago, ShanesPlanet said:

good point, but only is the rest of the machine is reliable as well. I would think that at the core of 'safety' reliable comes before comfort. All things being equal (which they aren't), you would be entirely correct.  As soon as I can get mine to work, I'll be trying to ride it to the next town. Im not sure whats more ludircous: during the day with cellhpne drivers in droves, or at night for the odd drunkard. Im thinking at night, IF the lights are decent. Maybe not tho, as I intend to take a 2 lane winding mountain road and they tend to be pretty dark and full of rocks at night.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but who else is noticing a severe amount of pedal dip forwards after completing 180 turns or more? Its pretty excessive on mine and I've already scraped pedals from it. Definitley an issue, but as long as it doesnt do that shit when Im at speed, it may not be a deal breaker. Freaking smooth as hell riding wheel. Ido think I hit 35 on my first 20 seconds of owning one. It felt more like 30kmh, so maybe it was. I dont see any setting to change it. I updated darknessbot, but it still says hardware not supported. I guess I'll have to update EUCW and try it next.

Soft mode feels very strange coming from an 84v msx. I always rode on medium on it which in comparison is rock hard. So I have the Sherman set on strong/hard mode and I haven't scraped too badly yet on tight 180s. Strong mode definitely keeps the pedals higher than medium. 

 

What exactly is the benefits of soft mode? Better battery life? I just don't understand why you'd want your pedals to dip like that. 

[RockyTop]

19 hours ago, Shield said:

May not be everyone's cup of tea but I like it! 

It fits the design very well. It will be difficult to see anything else now. 

[MrRobot]

"This charger is intended for devices, such as the Nikola+ & MSP, with at least 96x cells configured in a 24s4p format. LG has a maximum rate of charge specification for this M50T cell of 3.4A @77°F (25°C)–113°F(45°C)–if charging at lower temperatures, the current level should be reduced to the 6A setting"

 

This is from the quick charger page on eWheels. Does this mean if the wheel is at room temperature (74f) it shouldn't be charged higher than 6a? Seems like you'd never be able to charge at higher speeds then unless you just finished a ride? 

Edited September 18, 2020 by MrRobot

[AtlasP]

3 hours ago, MrRobot said:

What exactly is the benefits of soft mode? Better battery life? I just don't understand why you'd want your pedals to dip like that. 

I haven't tried the Veteran's soft mode in particular, but in general soft mode is primarily a comfort feature that can greatly reduce foot/leg fatigue (at the expense of acceleration & braking), and secondarily some people just like the sensation of a more-pronounced pendulum feeling.

Keep in mind that differences in firmware implementation across brands and also a particular wheel's pedal height (put the opposite way/more importantly, the distance between the pedals and the axle) can make a drastic difference in how this works/feels, so soft mode can be a surprisingly different experience from one wheel to another.

Edited September 18, 2020 by AtlasP

[Mango]

Inmotion V10f’s comfort mode is somewhere in-between Sherman’s soft and medium modes. I ride all the time in comfort mode, and I have started riding in Sherman’s soft mode and so far I am liking it. Didn’t like it at first and switched to medium, but soft mode is growing on me. I think depending on your riding mood, any of the modes are great. Still testing out soft mode so my opinion will be more concrete after putting at least 1000kms on it.

[houseofjob]

22 hours ago, MrRobot said:

What exactly is the benefits of soft mode? Better battery life? I just don't understand why you'd want your pedals to dip like that. 

The guys who don't ride soft mode to the full extent will tell you comfort, and while this is true, this is only barely scraping the surface of really "why soft mode"?

 

... and mind you, not all manufacturers (and even different models within the same mfr line, ie. Gotways) soft modes are created alike. In the FW, the mfr can tune the a.) hardness and b.) pedal swing distance, differently for all stages of a lean: pedal initiation / first engagement; the "decay" after that; then the pedal "hold" after that; and then obviously the brake backswing (or lack of swing, for a true full hard mode). IMHO InMotion and King Song soft modes aren't very useful for front traveling riding, as the response curves are very simplistic (rubber softness only at the front and back peak edges of their minimal pedal travel swings), and the IM & KS soft modes always felt like they were more tuned for doing pendulums/tricks, which makes sense if you see how all their promo tends to be trick riders.

 

The real main reasons of "why soft mode" is leverage and control.

It's easier to understand if you think of the opposite of soft mode, ie. hard mode. In Hard Mode, the pedals should never move from parallel to the ground, ever. So when you engage the pedals in a lean, in order to increase acceleration, you have to exert even more increasing pressure on the pedal(s), and the more you increase this lean pressure, the more/harder the wheel has to push back in order to keep the pedals level to the ground.

First, this is very fatiguing IMHO, as you always have to exert considerable force for your speed input, whereas, if the pedals can travel/swing and not have to push back with equal force, you can tune things so even an easy effortless lean can exert the same acceleration as when you had to push/lean hard on the former brick wall hard mode pedals, albeit, in the soft mode scenario, the pedals do have to travel farther in comparison, and there is a limit to the distance you can travel (ie. you can't spin upside down, etc.), so alternation between pedal "stroke" swings is necessary.

Second, hard mode has the least amount of feedback control, since the pedals relatively cannot swing/travel, thus cannot efficiently give you an easier idea of how much you are pressing, degree of change of pressure vs speed/accel. Think of a typical mechanical button on a machine, one that can move up and down incrementally for tactile response (soft mode), then compare that to something like a non-responsive simple press of a phone touchscreen (hard mode). You have more nuanced control with the tactile button; you can be mid-press, then change your mind and lift back up to not engage a full press, whereas a phone touchscreen is way less so. The ability for the pedals to swing back and forth freely gives you IMHO a higher "resolution" of pressing on the pedals to adjust speed with, and makes it so you don't have to be pushing hard on a brick wall to elicit the same speed as you do in hard mode.

Third, leverage, leverage, leverage. Allowing the pedals to swing, in combination with operating the wheel on side-to-side lean angles, allows you to put the pedals in a mechanically better position to exert bodyweight on, without just vertical, one parallel plane superman leaning. If you picture the typical EUC operated completely and fully upright, the way the pedals sit at the bottom perpendicularly attached to the pedal arms connecting to the axle, this bottom positioning is at an extreme mechanical disadvantage in this resting maximum gravity positioning, as compared to say, if you could rotate/swing the pedals around the circle to either level to the axle height, then pressing downwards, or even higher than the axle nut (hence why seated riding is a much more efficient way to exert force on the wheel, particularly the bigger the wheel becomes in size (longer torque arm)). So, allowing the pedals to swing will give you all kinds of possibilities to gain better leverage angles to bodyweight press the pedals, so long as you know how to operate the wheel like this on angles other than fully straight and upright, as pedal swing downwards (the misnomered "pedal dip") when you and the wheel are fully parallel and upright, just puts your body into faceplant positioning; whereas if you do the same with the wheel body tilted at a side angle, your body angle countering this wheel body side lean gives you the stability to be able to leverage this "pedal dip" swing for less effort, bodyweight pedal force input, without chance of faceplant.

But alas, most riders do not go through the bother to experiment with soft mode fully, and dismiss it because they feel that first "pedal dip" and get scared off. I have to admit, I was of this camp in my earlier riding years, until I had to do a lengthy ride wheel swapping with @Tishawn Fahie and getting on his MSV3 (that wheel was by far the swingiest and softest soft modes ever!) But after that ride, I fully got why soft mode, and haven't gone back since. (also note, early days SoloWheel guys swore by those wheels swingy soft modes as well, for a good reason IMHO)

Edited September 19, 2020 by houseofjob

[Shield]

Hard/Strong mode makes my feet and legs hurt. It's like trying to do the Michael Jackson lean and holding it there. I prefer soft mode, not just for comfort but I feel more incontrol.

[MrRobot]

Thanks for the full breakdown @houseofjob that all makes sense I'll have to experiment with it more. 

On an unrelated note I'm cross posting this here just for maximum visibility so everyone sees it:

 

WARNING!!! 

I HIGHLY suggest anyone who hasn't yet to double check all the scews and make sure they're tightened and especially the pedals.

My pedals looked like they were tightened all the way but they were just loctited and only screwed in halfway. I definitely was able to tighten all 4 of the pedal bolts significantly more than they were. I suggest you untighten the pedals a good amount to break the loctite and then retighten them all the way to be sure. 

[MrRobot]

@houseofjob Did an endurance ride and rode the whole thing on soft mode. Long story short I don't think I'll be going back to hard mode  once I got over the initial weirdness of the pedals dipping it was much easier to accelerate, keep a pace, and brake! 

Edited September 20, 2020 by MrRobot

[houseofjob]

1 hour ago, MrRobot said:

@houseofjob Did an endurance ride and rode the whole thing on soft mode. Long story short I don't think I'll be going back to hard mode  once I got over the initial weirdness of the pedals dipping it was much easier to accelerate, keep a pace, and brake! 

Cheers!

 

Just be careful, and remember to operate soft mode always on angles, one foot/leg emphasis at a time in alternation. I haven't gotten on my Shermona yet to see if the soft mode is as swingy as the demo, but note that certain soft modes, like on the Monster, have bigger swing travel than might be necessary or usable (and you can't swing infinitum unfortunately ). But as you can control the pedal swing, I will emphasize stopping this overswing by straight stiff leg heel stabilizing with whichever foot and respective pedal is more behind me, back from the forward direction (had a standing "fall" incident over a usually harmless bump on my Monster that made me realize this overswing *smh).

 

(Also, forgot to note before, the one scenario that I do imagine hard mode is a better alternative than soft mode, is extreme uphills, as obviously, you want to be able to stay upright on such steep inclines, and this is the one weakness to soft mode I will admit. But, as I never really off-road and we don't have anything close to the steepness of hills in SoCal or the Bay Area, I'm sticking to my soft! - plus, you can always just switch back and forth modes)

Edited September 20, 2020 by houseofjob

[houseofjob]

.... and on another note (I swear I'll stop talking about my beloved soft mode )

Curious to see if anyone has a good explanation for the below:

 

A local NYC rider was talking about discrepancy in voltage readings for this first eWheels batch of Shwarma, so I broke out my multimeter.

 

Onboard & DarknessBot, relatively the same value ~99.2V

 

 

Battery Packs Direct, XT90, same for both at 98.7V

  

 

Charge Port GX16-5, reading way lower with 95.6V

 

Can anyone explain why there's such a discrepancy?

The charge port difference is the larger (or smaller(?)) head-scratching value; dunno why it's so much lower, plus it seems to be directly plugged into the board, nothing between in the path.

(I know the full charge Vet voltage value has come up before, but not sure if this has; apologies if this has been posted before)

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by houseofjob

[.....]

diode perhaps? I dont really know, i just wanted to know how you got yours to connect to Darknessbot. Mine connects to eucw fine, tho it doesnt change settings. DB just says hardware not supported (updated release).

Edited September 20, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[Ben Kim]

34 minutes ago, houseofjob said:

.... and on another note (I swear I'll stop talking about my beloved soft mode )

Curious to see if anyone has a good explanation for the below:

 

A local NYC rider was talking about discrepancy in voltage readings for this first eWheels batch of Shwarma, so I broke out my multimeter.

 

Onboard & DarknessBot, relatively the same value ~99.2V

 

 

Battery Packs Direct, XT90, same for both at 98.7V

  

 

Charge Port GX16-5, reading way lower with 95.6V

 

Can anyone explain why there's such a discrepancy?

The charge port difference is the larger (or smaller(?)) head-scratching value; dunno why it's so much lower, plus it seems to be directly plugged into the board, nothing between in the path.

(I know the full charge Vet voltage value has come up before, but not sure if this has; apologies if this has been posted before)

 

Hopefully it’s not an isolated issue with your wheel, my wheel pulls the same voltage on the charge port as the wheel reports,

 

Or the eWheels batch has some sort of diode in line? I know they love to make their little changes/“enhancements” compared to factory wheels.

[houseofjob]

5 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

diode perhaps? I dont really know, i just wanted to know how you got yours to connect to Darknessbot. Mine connects to eucw fine, tho it doesnt change settings. DB just says hardware not supported (updated release).

Yeah can't be a diode, as I'm measuring the port while the wheel is off, but I did think that before @Ben Kim informed me of the nature of the reverse diode.

DB-wise, I dunno, it just worked for me on my 11 Pro, iOS14 & latest DB 🤷‍♂️

 

4 minutes ago, Ben Kim said:

Hopefully it’s not an isolated issue with your wheel, my wheel pulls the same voltage on the charge port as the wheel reports,

Or the eWheels batch has some sort of diode in line? I know they love to make their little changes/“enhancements” compared to factory wheels.

Operating fine so far, I guess I'll see when I put it through it's paces.

[mike_bike_kite]

4 hours ago, houseofjob said:

Can anyone explain why there's such a discrepancy?

I think it's a combination of factors. The voltage depends on where you sample the voltage in the circuit (due to resistance) and the accuracy of the reader. If you sample directly at the battery with the battery disconnected then it should be the most accurate. Whether it's a good thing to disconnect a battery like that, just to see if the voltage is what it says it is, is up to you. Personally, if the wheel wasn't misbehaving in any way, then I'd just leave it well alone.

[roghaj]

Is the Sherman firmware upgradeable by the end user?  Like with a special cable or app.

I've had a MSuper V3 and never upgraded the firmware, but I don't think it was even an option. Before Darkness bot the app wasn't of much use.

-Roger

[DjPanJan]

9 hours ago, roghaj said:

Is the Sherman firmware upgradeable by the end user?  Like with a special cable or app.

I've had a MSuper V3 and never upgraded the firmware, but I don't think it was even an option. Before Darkness bot the app wasn't of much use.

-Roger

No is primitive (old school) technology based control board EUC. (compared to inmotion / kingsong). Gotway not have update too and becasue veteran have "3 year old" gotway board logicaly you cannot update firmware easy way.

(i not own veteran im disapointed veteran burn under stress conditions Marty Backe OHH 1 try burn board  2 try(retry) Marty Backe hard cheated OHH test compared to standard one.

For me veteran is not capable OHH test this mean not good for people 100KG+ avoid this euc if you are heavy/big/fat rider.

Not capable 40 degree hill (wrongway! test).

Vetran sherman is fast euc with great range and inovative things (cage etc.) nothing more nothing less many people can love how is now.

Me not i hope they change some things(board)  close to perfect(safe) and after 6+ months or year Sherman can be my choice. This company need to grow up in time and continue on new batches EUC step by step to ideal EUC for all riders (include heavy 100+Kg /230 lbs+) .

[roghaj]

How does e-wheels do the firmware update?  Swapping a chip?

[null]

How does e-wheels do the firmware update?  Swapping a chip?

Factory and larger importers do it with a sort of expensive serial port programmer, it can also be done with a smaller (Arduino based?) thingie. It connects where the BT module otherwise sits. For some mysterious reason Gotway (and ex) are very stingy with their binaries.

Edited September 22, 2020 by null

[MrRobot]

Hit 300 miles today in 5 days! My legs... 

[MrRobot]

Swapped out the stock pedals for my Nikolas. I think it feels better especially with wide boots. Although it definitely scrapes a little easier than the stock pedals so gotta be careful on tight turns. 

[roghaj]

Hey MrRobot

E-wheels says the wheel will come with some molded side pads to be attached near the top of the wheel.  Did you get yours from somewhere else or did you just choose to make Koji style ankle pads and skip the others?

-Roger

[MrRobot]

5 hours ago, roghaj said:

Hey MrRobot

E-wheels says the wheel will come with some molded side pads to be attached near the top of the wheel.  Did you get yours from somewhere else or did you just choose to make Koji style ankle pads and skip the others?

-Roger

I rode with the eWheels pads for about 5 miles and then took them off. I've never had pads that restrict your leg movement so I wasn't a fan. Maybe I'd like the official power pads more because it looks like they have more wiggle room. These had none for me. So I just stole the hack job kuji pads off my other wheel. 

Still looking for a more official solution to "jump pads" or kuji pads. Ironic because they mostly work best for me because they keep your feet from jumping off the pedals when you hit unexpected bumps. 

Anyone willing to sell their euc winglets?? Will pay for international shipping... 😭

Edited September 23, 2020 by MrRobot