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1.2.9 killed my ninebot. Beware!


Jdestef

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I upgraded to 1.2.9 and within 30 seconds the unit suddenly powered off and won't power on.  It rolls very roughly now too.  

I wasn't really even riding it. I was standing at my desk with one leg on the ground and one leg on the unit.

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That is the issue I had when my board fried with the difference being that I was riding mine at the time.  

Open battery compartment and unplug battery.  The wheel should roll freely.  Plug the battery back in and turn on the unicycle while on its side.  It should start up beeping.  You should be able to connect to it with your smartphone.  When you straighten the EU, it will shut back down as it tries to engage the motor.  If your's behaves in this manner, it is the controller board that fried.

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Cranium said:

That is the issue I had when my board fried with the difference being that I was riding mine at the time.  

Open battery compartment and unplug battery.  The wheel should roll freely.  Plug the battery back in and turn on the unicycle while on its side.  It should start up beeping.  You should be able to connect to it with your smartphone.  When you straighten the EU, it will shut back down as it tries to engage the motor.  If your's behaves in this manner, it is the controller board that fried.

The battery has been unplugged for 2 hours and the wheel is still jerky.

 

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Sorry,  my bad...I meant to say to unplug the motor from the circuit board to check the wheel rotates freely.

Unplugging the battery and plugging it back in will allow the unit to turn on with it on it's side.

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It was a good decision to keep on an old 1.2.2 or 1.2.3 firmware. We can arrange with the behaviours of this firmware over here. 

After all the glitches I saw with bonanza/ rodeo, tilt forward I lost trust in a professional way the firmware is programmed and tested by any. 

This is the fourth time they failed with a public release of a firmware. In my opinion:

  • They don't test in a structured way to verify against all mainboard revisions
  • it looks like they don't test up to the guarantee weight
  • no test cases/ test book at all => test/ quality management?
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11 minutes ago, OliverH said:

It was a good decision to keep on an old 1.2.2 or 1.2.3 firmware. We can arrange with the behaviours of this firmware over here. 

After all the glitches I saw with bonanza/ rodeo, tilt forward I lost trust in a professional way the firmware is programmed and tested by any. 

This is the fourth time they failed with a public release of a firmware. In my opinion:

  • They don't test in a structured way to verify against all mainboard revisions
  • it looks like they don't test up to the guarantee weight
  • no test cases/ test book at all => test/ quality management?

Is there any way to go back to 1.2.2 or 1.2.3?

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OK, Newbie question.

  Do we NOT have the choice of declining to upgrade?  In other words if I open my 9Bot app, will it automatically upgrade to 1.2.9?   If so, I guess I'll have to remove the app from my iPhone.  I am only on day 4 with my 9B1.

Cheers,

Jim 

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9 minutes ago, JFP9 said:

Do we NOT have the choice of declining to upgrade?

You can ride just fine with the app and not do the upgrade.  It will just inform you there is one available.

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It looks like there is an issue with the 1.2.9 update but I'm not convinced it is a wide spread issue yet.

@Jdestef - Upgraded and there was a failure but to be fair, he's on a new motor too so it could be a coincidence.

@davidba25 - upgraded and now his EU is shutting down.  No history known.

@DangerousDick - Upgraded and it is working fine.

We have a wide spread here with no definitive proof that the firmware will cause issues.  

Someone else should upgrade to see if this is indeed an issue or not.  I would volunteer but I'm waiting on a replacement board already.  lol  (how convenient for me).

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Has anyone checked with Ninebot US or a US distributor (or even SpeedyFeet in the UK) on known issues with the latest firmware?  I'll be honest, I really don't want to use my new 9B1 as a test dummy for the firmware update.  

Cheers,

Jim 

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28 minutes ago, Cranium said:

It looks like there is an issue with the 1.2.9 update but I'm not convinced it is a wide spread issue yet.

@Jdestef - Upgraded and there was a failure but to be fair, he's on a new motor too so it could be a coincidence.

@davidba25 - upgraded and now his EU is shutting down.  No history known.

@DangerousDick - Upgraded and it is working fine.

We have a wide spread here with no definitive proof that the firmware will cause issues.  

Someone else should upgrade to see if this is indeed an issue or not.  I would volunteer but I'm waiting on a replacement board already.  lol  (how convenient for me).

Given safety concerns, and recent history, it should be presumed that the update caused the problem.  The burden of proof at this point is on the 1.2.9 upgrade to be proven not to have been the problem.  Ninebot's Quality Assurance team may all be in the hospital at this point from 1.2.6, ok that is a little joke.  Not too funny with the bloodbath that Ninebot is creating here. 

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Is some official from Ninebot in the forum to give a statement? I'm not talking about distributors.

Even if it's "only" a problem of one special version/ revision it proofes again they're having problems with configuration and test management. Showing this a couple of times doesn't look very professional.

A year ago Ninebot was a shooting star. It looks very promising at this stage. Software programming is not easy but testing is a discipline you must be a master to detect false of programming. Maybe you've need a beta community willing/ eager to test beta firmwares/ app under NDA. I would do so if I would own an EU company.

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I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the 'extra power' some of the units have - the E+ top speed is around 12.5mph but some are getting over 15mph.  Just may be the hardware isn't up to the job the software is asking of it when 'opened up' to these additional loads.

I'll be out again on mine with 1.2.9 in a bit as it's nice and sunny - for a change! - BUT I'll be taking extra care and wary of anything out of the ordinary.

Either way, there is clearly an issue with certain machines / certain software which needs to be cleared up or nobody will be buying anything from Ninebot again?

Just for the record, the one I've upgraded is an N10 serial and operators within the parameters advertised for the E+ model.  I won't be updating the 'spare' just yet - that's still on V1.2.2 and working perfectly well :)

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You'd expect they'd have learned from the 1.2.6 -fiasco to properly test the firmware... That was also burning boards? Except it seemed to mostly happen when people were already riding.

I doubt many people will be willing to test if the 1.2.9 breaks their Ninebot or not... even if it breaks "only" some models (or units from certain batches of same model and not from others), this is again a serious issue, as people won't likely know beforehand whether theirs is going to break or not. I've always viewed firmware upgrades as risky, and never done them even on devices that couldn't cause any harm if they break due to the update, unless the update brings something I really, really need (like a motherboard that won't work with a new processor I've got without a firmware update, for example).

It would be nice to have an option to downgrade the firmware if it's known to be faulty, but of course that wouldn't help if the mainboard's already damaged, unless you can identify the broken component(s) and replace them first (which for surface-mounted components can be very tricky).

As for the cause, like I suggested in Cranium's topic, I suspect that the one or more of the half-bridges driving the motor have damaged, and the low-side mosfet(s) is/are shorted (causing the jerkiness/stiffness of the motor when it's plugged to the board, as it shorts the motor phases, as I understand that it's one way to do braking). As for what could cause it, especially on a stationary unit... maybe the timing going haywire (although that would be more likely to happen at high speeds?) and the firmware opening both mosfets (high and low-side) of a single half-bridge at the same time, causing the current from battery to shoot through a circuit that has very low resistance (basically a short circuit). The BMS should cut the power very fast detecting the short circuit, but the mosfets are probably gone at that point. Too high gate-voltage can also damage semiconductors. Of course, this is all just speculation, and whatever the actual cause is, it shouldn't happen. Most people aren't probably that interested in the technical details why it broke, but I'm just curious... The mosfets of the bridges should be closed when there's no voltage at the gate, I think one should be able to measure if there's a short over the mosfet when the board's not powered. I'd test this with the broken Firewheel mainboard, but the mosfets on those are surface-mounted, so I can't get to the pins.

EDIT: Another option might be that the PWM-duty cycle is "too high" while the motor is still not turning or turning very, very slowly. The back-EMF of the motor will be at or near 0V, if the bridge now applies a large voltage to the coils, there's a very large potential (voltage) difference, causing large current to flow through it (only resisted by the internal resistance of the motor coils and the mosfets). This could probably burn the mosfets easily too.

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The new App "Ninebot" (not "Ninedroid") forced me to update the firmware - don´t know the exact text but think it said something like the device won´t work without updating. Should have made a screenshot...
Today I took a ride and after 1,5 km the Ninebot suddenly shut down and I crashed of cause. I think it smelled like something burned inside. The device is dead and I can´t turn it on by now.

My question is now: Who is responsible for this? Ninebot Inc., the distributor, the vendor? Who will pay for the repair or postage?

Edit: My serial started with "N10EP" if I remember this right. (it´s an E+)

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