60 mile Review Veteran Sherman

[Ben Kim]

Finally after 5 weeks of painful waiting, it has arrived! 

I will skip the common known issues already reported by others (inefficient at slow speeds, lack of low end torque, poor LCD cover glue, motor sheath deforming/melting, pedal dip) 

contrary to @Marty Backe experience, my wheel fully charged to 101.0V with no issues. It also had a 106.3 kmh no-load speed, consistent with others. 

I switched between soft and medium mode, and found that medium suits my riding style best with a slight dip which assists while weight shifting, without the disorienting backwards dip of soft mode. Hard mode feels very much like Nikola soft mode (which isn’t all that soft to begin with).

My 60 mile ride left me with 84V remaining, and given low battery tiltback is at 76V, I believe it had at least another 20 casual miles in it. I will be doing an even longer range ride this coming weekend with higher sustained speeds to see how the Sherman holds up.

What amazes me about this wheel is that Monster-like feeling of being sneaky fast. i thought I was going 20-25 mph but looking at my phone, i was actually traveling 33-35 mph. I will be giving the wheel another 40 miles or so before I push it north of 40 (My top speed was 39.6 mph tonight). The motor whine is irritating at speeds below 20 mph. It is reminiscent of old school Kingsong wheels with that annoying whistling sound, which makes me want to push this wheel simply to get rid of that noise! 

The weight isn’t as big a deal given there are two handles to lift it by, aside from the awkwardness of lifting it that way. I actually found it easier to lift than my 70lb battery modded Monster 3 given the weight distribution. 

My wheel arrived with no valve stem cover, or pedal nuts! Luckily, I had spare pedal nuts from a spare set of Gotway pedals, so I wasn’t left being unable to ride. 

The tire takes some getting used to, but within 15 miles I was aggressively carving and comfortably handling the wheel. The soft compound really absorbs some of the worst road conditions NYC has to offer like a champ. Road noise aside, this is an excellent tire choice, in my honest opinion.

With that said, there is absolutely nothing out there that can mate a ~50 mph top speed with 80 real-world “fast” miles. The issues found from the initial run of Sherman’s appear to be identified and corrected for the eWheels initial supply, but I do fear there are some compromises given the change in firmware logic based on feedback. I, for one, do not wish for any firmware changes; they designed this wheel for the street, not off-road (contrary to its utilitarian design). I genuinely hope they do not make any knee jerk firmware changes because it would be a shame to ruin what may potentially be one of the best riding EUCs ever made to date. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You can’t magically make a motor wound for speed have MSP torque to tackle overheat hill. Just understand this is NOT the wheel of choice for those use cases. This is a street demon, plain and simple. If you crave speed, range and stability in a single package for the street, you would be hard pressed to find any real alternatives currently. 

[MrRobot]

Do you guys have as many ridiculously large speed bumps in NYC? Curious how it handles those with the roll cage clearance. Can you go over them safely without having to slow to a crawl?

[Marty Backe]

Nice summation. I'll be able to answer the firmware questions as soon as I get my new motor. Let's hope they haven't changed anything in a noticeable way.

I'm envious of your whole 'extra volt'  Seriously, that will equate to a bit more range.

I agree that it's very easy to ride fast on this wheel without realizing it. Just like the Monster 

[Ben Kim]

14 hours ago, MrRobot said:

Do you guys have as many ridiculously large speed bumps in NYC? Curious how it handles those with the roll cage clearance. Can you go over them safely without having to slow to a crawl?

We dodge those craters, not go into them, so I wouldn’t know. 

[MrRobot]

Not potholes, these guys

 

[Ben Kim]

8 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Nice summation. I'll be able to answer the firmware questions as soon as I get my new motor. Let's hope they haven't changed anything in a noticeable way.

I'm envious of your whole 'extra volt'  Seriously, that will equate to a bit more range.

I agree that it's very easy to ride fast on this wheel without realizing it. Just like the Monster 

I’ve noticed this wheel has the annoying z10 phantom power drain problem. unplugged and it’s down to 100.4V. Will probably have to leave the charger plugged in until i’m ready to ride.

[Marty Backe]

If it was truly like the Z10, it would probably be 98-volts after a couple of days.

It'll be interesting to know how much it drops after ~3-days of inactivity. I realize it'll probably be awhile before you let a couple days go by without you riding it 

[Ben Kim]

17 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

If it was truly like the Z10, it would probably be 98-volts after a couple of days.

It'll be interesting to know how much it drops after ~3-days of inactivity. I realize it'll probably be awhile before you let a couple days go by without you riding it 

single dad problems sir. It may very well be 3 days before I get to ride it again! Just finished carving out version 2.0 of my seat. 

[MrRobot]

So how is it after having more time to get a better feel for it? 

[Mrd777]

On 7/29/2020 at 12:19 AM, Ben Kim said:

power drain problem. unplugged and it’s down to 100.4V

This is super annoying to hear that the wheel has parasitic drain!  This is a disaster as Ive had experience with an expensive e board doing this, as lithium cells are sometimes impossible to recover once they get below a certain voltage. I hope this doesn't mean we have to open the wheel and unplug the battery if we are going away for a month!

[Chriull]

On 7/29/2020 at 6:19 AM, Ben Kim said:

I’ve noticed this wheel has the annoying z10 phantom power drain problem. unplugged and it’s down to 100.4V. Will probably have to leave the charger plugged in until i’m ready to ride.

If one looks at the charging graph of the ncr18650ga cells (https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Sanyo NCR18650GA 3500mAh (Red) UK.html) they (can) loose about 0.02V per cell after beeing unplugged from the charger.

In the veteran are 24 cells in series - so 24*0.02V would be 0.48V drop (within 1/2 to 1 hour).

Could be about your noticed drop. After this it (hopefully) stays about constant...

[Ben Kim]

4 hours ago, Mrd777 said:

This is super annoying to hear that the wheel has parasitic drain!  This is a disaster as Ive had experience with an expensive e board doing this, as lithium cells are sometimes impossible to recover once they get below a certain voltage. I hope this doesn't mean we have to open the wheel and unplug the battery if we are going away for a month!

Might've jumped the gun there.  I haven't ridden my wheel for 3 days its still holding 100.7V.  It could be what @Chriull said.  

[Marty Backe]

6 hours ago, Ben Kim said:

Might've jumped the gun there.  I haven't ridden my wheel for 3 days its still holding 100.7V.  It could be what @Chriull said.  

Yeah, based on what I know about the Veteran control board, I'd be shocked if there is any power drain while the wheel is off. It should be like every other Gotway and KingSong wheel. Inmotion and Ninebot - a different story for sure.

[AtlasP]

40 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

Yeah, based on what I know about the Veteran control board, I'd be shocked if there is any power drain while the wheel is off. It should be like every other Gotway and KingSong wheel. Inmotion and Ninebot - a different story for sure.

?  All of my InMotion wheels hold charge absolutely fine. Also I believe the smaller Ninebot One S1/S2 are fine/don't exhibit this problem. It was only the Ninebot Z10 that had a major problem there.

[Marty Backe]

32 minutes ago, AtlasP said:

?  All of my InMotion wheels hold charge absolutely fine. Also I believe the smaller Ninebot One S1/S2 are fine/don't exhibit this problem. It was only the Ninebot Z10 that had a major problem there.

When I had the V11 open for a few days, there are ~1/2 dozen LED's blinking away on the control board. Did you know that you can connect to the V11 bluetooth without "turning on" the wheel? This is a non-trivial amount of power being consumed by the V11. I have no idea what the actual amount is or how it equates to the Z10, but it's certainly more than Gotway or KingSong. Having an always on Bluetooth radio has to consume some power.

[AtlasP]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

When I had the V11 open for a few days, there are ~1/2 dozen LED's blinking away on the control board. Did you know that you can connect to the V11 bluetooth without "turning on" the wheel? This is a non-trivial amount of power being consumed by the V11. I have no idea what the actual amount is or how it equates to the Z10, but it's certainly more than Gotway or KingSong. Having an always on Bluetooth radio has to consume some power.

I haven't received my V11 yet, but on no other InMotion wheel can you connect to the Bluetooth when the wheel is off--it has to be on.

I'd be very curious to hear if anyone with a production V11 can actually do this (connect to their wheel via Bluetooth while it's off), or if it was just some quirk about the pre-production model and/or something as a result of your whole weird firmware situation (new firmware on preproduction board, b0rked update, etc).

Edited August 6, 2020 by AtlasP

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, AtlasP said:

I haven't received my V11 yet, but on no other InMotion wheel can you connect to the Bluetooth when the wheel is off--it has to be on.

I'd be very curious to hear if anyone with a production V11 can actually do this (connect to their wheel via Bluetooth while it's off), or if it was just some quirk about the pre-production model and/or something as a result of your whole weird firmware situation (new firmware on preproduction board, b0rked update, etc).

Like I said, there's a whole lot of blinking lights going on underneath the hood.

If you long-press the power button (20-seconds to be exact), the board actually turns off - everything goes dark and you can no longer connect to it.

Since it's running the production firmware I don't think it's a quirk of this particular wheel.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Marty Backe

[UniVehje]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

When I had the V11 open for a few days, there are ~1/2 dozen LED's blinking away on the control board. Did you know that you can connect to the V11 bluetooth without "turning on" the wheel?

This sounds like the behavior we had with our V10F when it was having issues. I couldn’t turn it on or off and you could connect Bluetooth always and LEDs blinking. When the wheel got fixed, this behavior wasn’t there anymore. It’s definitely not common on Inmotion. Is your V11 still like that? 
That 20 second long-press feature is new also, so the V11 might actually has some kind of stand-by mode. Maybe @Inmotion Global could enlighten us on this?

[Ben Kim]

Up to 120 miles now.  I think I finally trust the board enough to crank it a little, it's a completely new feeling riding and passing cars like they're standing still on a 35 mph road.  I've gotten it up to 44 mph personally, but this wheel easily has more in it.  It's not even beeping at that speed!  This is definitely the ultimate long distance fast speed solution. 

I do plan on adding a Gotway EX to my collection, pending the preprod teardowns and lift speed tests. 

[LZMutant]

On 8/6/2020 at 6:41 PM, Ben Kim said:

Up to 120 miles now.  I think I finally trust the board enough to crank it a little, it's a completely new feeling riding and passing cars like they're standing still on a 35 mph road.  I've gotten it up to 44 mph personally, but this wheel easily has more in it.  It's not even beeping at that speed!  This is definitely the ultimate long distance fast speed solution. 

I do plan on adding a Gotway EX to my collection, pending the preprod teardowns and lift speed tests. 

Hi Ben - 

I've enjoyed your posts regarding the Sherman.  Tell me, what tire do you have?  The street tire or the knobby hybrid?

Soon I'm going to have to make my choice and I'm vacillating between the two and looking for input.

Cheers - 
Larry

[Ben Kim]

On 8/25/2020 at 10:08 PM, LZMutant said:

Hi Ben - 

I've enjoyed your posts regarding the Sherman.  Tell me, what tire do you have?  The street tire or the knobby hybrid?

Soon I'm going to have to make my choice and I'm vacillating between the two and looking for input.

Cheers - 
Larry

100% the knobby. A little noisy on the street but super stable. I would say it rivals the Monster in terms of stability and 90% of the shock absorbing.

When you have a wheel capable of hitting 50 mph, stability trumps every other factor. 

[Ben Kim]

400 mile update:

This wheel is meant to be torqued and torqued hard. It goes against everything I’ve known regarding high speed riding on Gotway 100V, the battery barely sags and it keeps going no matter how hard you’re pushing it. On Gotways with smaller batteries you had to gingerly push at higher speeds to avoid cutting out. This thing keeps going and going! 

Still no issues to report, motor wires have not melted on my first batch wheel nor has my wheel exhibited any oddities. 

Range goes in the toilet when you’re torque happy, still a rock solid 35 miles for the first 50% of the battery. I’ll take 35 miles of 45 mph. Can’t get that anywhere else! 

Still contend my first batch wheel is tuned to ride very Monster-like. From what I’m told, the later software revisions will make it feel more like an MSX so my opinion on this may not be applicable to eWheels customers. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by Ben Kim

[Bridgeboy]

@Ben Kim and @Marty Backe

What app are you using to measure battery percentage and voltage? I'm using latest DarknessBot 6.1 (287) through TestFlight.

My brand new Sherman, delivered two days ago on 10/09/2020, is only charging to 98% and 100.2 to 100.3 volts with the OEM 5V charger, according to Darknessbot.

Also, what firmware do you have? Darknessbot reports I have 1053.0.  Is this old firmware? New? Jason from eWheels says this Sherman was loaded out of China only 3-weeks ago, maybe 4-weeks ago now, so I expected it would have updated firmware. And I received mine a good 2-months+ after yours Ben.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Bridgeboy

[Ben Kim]

22 minutes ago, Bridgeboy said:

@Ben Kim and @Marty Backe

What app are you using to measure battery percentage and voltage? I'm using latest DarknessBot 6.1 (287) through TestFlight.

My brand new Sherman, delivered two days ago on 10/09/2020, is only charging to 98% and 100.2 to 100.3 volts with the OEM 5V charger, according to Darknessbot.

Also, what firmware do you have? Darknessbot reports I have 1053.0.  Is this old firmware? New? Jason from eWheels says this Sherman was loaded out of China only 3-weeks ago, maybe 4-weeks ago now, so I expected it would have updated firmware. And I received mine a good 2-months+ after yours Ben.

I'm using Darknessbot as well; mine charges to 101.1V, over 100%.  It's a crapshoot, some Shermans charge to 99.6V others charger to 101 like mine.  It's nothing really to be worried about.  My Sherman was literally first batch; you can tell by the LK6 title when viewing Bluetooth connections, firmware is 0.0; the LCD can't even switch over to MPH/miles.  

[Bridgeboy]

4 minutes ago, Ben Kim said:

I'm using Darknessbot as well; mine charges to 101.1V, over 100%.  It's a crapshoot, some Shermans charge to 99.6V others charger to 101 like mine.  It's nothing really to be worried about.  My Sherman was literally first batch; you can tell by the LK6 title when viewing Bluetooth connections, firmware is 0.0; the LCD can't even switch over to MPH/miles.  

Mine says LK1158 in Bluetooth connections. Does that tell us anything meaningful? Does that literally mean its the 1,158th manufactured?

I also just ordered the 8V "smart" rapid charger from eWheels. I'm wondering if charging the wheel with that, with its intelligent circuitry might "fix" the batteries to charge to 100%. I guess I'll see...