Nikola Plus questions

[mike_bike_kite]

Me : 96Kg, 6'3". I'm not a speed demon but I do want to keep with 30mph traffic when I need to and it would be nice to have more range. I tend to use my wheel when shopping, visiting friends or going to coffee shops (when covid allows). I like most things about the Nik+ but I have a few questions:

• There was a fire with one Nikola 100v - was that a one off or is there something to watch out for?
• Will the handle work for me at my height? on my KS16S I was always leaning down to one side.
• Is it fairly easy to turn at speed or is it like the early 16X with the gyroscope effect?
• The standard pads are supposed to be poor - is there a good replacement?
• Has anyone removed the GW logo on the rear light, is it easy to do and does it improve the rear lighting?
• There's supposed to be a relay fix to stop the beeps at start up - is this easy to do?
• Do people get a cover or do they just put up with scratches? I guess I could always replace the outer case in the future or use a shrink wrap.
• Is the wheel fairly waterproof?
• Can you lift it up a flight of stairs?
• Does the fan make a lot of noise?
• What's the best way to paint the pedals to match the wheel?
• Does it really charge in 6 hours with standard charger? - it just seems quite quick to me.

[Rico]

The fire was a one time thing. Only some of the early 100V 21700 nikolas used the cells that the one that caught fire used, gotway now uses diffrent cells that haven't caught fire yet AFAIK

Im the same height as you, the trolley handle on the nik has been almost the perfect height for me, I also had a 16S before and it was to low for me too.

In my experience it depends a lot on tire pressure, at lower pressures (around 20-30 psi for my 110kg fully geared weight) it easy to turn at high speed with not that much gyro. But i ride at around 45-50 psi normally, and there definitely is a lot of gyro at high speed at high pressure. I think the gyro makes it fun to ride, as you have to fight the wheel a little, but it comes down to preference.

I use the stock pads and the pads from my old msuper x, they work fine for me but they make the wheel very wide. This also imo comes down to preference.

I just taped over the rear light lol, I always use the mode on the RGB ring where it has brake lights and white front lights.

Pretty sure that they now dont use speakers with that deafening startup sound, although im not sure. I never use the Bluetooth speaker so I just disconnected their power and that stopped the startup sound.

I dont have a cover, but i know that roll.nz makes covers for the nikola.

Yes, it is fairly waterproof

Yes, it can be brought up a flight of stairs, although i would not want to do that very often, it is quite heavy, just like all other high performance EUCs

The fan is audible if you listen for it on my 18650 100v nikola, but not annoyingly loud.

Pretty sure all new nikolas come with painted black pedals.

Yep 6 hours sounds about right.

Hope this helps

[mike_bike_kite]

Really appreciate that you took the time to answer all my questions. The wheel I'm looking at is coming from China (that's the only way I can afford it) but it definitely has silver pedals. The wheel's marked as a 100v Nikola with 1800Wh. It says it has the 21700 batteries coded LG m50t.  Would that be an older model of the same wheel? Out of interest, do you velcro your handle down so it doesn't get broken in a crash or do you just not crash.

[Rico]

The LG batteries are the new ones, the old ones were Panasonic. It is very possible that they have not updated the pictures and it will come with black pedals, I dont really see any point in painting the pedals anyway. They will get scratched eventually, and then they will imo look really ugly with metal colored scrapes on a otherwise black part. No I did not velcro my handle down, I then proceeded to crash once and now the handle is pretty messed up, so I highly recommend you do velcro it down and avoid the mistake I did. Trust me if I could just "not crash" I would definitely do that

 

[Mike Sacristan]

People who have used a relay did it to avoid the annoying startup sound.

A couple of riders in the group use the rollnz cover and it is a nice cover.

I used velcro tape (the soft part) along the sides of the groove for the trolley handle to increase friction and stop the handle from auto-deploying during crashes.

The rollnz cover has a zipper which must be opened to deploy the handle.

The Nikola is very water resistant. One rider has a bit of water coming in through the rubber gasket that seals the heatsink under the motherboard. This is very uncommon.

As of a few months back the Nik comes with the CST C-1773 which has much less gyro than the original CST C-1488.

Which shop will you be ordering from? Loomo? Petra ordered her modded Loomo from them in April. It came with black inserts and black pedals.
Even my early batch Nikola has black pedals.

"We promise we will ship the latest version product to you." 

You can watch our whole idiotic process on how we tried to velcro down the handle... time stamp embedded in URL.

Monika carries her MSP down and up two flights of stairs every day. Several times.

 

[Mike Sacristan]

4 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

The standard pads are supposed to be poor - is there a good replacement?

I use Frank pads and I love them.
Try the standard pads first and see if they are okay for you. Petra uses them and she is totally fine with them.

[mike_bike_kite]

Thanks for the responses Mike. It was your other post that made me pull the trigger on the Nik. I'm not sure why I originally saw the silver pedals on the Nik+, I suspect the link I was given from google was an outdated page, but when I restarted the browser and tried searching from within Ali everything worked out OK. I have no idea what tyre I'll get - I suspect if I knew then I'd just start worrying about that! 

[Mike Sacristan]

44 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Thanks for the responses Mike. It was your other post that made me pull the trigger on the Nik. I'm not sure why I originally saw the silver pedals on the Nik+, I suspect the link I was given from google was an outdated page, but when I restarted the browser and tried searching from within Ali everything worked out OK. I have no idea what tyre I'll get - I suspect if I knew then I'd just start worrying about that! 

Haha I know the feeling. I am also extremely "thorough" if we put it that way. 

Congrats on the wheel! Let the waiting begin! 

[Beachboy]

Does the nik+ comes with 2000w hollow motor?

 

[mike_bike_kite]

1 hour ago, Beachboy said:

Does the nik+ comes with 2000w hollow motor?

No. It comes with a traditional 2500W motor. Most folk seem really happy with the Nik motor, it accelerates well, will cruise happily at 30mph and has a high top speed.  The hollow motor does have a few advantages but it weighs 1.5kg more and it isn't totally proven yet.

[Rico]

43 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

No. It comes with a traditional 2500W motor. Most folk seem really happy with the Nik motor, it accelerates well, will cruise happily at 30mph and has a high top speed.  The hollow motor does have a few advantages but it weighs 1.5kg more and it isn't totally proven 

The nik has a 2000w motor, not 2500w.

[meepmeepmayer]

It's the same motor as in the MSX.

[mike_bike_kite]

20 minutes ago, Rico said:

The nik has a 2000w motor, not 2500w.

Weird, I did actually check before typing but it now appears the whole internet has changed and now agrees with you. Perhaps I'll just have another coffee 

[Beachboy]

1 hour ago, mike_bike_kite said:

No. It comes with a traditional 2500W motor. Most folk seem really happy with the Nik motor, it accelerates well, will cruise happily at 30mph and has a high top speed.  The hollow motor does have a few advantages but it weighs 1.5kg more and it isn't totally proven yet.

 

1 hour ago, Rico said:

The nik has a 2000w motor, not 2500w.

Aaaww... I was hoping it has hollow motor, really curious about it, I readt somewhere about it & seems promising besides why would they make new design if its not beneficial..

for me the nik+ is the prettiest wheel of all, I hope gotway keep the model & upgrade it constantly..

[meepmeepmayer]

Putting the RS motors into the Nikola seems like a no-brainer. But it looks like Begode are focusing on the EX and Monster Pro first, so if this ever happens, it might take a while.

Can you imagine the Nikola with the HT motor...

[Beachboy]

3 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Putting the RS motors into the Nikola seems like a no-brainer. But it looks like Begode are focusing on the EX and Monster Pro first, so if this ever happens, it might take a while.

Can you imagine the Nikola with the HT motor...

Yeah HT.....I like it...💪🏻💪🏻

anyway whats the biggest tyre can be fitted there?

 

[mike_bike_kite]

Couple more questions on the Nik+:

1. It has a volt meter on the side but how do the numbers relate to battery percentage? Is there some reason they didn't show battery % which is what I'd imagine people actually want to know? 
2. What PSI would I use (I'm 96Kg)?
3. Did the start up sound ever get quieter on the later models? would I still get the beeps if I disconnected the speaker?
4. I've seen fancy custom wording added that glow inside the case - I don't think I'd do it but I am curious how it was done?

 

[meepmeepmayer]

33 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

It has a volt meter on the side but how do the numbers relate to battery percentage?

3.3V*24 = 79.2V is 0%, 4.1125V*24 = 98.7V is 100%.

Go linearly in between: Battery % = (your voltage - 79.2V)/19.5V.

[19.5V is just 98.7V-79.2V, the voltage difference between 0% and 100%]

For example 84V is (84-79.2)/19.5 = 0.246... = 25%.

Side notes:

• The 3 digit display won't show voltages of 100V or more because there's not enough digits, how very Gotway
• Voltages below the 0% voltage still show as 0%, voltage above the 100% voltage still show as 100%. You can charge over 100%, indeed a full battery is 111% but displays as 100%.

54 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Is there some reason they didn't show battery % which is what I'd imagine people actually want to know?

It's the easiest thing for Gotway to do.

The voltage is an objective physical measurement. The battery percentage is subjective in that it can be computed (from the voltage) in different ways, depending on what you want it to mean. The above way is just the dirt simple way to do it. Do you want 50% to mean you have half your range left? That's definitely not true for the formula above. Change your algorithm accordingly, that's what EUC World offers as an option.

Also the battery percentage might not even be available "inside" the wheel, just as a number computed by an app later. The wheel might just know the voltage. Would it be hard to make the calculation to a battery percentage in the firmware? Certainly not. But... it's still a tiny bit of work. Why do it in your firmware and figure out how to display it in your display if someone else can do it in their app?

So Gotway went the path of least resistance, I guess. And you can't argue about voltage, which is a side benefit.

But you are definitely right, being able to show a battery percentage instead would be sweet!

37 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

I've seen fancy custom wording added that glow inside the case - I don't think I'd do it but I am curious how it was done?

A light behind a stencil (right word?), with a colored translucent diffraction piece in between - you only see the holes lit up. I think the Monster V3 did something like it, and people copied it.

[mike_bike_kite]

37 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

3.3V*24 = 79.2V is 0%, 4.1125V*24 = 98.7V is 100%.

Go linearly in between: Battery % = (your voltage - 79.2V)/19.5V.

[19.5V is just 98.7V-79.2V, the voltage difference between 0% and 100%]

For example 84V is (84-79.2)/19.5 = 0.246... = 25%.

Fantastic info though I'm not sure I could do that calculation while riding along but I think the following must be close enough:

• percent = (volts - 80) * 5

[meepmeepmayer]

17 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Fantastic info though I'm not sure I could do that calculation while riding along but I think the following must be close enough:

• percent = (volts - 80) * 5

Great idea!

Also, you might soon get an intuition what x voltage means, without needing any battery percentage.

Or you just remember some numbers. 30% = 85V, and with voltage drop 30% is more like 15%, that's when the battery beeps start. So you can ride in earnest down to 85V (no load). Half way (range) is maybe... 65%? That corresponds to 92V. And so on.

Or you go by range, you know which range to expect from your wheel once you test it, and forget what happens in between.

Lots of options

[Mike Sacristan]

6 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

3.3V*24 = 79.2V is 0%, 4.1125V*24 = 98.7V is 100%.

Go linearly in between: Battery % = (your voltage - 79.2V)/19.5V.

[19.5V is just 98.7V-79.2V, the voltage difference between 0% and 100%]

My cells say 4.2V.

My understanding is 79.2V - 100.8V.

It goes slightly below 3.3V per cell though and I have been down to 78.5V and tiltback at around 20kmh.

Still I count it as 80V-100V and then it is easy to break it down in chunks.
95V = 75% (5 beeps at 59kmh).
90V = 50% (5 beeps at 56kmh)
85V = 25% (5 beeps at 53kmh)
80V = 0% (5 beeps at 51kmh)

The last 6V won't last as long as the 6V in the middle. So % would need to follow a curve.
I can get 50km on the first half of the battery and 40km on the last half.
The last 2V just fly away as do the first 2V.

7 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

• What PSI would I use (I'm 96Kg)?

Sebastian (100kg) felt that 30 PSI was unrideable on my Nik with it's bald tyre. We lowered to 25 and it was great. I would choose 28-30 PSI for your weight but you might find it sketchy.

7 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

• Did the start up sound ever get quieter on the later models? would I still get the beeps if I disconnected the speaker?

A tiny bit quieter. The beeper is it's own unit and has no relation to the speaker. A friend of mine built a delay into the speaker so that it powers on shortly after the power button is pressed and then the Super Mario sound has already played into a dead speaker.

7 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

• I've seen fancy custom wording added that glow inside the case - I don't think I'd do it but I am curious how it was done?

That was Afeez and it was a customisation made for him by Gotway. I imagine the V-meter is programmable but I am the wrong kind of guy to get his hands dirty doing such things. 

[mike_bike_kite]

Is any periodic maintenance required on the wheel other than tyre pressure and charging? I read about Gotway monsters needing their axles torqued up from time to time. Also, when riding, roughly how many amps can be used before I get an alert? I know apps will alert the rider but it would be nice to know what to expect.

[Planemo]

8 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Is any periodic maintenance required on the wheel other than tyre pressure and charging? I read about Gotway monsters needing their axles torqued up from time to time. Also, when riding, roughly how many amps can be used before I get an alert? I know apps will alert the rider but it would be nice to know what to expect.

I am not aware of any regular maintenance issues with the Nik. The axle setup is more like (if not the same) as the MSX which has proved reliable and not requiring torque checks like the Monster. Re amps, assuming you are talking 100v version, I have my EUCW  alarm set at 120a peak, 90a continuous. I have yet to overpower the wheel, although I do hit the alarm a couple of times on each ride (felt via vibrations through my Pebble). I am not aware that the wheel itself sends any over-current alarms? I don't know, as I only ever hear the 80% beep.

[Mike Sacristan]

2 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

Is any periodic maintenance required on the wheel other than tyre pressure and charging? I read about Gotway monsters needing their axles torqued up from time to time. Also, when riding, roughly how many amps can be used before I get an alert? I know apps will alert the rider but it would be nice to know what to expect.

Oh dear... working with IT I used to analyse and monitor things continuously. Riding EUCs I do nothing. Nooooothing.
Except change tyres against my will lol.

143000km on my MSX. Not even a tyre change. I have opened it once to remove a piece of gravel. I jump it at skate parks, ride it down stairs, etc. The axle is 100% tight.
My friend Sebastian (100kg rider) has been jumping the hell out of his MSP HT and the axle required retightening. He retightened it and did more donkey jumps and it got loose again. Next time, more torque to tighten it plus red loctite. YOLO.

You can use more amps than you will be willing to lean. I have never gotten an amp warning on my Nikola.. but donkey jumping my MSX and doing a shitty landing I have gotten a pedal dip and beep. The pedal dip recovers within 0.5 seconds. If you are going to monitor for amps in EUCWorld try setting 110 Amps and see when you hit it. If you hit it too often raise it to 120.
 

2 hours ago, Planemo said:

I am not aware of any regular maintenance issues with the Nik. The axle setup is more like (if not the same) as the MSX which has proved reliable and not requiring torque checks like the Monster. Re amps, assuming you are talking 100v version, I have my EUCW  alarm set at 120a peak, 90a continuous. I have yet to overpower the wheel, although I do hit the alarm a couple of times on each ride (felt via vibrations through my Pebble). I am not aware that the wheel itself sends any over-current alarms? I don't know, as I only ever hear the 80% beep.

Exactly... although Simon did buttplant doing a donkey brake on the Nikola and in medium pedal mode.
The wheel dipped back and he lost balance.
I have never gotten it to dip on the hard mode though.

We did some donkey testing on the Mten3 and Simon was able to overpower it with some effort. My survival instincts are too powerful for this kind of donkey riding though.

[mike_bike_kite]

30 minutes ago, Mike Sacristan said:

143000km on my MSX. Not even a tyre change.

Are you sure about that?

What's a donkey brake? is it just doing a "sit" when trying to stop quickly? (I didn't miss a "h" there)