Kingsong S20/S22 (Confirmed)

[techyiam]

6 hours ago, GoGeorgeGo said:

Yeah absolutely. The entire motor as a replacement cost 270$. Ill save the 200$+ in shipping costs time and hassle and just buy the backup motor if im unable to replace the 20$ bearing. Now i have new bearings a backup rim and a nice hub motor that just needs a bearing replacement for a 70$ difference.

If a rider has the skills and tools to do what you are suggesting, couldn't he just send just his motor back, and not the whole wheel, since he has great warranty?

Should people not buy from eWheels then?

Bless you for finding a pair of new Begode T3 bearings replacement for $20. Really appreciate it if you could share the link.

6 hours ago, GoGeorgeGo said:

Plus you can find a local mechanic capable of replacing the bearings on the cheap if you cant handle the process yourself. You might need to ask around but its still way cheaper and faster than shipping it across the country  

Unfortunately,  I don't know of anyone who would do the bearings replacement locally for a T3 on the cheap. Have you watched the repair video posted by it-Monkey. I can't see it being cheap to get it replaced properly. 

Locally, I was invoiced $C270 for just the labour to replace the motor wheel assembly on a V12. This is a easy task on a V12. 

6 hours ago, GoGeorgeGo said:

If your in the market to buy a wheel and your whant a v12 or s20 or whatever, saying wait a year or longer is the same thing as saying dont buy that wheel. No ones waiting a year to make a purchase 

This is probably a figure of speech, otherwise ShanePlanet may have something to say about that.

I can't say about the S20, but the batch 3 or 4, V12 should be coming a lot sooner. In fact, EEVEES current V12 stock should be batch 3, if I am not mistaken. (Their Black Friday Sale was batch 2.) It is just that the new driver board from inMotion is not ready yet.

I know that there are a lot of addicts out there. I get that. eWheels, EEVEES, and other dealers apparently have sold a lot of S20 preorders. And if someone bought from eWheels or EEVEES, perhaps it may not be that bad. But if someone can't wrench, nor be able to find a saint who can do good work for cheap, and can't get good warranty, it wouldn't be sensible to get the first batch. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by techyiam

[Paul A]

 

[Paul A]

 

[EMA]

a spring/coil suspension is better for heavy duty and big drops --> bike/skate park

for a general all round use an air shock will provide a better experience, it handle better small imperfections

[Freeforester]

Must’ve run short of glue after assembling Afeez’s wheel! Might have been better had they given the gluepotted one to Ian, he’s one of the very few so far to take it off road and/or into mud, etc. Regional variations apply!

Edited February 23, 2022 by Freeforester

[techyiam]

In Speedy Feet's video, he found one of the pedal screws came lose. A lot of thread was exposed. But he was able to use his fingers to screw it back in. It seemed doubtful that there was much thread locking compound used. Or the pedals were adjusted but someone fail to reapply on reassembly. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by techyiam

[techyiam]

14 hours ago, EMA said:

a spring/coil suspension is better for heavy duty and big drops --> bike/skate park

for a general all round use an air shock will provide a better experience, it handle better small imperfections

Granted that air shocks has built-in strong non-linear action. But with progressive links, couldn't coil spring based suspension achieve similar small bump compliance performance too?

Edited February 23, 2022 by techyiam

[Freeforester]

I see Chooch had the aero-version (no front bumper, presumably already broken by an earlier tester), it’ll be good to see this aspect put to bed with the new bumper -shouldn’t take long to airmail a few out, presumably.

[UniVehje]

12 hours ago, supercurio said:

Thanks @Ronin Ryder!

Has anybody else noticed that on all videos of the NYC S20 demo and @Hsiang's review, it looked like the the suspension had little to no movement, like it was locked or set the the absolute hardest setting?

The only time you can see it moving is at 3:23 when dropping off the table.

Do you think it's because NYC street riders tend to prefer no suspension or only really stiff suspension to help with unexpected potholes?

I've noticed the same thing on every video. I think it's just designed for jumps and going down stairs, not for comfort. 

People will argue it has technically better suspension. Same discussion as with S18 and V11. You can expect this discussion to start again when V13 is announced. The discussion should not be about "best" but rather about preference. I much preferred my V11 feel over S18 although technically you could claim S18 has more advanced system. I'm a bit worried that S20 suspension is not for me and hope V13 would have a different approach and come to market before summer. Or that I can tune the S20 suspension for comfort. I know I can always change it to my preference, which is a really important benefit of this design. Looking forward to someone testing different systems. 

I used to own Citroen C5 with air suspension, known for comfortable ride. I also used to own Audi TTS with magnetic ride suspension, adjustable for comfort or sporty modes. They both are known for good suspension but still very different. There's no telling which has better suspension as they are trying to achieve different things. One is better for a track day and the other better for driving to work on an uneven surface. I think this same distinction should be made in future EUCs also. Not just dividing arguments over which is "better." Unfortunately, comfortable and soft suspension for long rides does not get the views on YouTube. 

12 hours ago, Tawpie said:

Might be because a soft suspension makes acceleration less good?

I don't think it has anything to do with that. 

[Rawnei]

Meanwhile like every reviewer says it feels very smooth riding on and that bumps on roads are hardly noticeable, so I think it's another case of worrying about a problem that really doesn't exist.

[UniVehje]

15 minutes ago, Rawnei said:

Meanwhile like every reviewer says it feels very smooth riding on and that bumps on roads are hardly noticeable, so I think it's another case of worrying about a problem that really doesn't exist.

I hope so. I've noticed that the videos are very different than two years ago when the first suspension wheels came out. Back then it was all about slow motion footage of suspension working. Now it's about jumps and stairs and hardly any slow motion footage of suspension working on normal riding. 

[mrelwood]

36 minutes ago, Rawnei said:

Meanwhile like every reviewer says it feels very smooth riding on and that bumps on roads are hardly noticeable, so I think it's another case of worrying about a problem that really doesn't exist.

Do you happen to remember what every early reviewer said about the S18 suspension?

[techyiam]

13 hours ago, Paradox said:

A firmer suspension allows for higher speeds.

Start at 14:32: Talks about feeling better at higher speeds with firmer settings. 

Start at 10:17:  Discusses suspension settings.

[Eucner]

15 minutes ago, techyiam said:

Start at 14:32: Talks about feeling better at higher speeds with firmer settings. 

Start at 10:17:  Discusses suspension settings.

At 6:18, he called a coil shock as an air shock. Neither did they find the preload settings. Tuber's are too much in hurry to publish their reviews. Not enough time to learn all new features.

At the higher speed bumps hit harder and harder suspension is needed.

[techyiam]

25 minutes ago, Eucner said:

At 6:18, he called a coil shock as an air shock. Neither did they find the preload settings. Tuber's are too much in hurry to publish their reviews. Not enough time to learn all new features.

At the higher speed bumps hit harder and harder suspension is needed.

To be fair, it is not clear the sag was off. Did they need to adjust preload to correct sag?

Jimmy did demonstrate the effects of the damping settings. I find that useful.

For the same bumps, traveling at a higher speed does indeed result in higher impact forces, and thus compresses the spring more. With higher suspension energy to dissipate, logically more damping is required. But when the rider comes down in speed with the same damping settings, the ride will feel firmer.

[supercurio]

SpeedyFeet did a second range test and this one is concerning me more.
If confirmed on real production units it means that when ridden hard for part of a ride, the range can diminish to well below what's typically observed on 1500 Wh 84V wheel, indicating a pretty poor efficiency of the 126V controller / motor combo.

Observations

0:41 Charging
Confirming charger only goes up to 124.33V / 124.49V instead of 126V
Cells see their end of charge at 4.14V / 4.15V instead of 4.2V, so that'll cause a loss of range and might make top-balancing difficult after a while.

4:17 Tiltback
At that point the packs are indeed at the final tiltback voltage
95.17V  / 95.29V is 3.17V per cell while not riding. Final titlback is usually 3.15V per cell on Kingsong wheel, and it's already pretty deep in the discharge compared to other OEMs.
Battery 2 Cell 6 is already down to 3.13V, below titlback limit
The evaluation of 17% battery reported by Kingsong app is completely bogus.
At this point the wheel should not be ridden, with a risk to damage the cells or cut-out when draining significant current at this voltage 

6:53 After cutout
82.59V / 82.75V is 2.75V per cell is below what these packs should be discharged.
It's possible that the BMS disconnected the output to protect the cells, that the board could not provide the torque to keep you balanced at that low voltage.
Battery 2 Cell 6 down to 2.64V, close to the minimum voltage allowed in their datasheet: 2.5V. Would lead to permanent degradation if drained further, and must have been lower than 2.64V when ridden.

Conclusions: 

•  although the packs are not fully saturated at the beginning of the ride, it's hard to explain how much energy this wheel drains for such short range
• speed alarms and tiltback at low voltage are well adjusted
• for now, soft tuner must be used for battery level instead of the standard KingSong app

Range: 27,3 mile / 44km

What do you think, is 94% a fair estimate for and end of charge at 4.15V;
How much more range to expect with a real 126V charger?

Edited February 23, 2022 by supercurio

[Rawnei]

It is curious how others are reporting about 100km/62miles range of medium-fast riding and 44km feels very short even if you ride fast, so I don't know what to think at this point.

[enaon]

37 minutes ago, supercurio said:

95.17V  / 95.29V is 3.17V per cell while not riding. Final titlback is usually 3.15V per cell on Kingsong wheel, and it's already pretty deep in the discharge compared to other OEMs.

I think some ks are going down to 3v.

But in any case, his battery looks problematic. On the 0:48 time mark there are cells at 4.16, and other at 4.13, this is not ok, it needs balancing, and balancing cannot be done with this charger ks send over. 

4.13v is about 85% charge, I think speedy feet should make a video explaining to himself and others what the readings he's got are. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by enaon

[UniVehje]

32 minutes ago, supercurio said:

SpeedyFeet did a second range test and this one is concerning me more.
If confirmed on real production units it means that when ridden hard for part of a ride, the range can diminish to well below what's typically observed on 1500 Wh 84V wheel, indicating a pretty poor efficiency of the 126V controller / motor combo.

Just checked and in 2019 Ian did a range test on 1554 Wh 18XL and got 36 miles / 58 kilometres. He usually gets very low mileage on his tests but there's no way 44 km is real for S20. At least I hope the hype around bigger voltage doesn't cost us range. I will cancel my preorder if I don't get 40 % more range than my old 18XL. 

18XL lets you ride until 3.0V/cell. I would expect S20 to be the same and that's why it gives you high percentage at 3.17V/cell. But something's not right with his wheel. 

[yoos]

30 minutes ago, supercurio said:

when ridden hard for part of a ride, the range can diminish to well below what's typically observed on 1500 Wh 84V wheel, indicating a pretty poor efficiency of the 126V controller / motor combo.

I don't know how hard Ian rode the S20 (and for how long) but a crude estimate from wind drag alone [force~v², power~v³] suggests that consumption (wh/km) doubles when stepping up from 50kph to 70kph [air-drag-related consumption ~ power/speed ~ v²]. So if we assume that the S20 was going 40% faster than a 1500wh 84V wheel throughout the ride, then the range should be roughly 75% of the 84V EUC. [2220wh/1500wh / 2 = 75%]. The S20 also has a fat off-road tire which might boost rolling friction. Wet dirt and puddles can also be energy-consuming [don't know if that's negligible].

All-in-all I would not be so quick to blame short-range on the controller-motor combo. Any energy lost on controller/motor would be lost as heat. If we assume, e.g. going at 2500W and, say 20% was lost on the controller/motor, that would mean 500W worth of heating. I am not sure the S20 could dissipate so much heat. This estimate was just to point out that motor/controller inefficiencies should not contribute dramatically to the apparent range reduction.

 

[Freeforester]

Just wondering whether the S-20’s motor and battery packs are perhaps not so well ‘matched’ for doing a longer ride at speed in cooler climates, there being of course no ‘free lunch’ with any electric vehicle so to speak, in that you can either have a shorter, faster blast or a longer, more leisurely pootle, for any given battery capacity/availability, at least in U.K. weather conditions and typical February temperatures.     Might there also be some trade-off when the motor and rim are a bit heavier duty? I may be wrong in thinking this,  in that the ‘bottom-line’ all up weight of the machine plus rider and all-aboard gear will determine the overall duration time/distance in combination with the aforementioned temperature (I’m sure this is probably basic stuff for many of you, I’m for sure not any kind of expert in the electrical department either). I’m not sure how significant these differences might be, but I’m sure Supercurio you are right in suggesting that a fully-charged and balanced power pack  is the first prerequisite of a meaningful range test.

It would be good to learn too, as to whether Ian’s unit was shipped out to him without batteries in situ, or all ready to charge and ride, as if the latter, we could deduce that either KS did not see the need to apply any of the glue to at least one of the pedal hanging screw threads, or possibly that Mario was guilty of some sabotage (he’ll get the blame anyway, always does!) when fitting the pedals at the preferred height for the testing.     If they had to insert the battery packs themselves, then all bets are off.   Assuming every new owner will want to set their footrests height according to their own personal preference, it would be fair to suggest that the responsibility for footrest setup and security of the screws for same by the usual means falls on the aforementioned new owner.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Freeforester

[supercurio]

@enaon Both packs seemed well balanced enough balanced however, at least for now.
Even after a low & high rate discharge during this ride all cells seemed to keep close enough voltage.

But it's possible that this charger might never allow the BMS to balance the cells, so the imbalance will grow, allowing to fully test the capabilities of the Smart BMS 😄

@UniVehje yes he hammers the wheel fairly well during his tests, although it's still real-world use. We could also compare to 32 miles / 51,5 km on the V12, which is also a high speed wheel so more similar in speed. I'm sure Ian could ride faster off-road on the S20 than the V12 tho.

But still, S20: 120 cells, V12: 96 cells (same or similar cells), that's a 25% increase in capacity.

[enaon]

it gets even worse on 4:33., 3.21 -.3.14

It is nice that the s20 has a smart bms, so that we can have more readings to ignore when testing it 

 

 

I missed cell 6, even worse.

Edited February 23, 2022 by enaon

[supercurio]

7 minutes ago, yoos said:

I don't know how hard Ian rode the S20 (and for how long) but a crude estimate from wind drag alone [force~v², power~v³] suggests that consumption (wh/km) doubles when stepping up from 50kph to 70kph [air-drag-related consumption ~ power/speed ~ v²]. So if we assume that the S20 was going 40% faster than a 1500wh 84V wheel throughout the ride, then the range should be roughly 75% of the 84V EUC. [2220wh/1500wh / 2 = 75%]. The S20 also has a fat off-road tire which might boost rolling friction. Wet dirt and puddles can also be energy-consuming [don't know if that's negligible].

Good point, knobby tire & mud will generate large amount of friction losses. Certainly not negligible. Imagine when you're riding in mud puddles on a bike 😅
Probably he was able to ride through the dirt faster than ever before on an EUC thanks to the suspension and best knobby so far in mud.

7 minutes ago, yoos said:

All-in-all I would not be so quick to blame short-range on the controller-motor combo. Any energy lost on controller/motor would be lost as heat. If we assume, e.g. going at 2500W and, say 20% was lost on the controller/motor, that would mean 500W worth of heating. I am not sure the S20 could dissipate so much heat. This estimate was just to point out that motor/controller inefficiencies should not contribute dramatically to the apparent range reduction.

I'm wondering exactly the same: where is all this energy dissipated!
As heat losses? The S20 can probably handle a lot with its all metal construction an effort to connect thermally the controller box to the left & right battery boxes. But at the same time we've learned that the S20 is running really cool.
Ian is a tall guy so he'll have aero drag on the higher end of things at high speeds.

 

13 minutes ago, Freeforester said:

Just wondering whether the S-20’s motor and battery packs are perhaps not so well ‘matched’ for doing a longer ride at speed in cooler climates

BTW on that it was really cool to see that the BMS handles multiple temperature sensor all over the packs as well as on its own MOS.
It has not been tested yet but I hope that it handles well over-heating condition as well as preventing charge when cells are too low in temperature.
Promising!

Also, in that case it showed that the batteries seemed around their sweet spot temperature during his ride despite UK winter, around 26℃ even when he was riding slower near the end due to titlback. 

[yoos]

24 minutes ago, supercurio said:

I'm wondering exactly the same: where is all this energy dissipated!

That's not what I meant  I meant: if the controller-motor combo was inefficient (i.e. would be bad at transforming electrical energy into mechanical torque) then the energy losses due to that inefficiency would be released as heat. And that would be a lot of heat! This leads to the conclusion that the controller-motor must be quite efficient (as brushless motors typically are) and most of the energy is spent on drag. Drag very strongly depends on speed and hence speed affects range very much. The thermal (in)efficiency of the controller/motor might reduce the range by some 10%-20% at any speed, which is less important than the dependence of range on speed itself.