V12 in Hong Kong 4 June - Test/Review

[OneLeg]

Firstly, I don't now if what I rode is the prototype of the production version. The HK distributor told me that many of the other distributors are waiting to see what he publishes.... so this unit may be the real deal. I kind of feel it was.

It is 5am and I am too tired to post photos and videos of tonight 2 hours of riding the beast.

Before I say anything it is worth noting that I am in HK and I am urban rider where torque, light weight and maneuverability is priority to ride among the pedestrian crowds of Hong Kong.

I think anyone that likes large unicycles is going to love it. I really have not ever enjoyed riding an MSX, 16X, a Monster even the 10F  or the V11. 18S, but the V12 is quite nice despite its size/weight.

The good:

For such a massive unicycle it maneuvers amazingly, you can lean it hard and doesn't have the top heavy issues of the V10. you can swing it around very well and given its huge size and weight it can take turn very very sharply, actually it is surprisingly maneuverable and behaves. You don't find yourself having to put your foot down due to lack of torque when take a sharp turn or loss of speed. I have seen many wheels that are heavy and build momentum, but when you corner them due to the motor windings, stall at slow speed... V12 doesnt suffer from this.

You can lean it and the weight doesn't topple you over...

Whilst the breaking power is not up to my liking given that I build high discharge 20A cell battery packs into my unicycles to be able to break fast, the V12 seems to slow down by itself generally, you dont' have to break, if you are not accelerating it slows down, kind of magically.

I think everyone will love the growling  engine "synthetic" sounds. The sounds is kind of rewarding and wakes you want to accelerate hard.  They actually motivate you to slam the acceleration hard. The harder you hit it, the more sounds it makes. Let see if I can include a video later.

The heat light is good. The touch display is not that responsive but it is nice to be able to use the settings reconfigure settings on the fly. Riding it slowly it reported estimated range to be 533km, however when I hit it hard automony range dropped to 124Km.

The bad.

IT is a big unicycle when you slam the breaks on it doesn't stop same as all other big wheels I've tried, no surprises there. I am used to my other unicyles using 20A battery packs, with very very powerful breaking.. It really needs pads to break well, but at least accelerate you don't need pads IMHO. The growling sound along will motivate you to slam it hard and make it go like a rocket....

When I couldn't get it to stop and go backwards, which is a pity, it is a heavy wheel but I would have liked to be able to flip direction or do an 180 and go back.

At around 35-40km/hr I felt it wobble and didn't feel comfortable to slam it like hard like I do with my GT16 V2, again I am not a high speed rider and other guys can comment on it during high performance.

Overall, I think most of you will get your tissue box out when you ride it. The fact you can lean it and don 180 turns in less than a meter speaks volumes.

For me without very good breaking power, it is not suitable for riding in highly crowded pavements. If I had to choose between riding a V10 and a V12.... well the V12 is way better despite the mammoth size and weight.

[madbikes]

I'm curious how good is the headlight in the production version. Most reviews say the supplier gave InMotion the wrong LEDs, which is not very bright, and will improve in the production version.

[Sidewalk Enforcer]

Good to hear those first impressions. Certainly sounds like a capable wheel.

It must be cool blatting around HK on an EUC. Something that struck me when I passed through HK (many years ago) was how relatively deserted the streets were of pedestrians in some sections of the city - everyone sticking to the "sky bridges" between buildings instead.

[OneLeg]

On 6/6/2021 at 2:08 AM, madbikes said:

I'm curious how good is the headlight in the production version. Most reviews say the supplier gave InMotion the wrong LEDs, which is not very bright, and will improve in the production version.

I tend not to have the headlight on among pedestrians unless it is so dark I may hit one... as having a headlight on is nuisance, may scare them or make them behave unpredictablity and I hit them. On the V12 however the light was on auto and it is pretty bright, similar to a quad LED torch which I use. I turned it off.

[OneLeg]

On 6/6/2021 at 2:37 PM, Sidewalk Enforcer said:

Good to hear those first impressions. Certainly sounds like a capable wheel.

It must be cool blatting around HK on an EUC. Something that struck me when I passed through HK (many years ago) was how relatively deserted the streets were of pedestrians in some sections of the city - everyone sticking to the "sky bridges" between buildings instead.

Most large wheels I generally don't want to try again.... but to be honest I woudln't mind another go on the V12.

Yes, HK has many areas which are empty right next to really highy  congested areas. They may be less optimal paths but on unicycles do we care if we have to add a few hundred meters to be able to increase our speed form say 5-7km to 25km/hr and attain much higher average speeds.

Whilst everyone is in total awe of HK's town planing the reality is when you get on a wheel you start noticing the flaws it has. It isn't that great. With HK's car first policy many people are force in say radius of 500-800meters to concentrate on a cross road or a pavement... They put bridges here and there but there isn't enough crossing on large roads or subway tunnels under...

HK is adding like 10% net gain of cars per month right now. LOL so dumb.

[mrelwood]

On 6/5/2021 at 12:40 AM, OneLeg said:

IT is a big unicycle when you slam the breaks on it doesn't stop same as all other big wheels I've tried, no surprises there. I am used to my other unicyles using 20A battery packs, with very very powerful breaking.. It really needs pads to break well, but at least accelerate you don't need pads IMHO.

Thanks for the very nice review! The part of the braking capabilities makes me curious though. I might not understand your point completely, which I apologize for if it is the case.

1. If acceleration is good but braking is lackluster, aren’t you simply standing a bit too far forward on the pedals? After all, for the wheel acceleration is acceleration no matter which direction it happens towards. There is no “slamming the brakes”, there is only acceleration in the direction that is required to keep the pedals (ie. the rider) balanced.

2. Larger current capabilities of the battery and power pads do completely different things. Pads don’t increase the maximum available power for braking or accelerating, and a beefier  battery doesn’t increase the braking power with the same input unless you were already overleaning the wheel.

 So, did you think that for it to brake you needed to lean further back than what you expected, or did you feel that the wheel was unable to keep the pedals level when you braked hard? Ie. pedals going soft?

 Again, many thanks for your review, all info and experiences on the V12 are  much yearned by the community!

[Nostris]

I have now read that several reviewers mention the wobbles at speeds over 40kmh. This really doesn’t seem very clever to me, it’s supposed to be a fast wheel and a fast wheel shouldn’t have any wobbles at speed. Is this a design problem?

[hannesd]

33 minutes ago, Nostris said:

I have now read that several reviewers mention the wobbles at speeds over 40kmh. This really doesn’t seem very clever to me, it’s supposed to be a fast wheel and a fast wheel shouldn’t have any wobbles at speed. Is this a design problem?

this might just be a case of lowering tire pressure somewhat...

i had a slight wobble at +-35kph with my V11, with lower pressure it was solved.

[OneLeg]

Don't have high expectations of the speaker/sound.

The speaker is pretty mediocre, neitherhas  fidelity nor base... It sounds encased... My little JBL Clip 3 provides much better quality. I don't understand given the size of the wheel why can't they get this right. A speaker doesn't have to draw much power and having nice sound chamber is easy to do in such a big wheel.

[EUC_user]

5 hours ago, OneLeg said:

Don't have high expectations of the speaker/sound.

The speaker is pretty mediocre, neitherhas  fidelity nor base... It sounds encased... My little JBL Clip 3 provides much better quality. I don't understand given the size of the wheel why can't they get this right. A speaker doesn't have to draw much power and having nice sound chamber is easy to do in such a big wheel.

They did the same with the V11’s speaker.

[OneLeg]

21 hours ago, EUC_user said:

They did the same with the V11’s speaker.

I think they should just provide a like a hole across the body, where you put your JBL Extreme or something across it and can plug it into a USB.

[OneLeg]

On 6/8/2021 at 7:21 PM, mrelwood said:

a beefier  battery doesn’t increase the braking power with the same input unless you were already overleaning the wheel.

 

Someone said the same to me until they tried my MCM5 67V, that until he decided to break and heard the wheel screech, and stopped abruptly/safely...  So sorry I not only disagree, I keep avoiding hiting people thanks to having 64 x 20A batteries... I've yet to see try wheel on which I can break faster....

Also I have a V5F with VTC6 and one without, the difference on them is massive, anyone that tries them is loves the acceleration and breaking of the one with VTC6 cells.

[mrelwood]

1 hour ago, OneLeg said:

I keep avoiding hiting people thanks to having 64 x 20A batteries…

That would say something about your riding attitude that I don’t think you intend to or wish to do.

 How would you explain the physics  dilemma where a self-balancing vehicle brakes faster than another similar vehicle with the same input, yet the pedals stay level on both wheels?

[supercurio]

11 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

How would you explain the physics  dilemma where a self-balancing vehicle brakes faster than another similar vehicle with the same input, yet the pedals stay level on both wheels?

Disclaimer: I probably don't know well what I'm talking about here, and that might be completely wrong:

When braking, the high current energy from the motor is absorbed immediately by the capacitors, which act as a buffer until it is transferred in the cells by charging them.
The faster the cells can be charged, emptying the excess voltage/energy from the capacitor, the more the wheel can handle regen from the motor before reaching over-voltage levels.

This is given the high drain cells's chemistry, suffering from less voltage sag has also the same reverse capability when being charged.

It's just a theory, I'm not sure it's valid or if it's what happens in that case.

Edited June 10, 2021 by supercurio

[OneLeg]

2 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

That would say something about your riding attitude that I don’t think you intend to or wish to do.

 How would you explain the physics  dilemma where a self-balancing vehicle brakes faster than another similar vehicle with the same input, yet the pedals stay level on both wheels?

Oh nice put down there about "attitude".... Accidents can happen, you may not be going fast but some kid pops out of nowhere, because he was hiding being a large flower pot. When that happens, the only thing that matters is how fast you pump Watts into that motor... whether it is fully charged or you are 50% down...

I've yet never hit anyone, for one simple reason, because I use unicycles with high capacity discharge batteries. My MCM had 10A batteries before and it was a joke.... actually one guy I know really hurt himself on it, accelerated hard, broke hard, could not output enough, it could not maintain himself fell backwards,  he smashed both sides of his phone tore his pants... 

I've even tried the 84V version of the MCM and it just doesn't break like my 67V... 

I only know that the less discharge a unicycle has even on responsive, say the V8, the more likely I am not to be able to stop in emergency to injure someone... so the more conservative I am on my riding.

[mrelwood]

3 hours ago, supercurio said:

The faster the cells can be charged, emptying the excess voltage/energy from the capacitor, the more the wheel can handle regen from the motor before reaching over-voltage levels.

I’m pretty sure the regenerative braking doesn’t play a role here. In a fast braking situation the motor is used to accelerate backwards, and the wheel uses power from the batteries to do so.

 What I was getting at was the dilemma in the geometry. But the answer was actually in your next part:

3 hours ago, OneLeg said:

actually one guy I know really hurt himself on it, accelerated hard, broke hard, could not output enough, it could not maintain himself fell backwards

That was a clear overlean situation, and the wheel was not able to put out enough power to keep the pedals level. It’s pretty self-explanatory that batteries with a higher output help in such situation.

What I tried to point out was that unless the wheel is being overleaned, there should not be a difference in braking distance. Meaning, if you brake more gently, the wheel with beefier batteries will brake just the same as the regular one.

Back to the V12. In your first post (the review) you said that:

On 6/5/2021 at 12:40 AM, OneLeg said:

the breaking power is not up to my liking

If the V12 has sufficient acceleration, it doesn’t make sense that the braking power would not be just as satisfactory. Unless you as well overleaned the wheel by trying to brake fast. That’s why asked about clarification on the braking: Did the pedals go soft while you were braking, preventing you from braking faster?

[Chriull]

4 hours ago, supercurio said:

When braking, the high current energy from the motor is absorbed immediately by the capacitors, which act as a buffer until it is transferred in the cells by charging them.

Unfortionately not. Voltage at a capacitor rises proportional to current over time (dU= I / C * dt).

As the capacitance of the capacitor is "negligible" compared to the capacitance of the battery the voltage at the capacitor "rises very fast" and by the difference to the battery voltage the charge drains off "quite immedeately".

It is just by the paraditic wires inductances that the capacitors are "needed" - to prevent voltage spikes/sag at current changes.