Help!!! New problem with my "new" S18!!!

[Paul A]

MyEwheel Bulgaria seems to be on vacation until August 10 according to their website live chat message.

Speedyfeet in UK seems to be closer distance wise than Bulgaria.  Might not be cheaper freight cost wise though.

Speedyfeet might be more experienced/knowledgeable than MyEwheel, maybe consider purchasing from them next time.

Maybe try contacting KS direct via their website.

CONTACT US

• Tel: 0755-23193476
• Fax: 0755-23193248
• Support: support@szkingsong.com
• General Inquiries: info@szkingsong.com

Edited August 2, 2021 by Paul A

[Chriull]

57 minutes ago, Paulo Mesquita said:

This seems very important. @enaoncan I fix the problem now by a long hold of the button to reset thr motherboard, or is it too late for me? 

As he wrote 

 

3 hours ago, enaon said:

We had to drain the battery of the front packs by running the wheel, and when all where leveled,

all batteries have to be at the same voltage (leveled) before they can be safely "reconnected". Either by draining some packs or charging them.

[FinRider]

5 minutes ago, Paul A said:

Speedyfeet might be more experienced/knowledgeable than MyEwheel, maybe consider purchasing from them next time.

I would have loved to support Speedyfeet, but he is in the UK and with Brexit, the uncertainty of import/export to and from the EU made me steer away from him... There are several other good distributors across Europe and I bet the Bulgarian dealer is good as well. I would email / call them even if they are on vacation as many small business owners are responsive, even when on "vacation".

I am sorry to hear about your misfortunes with your wheel though. I do believe that your bad experience can teach other EUC riders or soon-to-be EUC riders a valuable lesson though. ALL EUC's are prone to breaking. It only takes one bad spill and the wheel is out of action and needs some TLC. If you are not yourself tech/mech savvy enough to tear into the wheel, make sure that you have a local guy who can help you. It can be another experienced EUC rider or a bike shop that has experience with electric bicycles or scooters.

Now I am not saying that it would have helped you in this case, as we should be able to expect that a brand new wheel (or repaired wheel) should function properly out of the box. I hope you get a fast response from your dealer.

[Paulo Mesquita]

When the wheel broke down on my 1st ride, I said I wanted a new one, or a refund. They answered that since the wheel had been ridden already ( only 14kms), it had to be repaired with them. Not wanting to create problems, and knowing Tha Myewheel is a respected site in Europe, I decided to follow through with the repair. 

Now I'm not at all happy. I'm going to test it for 10kms (as suggested here) just to see what the battery drain is, and I'll decide on the result. 

[enaon]

5 hours ago, Paulo Mesquita said:

This seems very important. @enaoncan I fix the problem now by a long hold of the button to reset thr motherboard, or is it too late for me? 

It is not late, verifying and fixing the issue needs a multimeter and some time. 

You will look at the voltage reported on the wheel from eucworld, shutdown the wheel, take one of the side panels out and help yourself to one of the side batery connectors. 

Then using a multimeter you will measure one of the two back side batteries, at normal conditions it should be half of what the wheel reports as votage, but my guess is that it will be not. After you verify that the back packs are not at the voltage they should, thus they are offline, a bit more precision will be needed, but it will be fun getting to know your s18

You will remove the other side panel, and the top cover, and gain aceess to all four battery plugs.

You will check that both front batteries are at the same voltage between them , and that the same goes for the back ones.

Your aim next will be to get the front batteries to double the voltage of the back ones, either by inserting only the front ones and charging, or using the wheel to discharg them. You cannot just charge the back ones, it will not let you (flashing lights), you have to fill/drain the front ones. 

When this condition applies, (two front batteries at the same voltage, two back at the same voltage, front at double the volage of back) you will remove all packs, long press on the button to reset, install all packs at one go, and then power on the wheel, and that will do it, you will again have a 3p s18  

Edited August 2, 2021 by enaon

[enaon]

16 hours ago, Paulo Mesquita said:

@mrelwood what do you mean by disastrous? 

he is correct, what kingsong has done, using both 84 and 42 volt packs at the same time, needs advanced bms handling. On a gotway that would be instant explosion on connection error.  The good news are the s18 is advanced, the bad news is that there is no manual that I am aware of that describes the sequence needed, I am not even sure most shops realize that the back packs are at 42 volts. 

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by enaon

[yoos]

Just now, enaon said:

the back packs are at 42 bolts

@enaon Indeed, I assumed that the two half-packs in the back were directly connected in series to each other (i.e. that it was a single 84 pack which was only separated physically into two bodyparts but keeping the circuitry and b.m.s. logic identical to a regular 84 pack). You are saying that it needs to be more complicated than that?

@Paulo Mesquita Judging from your 10.8km tour today (which is still "live") you drained 16% and consumed 189.8Wh. That means the total energy involved is 189.8Wh / 0.16 = 1186Wh. Looks like all packs were online this time! Congratulations!

I really don't know what to make of this. I would probably drive carefully from now one and check if the problem reemerges. Of course it would be even better to partially disassemble the wheel and look at the contacts -- perhaps send some pictures to myewheel for diagnosis (sorry, I have no hands-on S18 experience so I do not know which particular thing to look for and check, @enaon might be able to help much better). At least there is now a good chance you won't need to send the wheel to Bulgaria again!

 

[enaon]

1 minute ago, yoos said:

@enaon Indeed, I assumed that the two half-packs in the back were directly connected in series to each other (i.e. that it was a single 84 pack which was only separated physically into two bodyparts but keeping the circuitry and b.m.s. logic identical to a regular 84 pack). You are saying that it needs to be more complicated than that?

the motherboard has 4 xt90 (with some extra comm pins) plugs, optically the same. Each pack has it's own bms. The front packs are 84 (usa) volt packs, the two on the back are 42 volt, the bridging is done inside the motherboard, it is advanced and well designed I think, only some care is needed when working on it, so that it will not dissengage the back packs.

My bet is that the wheel reports that on the bt level, there is a full set of registers that eucworld is not using on diagnostics, I will have a look next time I open mine to see if I can find the register for the packs health. 

[mrelwood]

Wouldn’t the (horrible, I know) KingSong app report the user if a battery pack has been taken offline?

[Paulo Mesquita]

3 hours ago, enaon said:

It is not late, verifying and fixing the issue needs a multimeter and some time. 

You will look at the voltage reported on the wheel from eucworld, shutdown the wheel, take one of the side panels out and help yourself to one of the side batery connectors. 

Then using a multimeter you will measure one of the two back side batteries, at normal conditions it should be half of what the wheel reports as votage, but my guess is that it will be not. After you verify that the back packs are not at the voltage they should, thus they are offline, a bit more precision will be needed, but it will be fun getting to know your s18

You will remove the other side panel, and the top cover, and gain aceess to all four battery plugs.

You will check that both front batteries are at the same voltage between them , and that the same goes for the back ones.

Your aim next will be to get the front batteries to double the voltage of the back ones, either by inserting only the front ones and charging, or using the wheel to discharg them. You cannot just charge the back ones, it will not let you (flashing lights), you have to fill/drain the front ones. 

When this condition applies, (two front batteries at the same voltage, two back at the same voltage, front at double the volage of back) you will remove all packs, long press on the button to reset, install all packs at one go, and then power on the wheel, and that will do it, you will again have a 3p s18  

Man, you really know your stuff!!! 👍👍👍👍

[Paulo Mesquita]

2 hours ago, yoos said:

@enaon Indeed, I assumed that the two half-packs in the back were directly connected in series to each other (i.e. that it was a single 84 pack which was only separated physically into two bodyparts but keeping the circuitry and b.m.s. logic identical to a regular 84 pack). You are saying that it needs to be more complicated than that?

@Paulo Mesquita Judging from your 10.8km tour today (which is still "live") you drained 16% and consumed 189.8Wh. That means the total energy involved is 189.8Wh / 0.16 = 1186Wh. Looks like all packs were online this time! Congratulations!

I really don't know what to make of this. I would probably drive carefully from now one and check if the problem reemerges. Of course it would be even better to partially disassemble the wheel and look at the contacts -- perhaps send some pictures to myewheel for diagnosis (sorry, I have no hands-on S18 experience so I do not know which particular thing to look for and check, @enaon might be able to help much better). At least there is now a good chance you won't need to send the wheel to Bulgaria again!

 

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT!!! 

How does one explain this? 

-I do a 1st ride of 35km and naturally the battery drain goes down to 38%. That's OK

-I do a 2nd ride of 34km and the battery drain goes down to 5%.

-I do today a3rd ride of a little over 10km (about 1/3 of my regular rides) and I only lost 16%!!! (which makes all the sense, when compared with the usual +-60% drain I get when riding my regular tour between 32 and 35km.)

It seems like the S18 woke up the remaining batteries!!! 

The only thing strange I noticed was at the beginning of the ride. When I put my foot on the 1st pedal and moved the wheel back and forth a little, I heard the motor "growling" twice. But then, the ride was perfect. 

I HAVE NO CLUE OF WHAT'S GOING ON!!! 

[enaon]

22 minutes ago, Paulo Mesquita said:

It seems like the S18 woke up the remaining batteries!!! 

The only thing strange I noticed was at the beginning of the ride. When I put my foot on the 1st pedal and moved the wheel back and forth a little, I heard the motor "growling" twice. But then, the ride was perfect. 

It could be the case that it has more checks and indeed reconnected the back packs, a few more battery rounds will tell. If you could do an optical check on the side connectors, it would be nice. 

The "glowing" sound is caused by the hard mode in my experience, if you can live with med mode then it will feel smoother and the sounds will be gone. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by enaon

[Paulo Mesquita]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

Wouldn’t the (horrible, I know) KingSong app report the user if a battery pack has been taken offline?

Good idea. I'm going to check with the app. 

[Paul A]

Is the warranty going to be void because the customer attempted a repair?  There might be a statement in the terms and conditions of the warranty regarding this.

 

How safe is it for a novice to attempt a repair of this?  Is there a possibility of an unforseen accident/problem that causes more damage, destroys totally, fire etc?

 

 

[The Brahan Seer]

Not sure if this is relevant but my first 10 miles or so drops my battery around 5% ( to 95%), next day similar speed distance drops 25% ( to 70%), next day 17% (53%) , next day 31% (22%) at this level I re-charge to full, sometimes recharge earlier, once every 3 months I discharge to near empty and charge full to reset batteries (which is recommended). This has always been my experience of the battery readouts and just means its not linear (I think this is normal). To clarify the first 30% lasts longer than the subsequent. I am using the KingSong app. I also appreciate that temperature, weather, terrain etc etc affects the drain but as a general rule all things considered this is my average. Its a bit like your mobile phone loses more charge quicker the lower its at. 

[mrelwood]

 

12 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

once every 3 months I discharge to near empty and charge full to reset batteries (which is recommended).

Lithium-ion batteries don’t have a memory in the sense that the cells would benefit from running them to empty and charging them to full. Besides, no EUC lets you ride the batteries all the way to empty anyway (“0%” is far from actually empty, and varies by EUC model). On mobile phones the same procedure can provide a better battery level metering due to the process recalibrating the battery level measurement. But the same doesn’t happen on EUCs, as the metering is fixed to the battery voltage values.

 What you do need to do if you want your batteries to last is to balance the cells often. If you only charge after four rides, you’d best balance at every charge, based on my experience. Just leave the charger connected for an hour or a few after the charger turns green to let the implemented balancing to try to do it’s job.

12 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

This has always been my experience of the battery readouts and just means its not linear (I think this is normal).

It is normal. The manufacturer app updates sometimes improve on the metering, making it appear more linear. EUCW has its own selectable algorithms for this as well.

 

[Chriull]

16 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

once every 3 months I discharge to near empty and charge full to reset batteries (which is recommended).

From whom? Li ion cells have no such thing like a memory effect or anything comparable. Emptying the battery just stresses them a bit and endangers over time the single cells with the lowest capacity as it will drop lower in voltage than the rest.

And as you likely experienced driving at low charge is no real fun.

Fully charged is much safer and enjoyable riding!

16 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

This has always been my experience of the battery readouts and just means its not linear (I think this is normal).

Charge percent are calculated linear from battery voltage. But li ion cells hold more charge per volt at higher voltages/charge state.

Additionally the 100% region is "artificially" enlarged (so every charger/motherboard combination reaches 100%...) so your first trip juust used 5%.

Also charge % only get somewhat accurate once on lets the battery rest and settle for some time!

16 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Its a bit like your mobile phone loses more charge quicker the lower its at. 

Maybe you got the emptying from devices like smart phones? There this is needed/recommended for the first cycles so the "coloumb counter" can adJust itself and show accurate charge state. But here the emptying is in no way related to the li ion cell maintenance, too!

Ps.: Just seen i'm too slow typing...

[Paulo Mesquita]

1 hour ago, Paul A said:

Is the warranty going to be void because the customer attempted a repair?  There might be a statement in the terms and conditions of the warranty regarding this.

 

How safe is it for a novice to attempt a repair of this?  Is there a possibility of an unforseen accident/problem that causes more damage, destroys totally, fire etc?

 

 

Yes, I'm sure it will become void. That's why I'll never attempt to repaur, during the 2 year warranty. 

 

[Paulo Mesquita]

1 hour ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Not sure if this is relevant but my first 10 miles or so drops my battery around 5% ( to 95%), next day similar speed distance drops 25% ( to 70%), next day 17% (53%) , next day 31% (22%) at this level I re-charge to full, sometimes recharge earlier, once every 3 months I discharge to near empty and charge full to reset batteries (which is recommended). This has always been my experience of the battery readouts and just means its not linear (I think this is normal). To clarify the first 30% lasts longer than the subsequent. I am using the KingSong app. I also appreciate that temperature, weather, terrain etc etc affects the drain but as a general rule all things considered this is my average. Its a bit like your mobile phone loses more charge quicker the lower its at. 

@The Brahan Seer I am convinced that it had nothing to do with the tour itself because I do exactly the same tour every day I ride. The only variable is the wind. On very windy days the battery drains to around 38% to 42% (38% on my 1st S18 ride of 35kms) . On less windy days it drops to 44% to 50%. The battery drain on both the 16x and s18 (on its 1st normal ride a few days ago), are quite similar.

The weird ride was my second one. Totally out of my average records... AND AFTER THE NORMAL DRAIN OF TODAY... totally inexplicable!!! 

 

[The Brahan Seer]

1 hour ago, Chriull said:

From whom? Li ion cells have no such thing like a memory effect or anything comparable. Emptying the battery just stresses them a bit and endangers over time the single cells with the lowest capacity as it will drop lower in voltage than the rest.

 

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-415-how-to-charge-and-when-to-charge

[Chriull]

9 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-415-how-to-charge-and-when-to-charge

Then you read for some wrong battery type? It states clearly for lion cells 

• Avoid deep cycling. Each cycle wears the battery down by a small amount and a partial discharge is better than a full discharge. When possible, only apply a full discharge to calibrate a smart battery and to prevent “memory” on nickel-based batteries. Li-ion is maintenance-free and the battery lasts longest when operating between 30 and 80 percent SoC.

Besides ninebots no wheels have a smart battery by now, afaik.

 

Frequently asked question

Lead acid (Sealed, flooded)

Nickel-based (NiCd and NiMH)

Lithium-ion (Li-ion, polymer

Should I use up all battery energy before charging?

No, deep discharge wears battery down. Charge more often

Apply scheduled discharges only to prevent memory

Deep discharge wears the battery down

 

 

[The Brahan Seer]

15 minutes ago, Chriull said:

Then you read for some wrong battery type? It states clearly for lion cells 

 

 

I'm sorry you are mistaken. I know there is no memory implications with Li Ion Batteries. But they recommend you discharge/charge (see below) to calibrate the smart Li-Ion batteries. Please read the table again and you will understand were I am coming from.

This is a very good website with great resources. 

[Chriull]

1 minute ago, The Brahan Seer said:

But they recommend you discharge/charge (see below) to calibrate the smart Li-Ion batteries.

I see, but as written before the EUCs have no smart batteries (coloumb counters). Just some ninebot wheels have this.

Ks, begode, inmotion and veteran just calculate charge % straight from battery voltage. 

 

[mrelwood]

1 minute ago, The Brahan Seer said:

I'm sorry you are mistaken. I know there is no memory implications with Li Ion Batteries. But they recommend you discharge/charge (see below) to calibrate the smart Li-Ion batteries. Please read the table again and you will understand were I am coming from.

This is a very good website with great resources. 

You probably read his reply a bit too fast. EUCs do not have a “smart” battery, that’s why the recommendation doesn’t apply.

It is a great site, but one needs to go into the details before following their recommendations. The site doesn’t mention the importance of the balancing feature in large battery packs that have a lot of cells in series, which is why following their recommendation of charging a li-ion battery only up to 80% doesn’t provide a longer battery life, but can instead kill a battery pack faster than anything else.

[The Brahan Seer]

I was under the impression any battery that uses a Battery Management System to regulate the charge process was considered smart and that EUC's have a BMS inbedded in the motherboard. But is sounds like I stand corrected. Apologies.