OleTC Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hi dmethvin, It looks like there's 4 'boxes' inside the Shells of the Firewheel, 2 in each Shell. Would You be kind to tell if any of them are empty in the Firewheel F260 that You own? Adding one or two battery-packs could be the way to upgrade capacity. I am very tempted by the Firewheel F260 myself. Hope You're getting the new controlboard soon. Best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 It looks like there's 4 'boxes' inside the Shells of the Firewheel, 2 in each Shell. Would You be kind to tell if any of them are empty in the Firewheel F260 that You own? Adding one or two battery-packs could be the way to upgrade capacity. I am very tempted by the Firewheel F260 myself. Yes, there are 4 boxes. On my F260 the two bays that would be next to your left leg as you ride have the batteries. The controller board is on the right side, in a compartment above the two battery bays. On the right side, one of the bays is totally empty. The other has the battery readout and display driver board hot-glued into it. I guess on the F528 they must squeeze that board into the controller board compartment above it. That *could* work but it would be a tight fit. The Firewheel folks sent me a Fedex tracking number last week, the new controller board is supposed to arrive tomorrow. So I hope to have it working again next week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MvM Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Update: The Firewheel maker is waiting until they get an updated controller board before they send me a part. I will be traveling for a week so it will probably be mid-May before I can ride again. In reply regarding the sealing of the Firewheel internals: A lot of wheels have their battery and controller boards in external square compartments next to your legs. That lets them put all the seams on the outside, where there is less likely to be mud or water. With the Firewheel though, the external parts are contoured and the compartments are on the inside exposed to whatever the wheel is throwing around. I've attached a picture of the battery-compartment side of the shell. The areas I circled in white show places where the battery compartment and wiring are greatly exposed to mud or water. Actually the whole compartment cover is just screwed in with no gasket or sealant so there are plenty of places for water to get in. It can easily run down the battery cable and back into the battery pack. There really should be a shield or cover there as well, and there seem to be two screw sockets to hold one in place, but I didn't have one. That goop on the wiring is hot-melt glue to hold it in place. What you are basically saying then that this is a very badly designed EU I cannot imagine a designer building a wheel like that where the important/expensive parts are that much exposed to whatever there is out in the street. Would you feel comfortable riding the Firewheel in the rain or driving through puddles on the street for any length of time. Would that worry you now that you know how easy it would be for water seeping in all kinds of parts with high currents flowing through them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gimlet Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 The design isn't the problem it's just that they haven't put gaskets and seals on the boxes. This is very easily remedied with a little judicious use of silicon. The IPS132 is very similar but they have sealed the boxes. It's a lot easier to work on this type of design than it is on the externally accessed box design. Once the shell is apart the wheel and tyre are easy to work on and you can either work on or change the board or battery without disturbing the bits you don't need to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmethvin Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 What you are basically saying then that this is a very badly designed EU Well, yes and no. Have you ever owned an exotic sports car? They are a blast to drive but often have tons of quirks that make them unreliable or just a pain in the butt to work on. I remember a car show where they were replacing the clutch cylinder hydraulic cable on a Lamborghini. One end had metric threads, the other SAE! The Firewheel itself is a gorgeous product design, probably the nicest looking one around. The problem is the attention to detail is lacking, it's like they paid some guy to create a piece of beautiful art but cheaped out on the fit and finish of the parts inside. I think most of the sealing issues can be fixed with a little work. I'll be taking pictures as I go along to show what I'm doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MvM Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Well, yes and no. Have you ever owned an exotic sports car? They are a blast to drive but often have tons of quirks that make them unreliable or just a pain in the butt to work on. I remember a car show where they were replacing the clutch cylinder hydraulic cable on a Lamborghini. One end had metric threads, the other SAE! Well, actually I do I am the proud owner of a NSX and absolutely love that car! And, in contradiction of your example, the NSX is also a beautifully engineered car on the inside. Every part in itself is very nicely made and of high quality (except for the Bose system parts), and is comparably easy to access. And the reliability of the NSX is legendary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SerpentineGX Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Well, actually I do I am the proud owner of a NSX and absolutely love that car! And, in contradiction of your example, the NSX is also a beautifully engineered car on the inside. Every part in itself is very nicely made and of high quality (except for the Bose system parts), and is comparably easy to access. And the reliability of the NSX is legendary. NSX I want one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve454 Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 On 4/29/2015 at 10:44 PM, dmethvin said: Actually the whole compartment cover is just screwed in with no gasket or sealant so there are plenty of places for water to get in. It can easily run down the battery cable and back into the battery pack. There really should be a shield or cover there as well, and there seem to be two screw sockets to hold one in place, but I didn't have one. I am lucky that I don't worry about water getting in to my wheel. The most water encountered while riding was a little puddle. Water is surely a problem if riding in heavy rain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxLinux Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 On 4/20/2015 at 9:12 PM, dmethvin said: My Firewheel F260 arrived from China on Thursday. Less than two years later, Firewheel apparently is a dead company! I wonder what happened! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxLinux Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 On 5/17/2015 at 5:14 PM, MvM said: What you are basically saying then that this is a very badly designed EU I cannot imagine a designer building a wheel like that where the important/expensive parts are that much exposed to whatever there is out in the street. Would you feel comfortable riding the Firewheel in the rain or driving through puddles on the street for any length of time. Would that worry you now that you know how easy it would be for water seeping in all kinds of parts with high currents flowing through them? Hmm, maybe this helps to explain why Firewheel did not last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esaj Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 20 hours ago, MaxLinux said: Hmm, maybe this helps to explain why Firewheel did not last. No idea what actually happened to the company, their pages are still up ( http://en.fire-wheel.com/ ), but at least the copyright-texts still say 2014 and there seem to be very low number of owners / riders with Firewheels. Firewheel boards have been said to be well designed... actually, the boards were apparently designed by Hopemotion Co., www.hopemotion.com , which leads to http://www.hedong.tech/ , " Anhui Jiedong Intelligent Technology Co ", a company that specializes (among other things) in industrial motor controllers. The original F-series boards had issues (burning chips on the board voltage regulation), which, IIRC, were later on replaced with another design not prone to this, don't know if the R-series suffered from the same problems. Back then, and maybe even today, the Firewheel boards seemed to have the "best" mosfets (in regards to low Rds(on), power dissipation) of any wheel, and had features others didn't at that point, like front- and brakelights, two riding modes (so-called "2nd generation" F-series), battery monitoring (removed from later revisions), spoken warning- and other messages, and the batteries were made from genuine Sony- and Panasonic-cells, but the sealing of the board- and battery compartments was sub-standard, to put it lightly, apparently the cooling wasn't good enough for heavier riders and the initial board problems probably didn't help either... Around the same time, Gotway produced the first wheels that had their own mobile app, unlike Firewheel. Power-wise, more modern wheels have surpassed Firewheels' 550W motor a long time ago. Here's a short, but more "professional" opinion of the board: At some point, it was said that the shell-design of Firewheel was stolen from the Australian Mono Electric wheel: And indeed, it is very similar. The way I heard the story, the Australian designers had negotiations about the mass production, and the company stole the design and produced their own wheel, but whether that actually happened, I don't know. Maybe the Mono Electric Wheel -people sued them and forced them to stop manufacturing or the wheels simply didn't sell well enough. It looks like the domain of the original Mono Electric is gone, so apparently they're out of business too (or maybe under a new name or something). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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