If your favorite EUC brand offered a "safety focused" model with redundant electronics, how much more would you be willing to pay?

[musk]

I'd personally pay a significant amount of money to reduce the points of failure in my EUC.  What would you pay?

[HoverboarderHQ]

I'd pay pretty much anything. Not like it is an inexpensive product to being with

[Donald1800]

Unfortunately, the Sh***y generic control board and BMS board designs that do not directly address EUC needs used by nearly all current EUC manufacturers do not get a financial 'PASS' here - they should have ALREADY done EUC specific designs of the electronics after the first generation, and I would NOT EXPECT an additional 20% price increase for doing their jobs right now! If they don't do it now and at current pricing, then the USA/EU will do it for them and replace them in the market place.

[esaj]

In mass production, the manufacturing costs probably wouldn't rise that much, but the R&D -effort can be quite costly.

[MarkoMarjamaa]

3 hours ago, esaj said:

In mass production, the manufacturing costs probably wouldn't rise that much, but the R&D -effort can be quite costly.

And if you do the R&D, the other chinese manufacturers copy it immediately.

[SlowMo]

Don't we already have a safety oriented wheel which is produced in the United Kingdom? Why don't we give it a try?

[Chriull]

Definitely NONE from my side:

Imho _none_ EUC manufacturer is ready by now to provide usable redundant electronics to make an EUC safer - they are all still struggling (more or less) with the "simple" normal EUC electronics (shutoff issues, firmware updates, overheating problems, etc..)

With redundant electronics they introduce a new major complication into the design - if they cannot handle it right the outcome of the project will be just worse than it is by now...

Or another point of view: I cannot remember reading of any EUC accidents by now, where a redundant electronics could have helped... A main EUC shutoff reason by mainboard failure were "burned" Mosfets - but this happened due to a design failure. If you put a second redundant mainboard with the same design failure into to EUC the second set of Mosfets will just burn like the first set...;(

For batteries a redundant system imho makes no sense (by now), too. The more battery packs you but in parallel, the "safer" one can ride with the EUC, since you have a longer timeframe in which your battery pack can deliver enough power to drive safely with the EUC. Here you maybe already have a little bit of redundancy: if a BMS of one battery pack shuts off, the other battery packs could still deliver power so you can safely ride on. But also here a chain reaction will be more likely - after the first BMS shuts off, all others will follow... So no design failure can be cured by introducing redundancy into the system. ( Ok, some could but doing so would just be insane...)

Once the first EUC comes to the market with reasonable batterys+BMS (no protection of battterys at the expense of the rider safety), Power electronics with enough safety margin, professional planned "thermal managment" and rock solid, stable firmware and no other design issues, one could slowly start to think about introducing redundancy to _further_ increase EUC safety....

[OliverH]

4 hours ago, esaj said:

In mass production, the manufacturing costs probably wouldn't rise that much, but the R&D -effort can be quite costly.

Definetly. That's why I said 20%.

[Frankman]

34 minutes ago, Chriull said:

The more battery packs you but in parallel, the "safer" one can ride with the EUC, since you have a longer timeframe in which your battery pack can deliver enough power to drive safely with the EUC.

@Chriull Absolutely agree with you.

[zlymex]

I gave 20%. I'd like my favorite EUC be more safe but I believe it's already very safe as far as the electronics is concerned.

There are many limiting factors in a EUC, for instance speed-torque limit.
There are so many unsafe situations where people ride EUCs outside these limits.
There are other factors affecting theses limits as well such as maker/brand, battery status, weather and road/traffic conditions.

One thing I'm willing to pay is the circuitry that identify the limits and give warnings before the limit is about to reach.
(over speed and low-batt are two common warnings but too few).

[dmethvin]

It's so hard to give a number here because I'm not even sure what the true baseline price is that we would say "20% more than that". As @esaj and @MarkoMarjamaa say, it seems like a lot of the extra cost would be in design and/or testing, that is a fleeting advantage since it would soon be stolen and the original design undercut on price. That takes a lot of incentive for fundamental safety improvements out of the system. 

Also, is "redundant electronics" the right focus? If you mean redundant in the sense that aircraft or space rockets are redundant there are often 3 different control systems and a voting mechanism to see if any of them are bad. That's way too much complexity. Instead I'd prefer to see better component quality and built-in monitoring, such as temperature sensors for the MOSFETs and batteries. Unlike a lot of other applications an EUC can't just shut down to protect the system when it detects something wrong so it needs to do a much better job of anticipating bad things and passing that info back to the rider via things like tilt-back or alarm sounds.

[OliverH]

4 hours ago, zlymex said:

I gave 20%. I'd like my favorite EUC be more safe but I believe it's already very safe as far as the electronics is concerned.

There are many limiting factors in a EUC, for instance speed-torque limit.
There are so many unsafe situations where people ride EUCs outside these limits.
There are other factors affecting theses limits as well such as maker/brand, battery status, weather and road/traffic conditions.

One thing I'm willing to pay is the circuitry that identify the limits and give warnings before the limit is about to reach.
(over speed and low-batt are two common warnings but too few).

That's the behaviour handling I talk constantly about. That are uses cases which needs to be integrated with thresholds and action in the firmware. That's with proper testing one of the major parts in calculation.

[musk]

With this question, I'm trying to estimate how much the community would pay to have Segway-tier electronics design and redundancy.  Because there are certain things that can't be redundant in an EUC (like the motor), I limited the question to "electronics" which I'd hoped would be umbrella enough for purposes of discussion.

If you look at Ninebot's history of copying Segway's stand up model, it would stand to reason that they could've copied all the safety features along with it.  They've chosen not to for some reason, probably to create a more affordable product.  I want to know if we think it's worth it for them to copy those safety features and pass along the cost to us.

[esaj]

8 minutes ago, musk said:

With this question, I'm trying to estimate how much the community would pay to have Segway-tier electronics design and redundancy.  Because there are certain things that can't be redundant in an EUC (like the motor), I limited the question to "electronics" which I'd hoped would be umbrella enough for purposes of discussion.

AFAIK, there are motors with two separate windings, although probably you'd need more complex logics so both mainboards wouldn't try to run the motor at the same time.

8 minutes ago, musk said:

If you look at Ninebot's history of copying Segway's stand up model, it would stand to reason that they could've copied all the safety features along with it.  They've chosen not to for some reason, probably to create a more affordable product.  I want to know if we think it's worth it for them to copy those safety features and pass along the cost to us.

Shouldn't be a too big step for Ninebot to copy the Segway, as they own Segway (the whole company)   Another thing if they want to do it, or keep the Segway as a separate "higher end" product with outrageous price.

[OliverH]

6 minutes ago, esaj said:

AFAIK, there are motors with two separate windings, although probably you'd need more complex logics so both mainboards wouldn't try to run the motor at the same time.

Shouldn't be a too big step for Ninebot to copy the Segway, as they own Segway (the whole company)   Another thing if they want to do it, or keep the Segway as a separate "higher end" product with outrageous price.

Haha. With the programming skills of Ninebot it could happen that one winding like to spin forward as the other would like spin reverse and broke the shaft or the stator

[Kwing]

when you say safety does that mean BMS shut down? Honestly I wouldnt pay for a significant price because safety is a must. They really should even launch the product without thinking the safety aspect of it. With all the people including myself who got hurt I think they should step up with the saftey by default.

[Cloud]

Hard to say how much more one would pay as the question is asked very loosely. If we are talking about the reduntant control board, i agree with the previous posters that the priority should be to first improve the safety of the main control board and other components and then think about redundancy.

where i disagree is i actually believe that when the safeties of the main components have been improved, then  a redundant control board / electronics would be a good idea providing that the control board failure related shut off are still most common type of failure. BMS system failure can be addressed by providing parallel battery packs each with its own system, so mainboard is currently most vulnerable component as i havent heard much instances where the motor would fail. So, what i would do is provide a redundant control board but not necessarily the same exact board - just simple set of electronics with an emphasized overcurrent protection that allows the wheel to balance and continue going for at least another hundred feet or more.  No lights, no speakers, no temperature sensing of any other kind of add onn electronics. These will instantly kick in with the mainboard failure and allow the rider to safely get off the wheel. At the same time there should be unambiguous rider notification that control board failed and the wheel cannot be used.

[Cranium]

On 1/22/2016 at 0:59 PM, esaj said:

AFAIK, there are motors with two separate windings, although probably you'd need more complex logics so both mainboards wouldn't try to run the motor at the same time.

Shouldn't be a too big step for Ninebot to copy the Segway, as they own Segway (the whole company)   Another thing if they want to do it, or keep the Segway as a separate "higher end" product with outrageous price.

Segway uses the separate windings in the motor.  I think the control boards each control 1/2 of the windings so if there is a failure, the motor can still run (at a reduced capacity) to get the rider stopped safely.

And I agree that Ninebot may not want to diminish the value of Segway brand by using the uniqueness of the design in cheaper models.

[DS]

On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 0:05 AM, Cloud said:

Hard to say how much more one would pay as the question is asked very loosely. If we are talking about the reduntant control board, i agree with the previous posters that the priority should be to first improve the safety of the main control board and other components and then think about redundancy.

where i disagree is i actually believe that when the safeties of the main components have been improved, then  a redundant control board / electronics would be a good idea providing that the control board failure related shut off are still most common type of failure. BMS system failure can be addressed by providing parallel battery packs each with its own system, so mainboard is currently most vulnerable component as i havent heard much instances where the motor would fail. So, what i would do is provide a redundant control board but not necessarily the same exact board - just simple set of electronics with an emphasized overcurrent protection that allows the wheel to balance and continue going for at least another hundred feet or more.  No lights, no speakers, no temperature sensing of any other kind of add onn electronics. These will instantly kick in with the mainboard failure and allow the rider to safely get off the wheel. At the same time there should be unambiguous rider notification that control board failed and the wheel cannot be used.

Similar my thinking up to your post.

I would pay appr. 20% more for that idea: Small capacity additional batery  to provide energy only for the safe stop...no more riding in case of main baterry/BMS failure. One additional simplified emergency control board - only to make tilt back in a smooth way...again no more riding in case of mainboard failure.

[Cloud]

14 minutes ago, DS said:

Similar my thinking up to your post.

I would pay appr. 20% more for that idea: Small capacity additional batery  to provide energy only for the safe stop...no more riding in case of main baterry/BMS failure. One additional simplified emergency control board - only to make tilt back in a smooth way...again no more riding in case of mainboard failure.

Good idea, i would think though that maybe if there is already more than one pack in the wheel, manufacturers should just perfect the battery/ electronics design to make them more independent, i mean they already have that redundancy in there, they just need to make sure when one battery breaks, the ither one will continue working,

[DS]

@Cloud ....the other one will continue working...and the careless rider will go on the trip...just one corner more.

I'd rather prefer without that option, not because imho i'm careless but temptetion to avoid some embaressment carrying your euc by hand always exist.

[Cloud]

42 minutes ago, DS said:

@Cloud ....the other one will continue working...and the careless rider will go on the trip...just one corner more.

I'd rather prefer without that option, not because imho i'm careless but temptetion to avoid some embaressment carrying your euc by hand always exist.

Well there should be clear rider notification that one of the batteries stopped working. Being that the 2nd built in battery will have more capacity than the additional battery, id think its more safe, but i could be wrong

[DS]

@Cloud ....clear rider notification...i like that

But your second sentence confuse me a bit.

My idea is the power of additional battery to be enough only for emergency safety stop - just for the next lets say 10 meters...maybe 50wh would be good but that depends of the overall power/ speed limit of the particular euc calculated with max rider weight...etc.

[Cloud]

2 hours ago, DS said:

@Cloud ....clear rider notification...i like that

But your second sentence confuse me a bit.

My idea is the power of additional battery to be enough only for emergency safety stop - just for the next lets say 10 meters...maybe 50wh would be good but that depends of the overall power/ speed limit of the particular euc calculated with max rider weight...etc.

Yes i understood that. I was trying to say that because there is already a built in redundancy in the wheel by virtue of having 2 big batteries, one of the two batteries , if independent from the other can be used in emergency situations. And if the rider is notified that one of his batteries is broken he will know to not keep riding as if both batteries are operational. I was just saying, i dont know if there is a need for another emergency battery when this redundancy is already being provided

[DS]

@Cloud

Independent redundant battery that can be used as an emergency is good virtue.

The problem that I see is not technical, but with us, the humans. We are just unpredictable with our behaviors. Many times (when the chosen option looks more favorable), we tend to trust our feelings, guts. But the hardware does not care about our guts, if some failure is about to happen it will happen nevertheless guts and feelings.

Imagine the following situation. You (I mean whoever EUC rider) have two independent batteries and the planned trip is just a little less than the maximum range let's say 20 km. I doubt somebody will pay for full size additional battery and keep it non used, only for emergency. OK, this trip is round back to your car, but at the 15-iest km one of the battery is dead and you got the notification. No face-plant for now, because the second one is still good, keep the lovely EUC in balance. You are on a nice flat narrow asphalt path, no passing cars around, you know that you have only 5km left and you know that the second battery have enough energy to bring you back to the car,

Now, be honest, what you gonna do? Step off and start pushing (OMG carrying!) your EUC 5km? Or you gonna "trust your guts" thinking, no way, there is no way to happen again in such a short time and consecutive way TO ME!

A small little voice in your head is telling you that  this option might constitutes hazardous behavior, but you naturally suppress it. That little voice makes you feel uncomfortable for the next 5km, and you don't think how terrible you'd feel with broken bones. It is the human nature to seek comfort in difference with most animals.

Here again, if mechanical fault is about to happen, it does not choose the situation and how do we feel about it.

That's why my idea is to rule out the possibility the so called emergency battery to be able to do anything else but just to stop you safety.

WOW...it got long...

I hope my words make sense, if not...the discussion goes on, that's why we are here