V12 Cutout tracking

[mrelwood]

2 hours ago, Jswizzy84 said:

He said it wasn't a cutout but a software failure 

What is a software failure that powers off the wheel if not a cutout??

[supercurio]

17 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

What is a software failure that powers off the wheel if not a cutout??

It's because the wheel ran under him, feeling like it was accelerating.

Talking with distributors, they described similar (but not as severe) wonky behaviors with the V12 HT of the self-balancing algorithm ending with pedals being tilt-back where they should not.
Possibly for Adam the same happened but quickly, so the wheel out-ran him instead.

It's also possible that the wheel cut-out when he was slighly slowing down instead of accelerating, therefore falling backwards instead of forward but although it's hard to tell it wasn't his impressions.

Good news tho at least he was able to send internally recorded wheel data to Inmotion for analysis.

[adrianqbs]

Hi guys!! I'm Adrian from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So, my wheel cut off twice. Once on the blue control board, and once again on A NEW black control board the same night it was replaced.

Initially, the wheel functioned semi normally,

1. The settings would never stick. I would change the voice settings, but it would revert to just the beeps again the next time the wheel was turned on.

2. The wheel would have very weird pedal behaviour, dipping and raising when going up and down slopes or when making a turn. The only way to prevent this was to turn on split mode.

3. a) Although I prefer 100%, the split mode settings would revert to 50% each time the wheel was turned on and off and would need to be manually reset

    b)The top speed would also revert to 60km/h frequently and would need to be manually reset as well.

4. The wheel also turns itself off each time it take a large tumble and needs to be reset (by holding the power button down until the lights flash). Not sure if this is a safety feature or a bug. But I don't mind this much.

Also, I never changed the settings in EUC prior to the cutoffs. Therefore, the temperature alarm had always been set to 70c.

 

I would also like to note that at no point before the first or second cutoff was there ever a high temp warning from the wheel or the Inmotion app. No warnings, no beeps, no tiltbacks, no indication at all from the wheel or the Inmotion app. Unless using EUC world app or manually refreshing the 'About Vehicle' page in the Inmotion app.

 

First cutoff

I was out with the local EUC seller (from whom I had bought the unit), and we went down some steps. I went down 2 steps, each of them about 2 inches in height without incident. I did it again and the wheel just cut off and the screen went dark.

We then proceeded to reset the wheel by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. The tyre then became very stiff with alot of resistance when trying to roll it around. However, it was still possible to try to connect via bluetooth and upload the data logs and we could listen to music while waiting for our rescue ride.

 

           Fortunately, Inmotion had already shipped out a few new control boards to the seller a few days before. And I only had to wait a couple more days before they arrived. We then swapped them out and tested the wheel. 

 

Second cutoff

Once the swap was made, the seller and I proceeded to test the wheel. Very quickly, I got high temp warning from EUC world. Which I had never gotten before despite riding the wheel very often and with a very modest top speed of 60hm/h.

The V12 showing 5 different temps, 4 of them were around 50c. However the MOS temp was above 70c. We let it cool down and proceeded to ride around the neighbourhood at around 20-25km/h. ambient temp at the time was around 30c.

The MOS temp stayed in the mid 60s while the wheel was in motion. I also did the pendulum which got the MOS temp up to 109c.

Fearing this was not normal, we decided not to ride the wheel but to test it out on a hill with a steep gradient (about 25 degrees). This was done much later at night with ambient temp about 26c.

Riding to the test area was uneventful with the 4 temps around 50-ish and the MOS temp about 60c. Going up the hill, the wheel performed quite normally but it cut off again just before the top of the hill. The last recorded temp in EUC world was 130c (which is pretty freaking crazy!!)

We then tried to reset the wheel again by holding down the power button and I heard a pop. At which point, the wheel was totally dead. Resistance on the tyre as before when trying to roll, but no speakers to entertain us this time. Got a ride back to the shop and took the wheel apart.

This time, the board was burnt!! Looks like a capasitor blew. The top board was also damaged as well as discoloration on the plastic board case and the aluminium heatsink.

I'm really thankful this happened at low speed on a steep hill as opposed to bombing up or down a mountain road. Gonna always stress test my wheels this say in the future before going on longer, harder rides.

 

Inmotion has now told the dealer to hold off on repairs as there might be a chance this batch of board may be faulty. Waiting to see when Inmotion will come back with further instructions.

Edited May 25, 2022 by adrianqbs

[Brendan "nog3" Halliday]

2 hours ago, adrianqbs said:

Hi guys!! I'm Adrian from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So, my wheel cut off twice. Once on the blue control board, and once again on A NEW black control board the same night it was replaced.

Initially, the wheel functioned semi normally,

1. The settings would never stick. I would change the voice settings, but it would revert to just the beeps again the next time the wheel was turned on.

2. The wheel would have very weird pedal behaviour, dipping and raising when going up and down slopes or when making a turn. The only way to prevent this was to turn on split mode.

3. a) Although I prefer 100%, the split mode settings would revert to 50% each time the wheel was turned on and off and would need to be manually reset

    b)The top speed would also revert to 60km/h frequently and would need to be manually reset as well.

4. The wheel also turns itself off each time it take a large tumble and needs to be reset (by holding the power button down until the lights flash). Not sure if this is a safety feature or a bug. But I don't mind this much.

Also, I never changed the settings in EUC prior to the cutoffs. Therefore, the temperature alarm had always been set to 70c.

 

First cutoff

I was out with the local EUC seller (from whom I had bought the unit), and we went down some steps. I went down 2 steps, each of them about 2 inches in height without incident. I did it again and the wheel just cut off and the screen went dark.

We then proceeded to reset the wheel by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. The tyre then became very stiff with alot of resistance when trying to roll it around. However, it was still possible to try to connect via bluetooth and upload the data logs and we could listen to music while waiting for our rescue ride.

 

           Fortunately, Inmotion had already shipped out a few new control boards to the seller a few days before. And I only had to wait a couple more days before they arrived. We then swapped them out and tested the wheel. 

 

Second cutoff

Once the swap was made, the seller and I proceeded to test the wheel. Very quickly, I got high temp warning from EUC world. Which I had never gotten before despite riding the wheel very often and with a very modest top speed of 60hm/h.

The V12 showing 5 different temps, 4 of them were around 50c. However the MOS temp was above 70c. We let it cool down and proceeded to ride around the neighbourhood at around 20-25km/h. ambient temp at the time was around 30c.

The MOS temp stayed in the mid 60s while the wheel was in motion. I also did the pendulum which got the MOS temp up to 109c.

Fearing this was not normal, we decided not to ride the wheel but to test it out on a hill with a steep gradient (about 25 degrees). This was done much later at night with ambient temp about 26c.

Riding to the test area was uneventful with the 4 temps around 50-ish and the MOS temp about 60c. Going up the hill, the wheel performed quite normally but it cut off again just before the top of the hill. The last recorded temp in EUC world was 130c (which is pretty freaking crazy!!)

We then tried to reset the wheel again by holding down the power button and I heard a pop. At which point, the wheel was totally dead. Resistance on the tyre as before when trying to roll, but no speakers to entertain us this time. Got a ride back to the shop and took the wheel apart.

This time, the board was burnt!! Looks like a capasitor blew. The top board was also damaged as well as discoloration on the plastic board case and the aluminium heatsink.

I'm really thankful this happened at low speed on a steep hill as opposed to bombing up or down a mountain road. Gonna always stress test my wheels this say in the future before going on longer, harder rides.

 

Inmotion has now told the dealer to hold off on repairs as there might be a chance this batch of board may be faulty. Waiting to see when Inmotion will come back with further instructions.

Did the dealer apply fresh (nonconductive) heat paste at all to the new board's mosfets? It seems like such a small thing, but if conduction isn't great that could explain the issue.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Brendan "nog3" Halliday
correction

[supercurio]

Damn @adrianqbs, that's not a lot of luck you've had so far with your V12 so far.
Thanks a lot for sharing with us your detailed report including Inmotion's early feedback.

I thought the same as @Brendan "nog3" Halliday.
Were you 100% confident about the installation and thermal interface between the MOS and heatsink? I'm surprised it was decided to test-ride it until it would burn instead of re-applying thermal paste after you noticed excessive temperatures.

Edited May 25, 2022 by supercurio

[Rawnei]

My reseller got the boards this week, sending the wheel back tomorrow for replacement.

Agree with previous posters, sounds like something went wrong with the replacement of the board in your wheel @adrianqbs

[jimjam.nyc]

Not only applying of heat paste.. But the correct non conducting heat paste. I trust the dealers, but mistakes def happen! 

Hoping to get my board at some point, but have a list of questions to ask to make sure I install it correctly. 

 

I am confident in my skills and knowledge, but rather be extra cautious incase something gets missed!

[adrianqbs]

1 hour ago, Brendan "nog3" Halliday said:

Did the dealer apply fresh (nonconductive) heat paste at all to the new board's mosfets? It seems like such a small thing, but if conduction isn't great that could explain the issue.

Hey @Brendan "nog3" Halliday, yeah, the paste was applied. Cause I applied them. We took the wheel apart together and went really slow about it. Making sure everything was done properly.

But even then, besides the thermal paste, there is a small thermal strip as well. And that should be more than sufficient to ensure proper contact with the heatsink.

Futhermore, the closest paralel I could think off was running a computer CPU without thermal paste. And there's plenty of videos on Youtube showing that while thermal paste does make a difference, it's actually not that big of a difference.

We've ruled out the thermal paste as a likely cause.

 

1 hour ago, supercurio said:

I'm surprised it was decided to test-ride it until it would burn instead of re-applying thermal paste after you noticed excessive temperatures.

And yes, you're right @supercurio. That would have been the more cautious path to have followed. And in fact, I had already planned to go the next day to get Artic Silver thermal paste to reapply as a precaution. In retrospect, being patient till the next day might have made a difference but boys and their toys will be boys and their toys.

We decided to test ride but all the while being extremely cautious while constantly monitoring the temps. Rode the wheel about 1km to get a drink with no overheating or anything untoward. Then rode it further to the hill, maybe 3 to 4km, where we stress tested it. There weren't any unusual readings until we got to the hill. Checked the temps again right at the foot.

 

24 minutes ago, jimjam.nyc said:

Not only applying of heat paste.. But the correct non conducting heat paste. I trust the dealers, but mistakes def happen! 

Hoping to get my board at some point, but have a list of questions to ask to make sure I install it correctly. 

 

I am confident in my skills and knowledge, but rather be extra cautious incase something gets missed!

@jimjam.nycThe thermal paste was applied well by us. It's a fairly straightforward thing and anyone who has built a few PCs will have no issue.

[Paradox]

26 minutes ago, jimjam.nyc said:

Hoping to get my board at some point, but have a list of questions to ask to make sure I install it correctly. 

@eevees posted a good video on board replacement.

 

[adrianqbs]

26 minutes ago, jimjam.nyc said:

Not only applying of heat paste.. But the correct non conducting heat paste. I trust the dealers, but mistakes def happen! 

Hoping to get my board at some point, but have a list of questions to ask to make sure I install it correctly. 

 

I am confident in my skills and knowledge, but rather be extra cautious incase something gets missed!

 

Just some notes about the thermal paste that was provided in Inmotion.

 

The board that I received came with 4 extra screws for the MOSFETS, a thin replacement thermal strip which had thermal paste already applied on it. Applied rather thinly and unevenly albeit. We had to scrape it off and reapply it more evenly.

 

In this video, it would seem to indicate that the thermal paste used is the Kafuter K-5211. And here is a link to a sell post.

https://kafuter.en.alibaba.com/product/60092320548-806852126/Kafuter_LED_K_5211_LED_bulb_high_conductive_silicone_grease.html

 

I'm not quite sure about it's electrical conductivity and I did try (not that hard) to google around to find out. I had more or less decided to use better paste if I was going to open everything up again anyway.

In the end, I decided to go for a more high end thermal paste that a PC builder would use.

[Richardo]

1 hour ago, adrianqbs said:

yeah, the paste was applied. Cause I applied them

This is half the answer- the other half was whether you verified the paste was an electrical insulator. Many thermal pastes are electrically conductive.

My dealer recommended I use HY510 paste- which can be found on amazon. When I replaced the board earlier, I used Noctua nt-h2, and that has been working fine for the months I've been riding on an original replacement board. (and it's specifically listed as nonconductive paste)

one other note- the thermal strip is also important as an electrical insulator. I'm writing this because someone else reading it might think they can skip the strip, or not understand that it's possible to over tighten and cause a short through the strip, or a short by cracking the insulating collars on the screws.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Richardo

[adrianqbs]

Here's an update, Inmotion is done with their assessment and will be shipping out new boards soon. Will install and update here =)

Hopefully all will be well in a couple of weeks.

[adrianqbs]

17 hours ago, Richardo said:

This is half the answer- the other half was whether you verified the paste was an electrical insulator. Many thermal pastes are electrically conductive.

My dealer recommended I use HY510 paste- which can be found on amazon. When I replaced the board earlier, I used Noctua nt-h2, and that has been working fine for the months I've been riding on an original replacement board. (and it's specifically listed as nonconductive paste)

one other note- the thermal strip is also important as an electrical insulator. I'm writing this because someone else reading it might think they can skip the strip, or not understand that it's possible to over tighten and cause a short through the strip, or a short by cracking the insulating collars on the screws.

The paste we used was what Inmotion provided with the new board. I am not able to verify if it is electrically conductive or not unfortunately.

With this in mind, will be using Noctua NT-H2 (better), as you suggested or Artic Silver 5 (not as good, but still 6 times more thermally conductive than stock). Both are electically non conductive. Will need to see what is availble at the local computer mall.

On the other point, we are quite confident that we did not over-tighten the screw on the strip and did test for shorts with a multimeter 3 times before putting everything together. We will definitely pay some extra attention to that as well.

Fingers crossed and hope the third time will be the charmed one.

[Planemo]

Theres so much to like about how Inmotion puts it's wheels together but I had no idea the heatsink was directly on top of the rotating tyre! a few muddy rides will block those fins right up. Even worse position than the MSX one being on the side of the wheel. Muddy riders will need to try and keep those fins clean of crap!

[Chriull]

18 hours ago, adrianqbs said:

But even then, besides the thermal paste, there is a small thermal strip as well. And that should be more than sufficient to ensure proper contact with the heatsink.

Exactly - the thermal strip is more than enough! There are just some very exotic not often used thermal strips that need thermal paste - but every normal cheap thermal strip as used in eucs needs no paste!

It can only make thermal resistance higher!

The only way to improve thermal conductance is to get better quality thermal strips or change to ceramic insulation sheets/plates (mica or some alumunium oxide) which needs thermal paste!

Non conductive paste is not needed (but is afaik "standard") - for insulation one has the pads or plates and insulating "screw spacers". If one sinks all mosfets in a sea of thermal paste one has used way too much anyways...

Conductive thermal paste is just overly expensive accessoire for computer owners having too much money... The used metallic powder (silver) is to increase thermal conductivity a bit, electric conductivity is still modest - just the price is huge!

Thermal paste is just needed to fill the microscopic irregularities of the mosfets metal surface as the air trapped in this micro irregularities has a very high thermal resistance! Thermal paste has a bit better thermal conductance - but still very bad!

Thermal ?silicone? strips are flexible enough to fill this gaps and so paste is only worsening thermal conductivity!

Every bit too much thermal paste hindering direct contact between the mosfet and the used insulator decreases thermal conductivity!

Especially well using thermal paste in combination with some thermal ?silicone? strip can only decreases thermal conductivity!

18 hours ago, Paradox said:

@eevees posted a good video on board replacement

Every sign of old thermal paste has to be removed completely before assembly!

Old dry or drier spots of thermal paste are great for thermal insulation!

PS.: Did i tell that thermal paste is bad, not needed and only decreases thermal conductivity in combination with thermal strips! 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Chriull

[Steve Evans]

i will be replacing my driver board today. i have 2000 miles on my V12. should i reuse the old insulator strip on the heatsink or use the new one shipped with the new driver board? and/or add thermal paste?

or is this not critical?

thanks,

steve

 

[Chriull]

14 minutes ago, evans036 said:

i will be replacing my driver board today. i have 2000 miles on my V12. should i reuse the old insulator strip on the heatsink or use the new one shipped with the new driver board? and/or add thermal paste?

or is this not critical?

thanks,

steve

 

If you can clean the old insulator strip from the old thermal paste, it is intact and has not too much compressed areas it could be reused.

How thick and how "hard"/elastic/compressible is this thermal pad?

For elastomer/silicone/compressible pads thermal paste is counterproductive - just decreasing thermal conductance.

Only for hard plates/sheets (ceramic or mica) or metal on metal thermal paste is to be used.

An important point is to get the mosfets nicely positioned to the heatsink so they have full maximum contact area. So they are really parallel once screwed with slight pressure.

This should give no(t too much) mechanical force on the legs soldered to the pcb, too.

[Richardo]

I just noticed the Inmotion tech cracked the motherboard housing tab the same way I did

https://youtu.be/Ue5vC4XhU7s?t=712 (11:53)

Be careful tightening those screws, the plastic can only handle the smallest amount of torque!

[Steve Evans]

14 minutes ago, Richardo said:

I just noticed the Inmotion tech cracked the motherboard housing tab the same way I did

https://youtu.be/Ue5vC4XhU7s?t=712 (11:53)

Be careful tightening those screws, the plastic can only handle the smallest amount of torque!

yeah, i noticed that too.

[Rawnei]

2 hours ago, Richardo said:

I just noticed the Inmotion tech cracked the motherboard housing tab the same way I did

https://youtu.be/Ue5vC4XhU7s?t=712 (11:53)

Be careful tightening those screws, the plastic can only handle the smallest amount of torque!

Look earlier it was already cracked. 😁

 

[Paul g]

On 5/25/2022 at 12:05 PM, adrianqbs said:

Hi guys!! I'm Adrian from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. So, my wheel cut off twice. Once on the blue control board, and once again on A NEW black control board the same night it was replaced.

Initially, the wheel functioned semi normally,

1. The settings would never stick. I would change the voice settings, but it would revert to just the beeps again the next time the wheel was turned on.

2. The wheel would have very weird pedal behaviour, dipping and raising when going up and down slopes or when making a turn. The only way to prevent this was to turn on split mode.

3. a) Although I prefer 100%, the split mode settings would revert to 50% each time the wheel was turned on and off and would need to be manually reset

    b)The top speed would also revert to 60km/h frequently and would need to be manually reset as well.

4. The wheel also turns itself off each time it take a large tumble and needs to be reset (by holding the power button down until the lights flash). Not sure if this is a safety feature or a bug. But I don't mind this much.

Also, I never changed the settings in EUC prior to the cutoffs. Therefore, the temperature alarm had always been set to 70c.

 

I would also like to note that at no point before the first or second cutoff was there ever a high temp warning from the wheel or the Inmotion app. No warnings, no beeps, no tiltbacks, no indication at all from the wheel or the Inmotion app. Unless using EUC world app or manually refreshing the 'About Vehicle' page in the Inmotion app.

 

First cutoff

I was out with the local EUC seller (from whom I had bought the unit), and we went down some steps. I went down 2 steps, each of them about 2 inches in height without incident. I did it again and the wheel just cut off and the screen went dark.

We then proceeded to reset the wheel by holding the power button down for 30 seconds. The tyre then became very stiff with alot of resistance when trying to roll it around. However, it was still possible to try to connect via bluetooth and upload the data logs and we could listen to music while waiting for our rescue ride.

 

           Fortunately, Inmotion had already shipped out a few new control boards to the seller a few days before. And I only had to wait a couple more days before they arrived. We then swapped them out and tested the wheel. 

 

Second cutoff

Once the swap was made, the seller and I proceeded to test the wheel. Very quickly, I got high temp warning from EUC world. Which I had never gotten before despite riding the wheel very often and with a very modest top speed of 60hm/h.

The V12 showing 5 different temps, 4 of them were around 50c. However the MOS temp was above 70c. We let it cool down and proceeded to ride around the neighbourhood at around 20-25km/h. ambient temp at the time was around 30c.

The MOS temp stayed in the mid 60s while the wheel was in motion. I also did the pendulum which got the MOS temp up to 109c.

Fearing this was not normal, we decided not to ride the wheel but to test it out on a hill with a steep gradient (about 25 degrees). This was done much later at night with ambient temp about 26c.

Riding to the test area was uneventful with the 4 temps around 50-ish and the MOS temp about 60c. Going up the hill, the wheel performed quite normally but it cut off again just before the top of the hill. The last recorded temp in EUC world was 130c (which is pretty freaking crazy!!)

We then tried to reset the wheel again by holding down the power button and I heard a pop. At which point, the wheel was totally dead. Resistance on the tyre as before when trying to roll, but no speakers to entertain us this time. Got a ride back to the shop and took the wheel apart.

This time, the board was burnt!! Looks like a capasitor blew. The top board was also damaged as well as discoloration on the plastic board case and the aluminium heatsink.

I'm really thankful this happened at low speed on a steep hill as opposed to bombing up or down a mountain road. Gonna always stress test my wheels this say in the future before going on longer, harder rides.

 

Inmotion has now told the dealer to hold off on repairs as there might be a chance this batch of board may be faulty. Waiting to see when Inmotion will come back with further instructions.

Today my board has arrived. It is black and has marked on it the board identification: LX20101_DRIVER_V0.9.      20211224  BY  XSQ.     04 22.   

04.22 must be the month and year of production

Thanks for sharing, @adrianqbs! I won’t change it either, waiting for InMotion to give us more info.

How can you share photos on this forum?

 

[Tawpie]

10 minutes ago, Paul g said:

How can you share photos on this forum?

 

[Paul g]

OK. Wanted to post some pictures, but as I don’t trust the big tech with my info and avoid them as much as possible, it would take a while to set it up. I’ll leave it for an other time. 
 

[Paul g]

Does anybody, by any chance, knows what kind of protective coating InMotion boards have? Mine has the coating executed poorly and probably they’re all the same, so I try to buy some coating solution to do it my self properly on the next one.

[supercurio]

Another report of replacement board failing, no details yet but stay tuned.

Please keep in mind if riding the V12 that black replacement boards are not proven yet, with 2 failures reported so far, with cause not understood at the moment.
Damn.

Edited May 28, 2022 by supercurio