Popular Post meepmeepmayer Posted January 12, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 12, 2022 (edited) Check the latest posts for the most recent development! (January 2022) There have been several reports of Inmotion V12 electric unicycles crashing people by dying mid-ride. This seems to be due to their control boards abruptly failing. Multiple people even managed to kill their boards by doing a specific test. Boards that survived the test may still not be safe. Presumably this is because some components on the boards (MOSFETs rated for 100V) are simply borderline too small/weak/unsuited for their intended purpose (the V12 is a 100.8V wheel, and higher voltage spikes can occur). Maybe a batch of bad components is responsible, as this problem is new and did not appear with the V12's release. Maybe every V12 produced until now might be affected, because some components are simply too "small", and Inmotion would need to provide boards with better components in the future to really guarantee safety and a long board life. We don't know. Inmotion have acknowledged the problem, but so far their remedy isn't known: End of December message: One week later: The situation is a bit unclear, the real world likelyhood of a V12 board failure is unknown. But it seems fair to make everyone aware that this is a thing, so please inform yourself if you have a V12 or consider a V12. A series of unpredictable instant crashes is always a cause for big concern. It's the one thing that must not happen with electric unicycles. Check our Inmotion forum and specifically the topic linked below for more information. Feel free to discuss anything and ask any questions you want answered, in the topic, in the V12 Monster topic, or in your own topic. This thread will be updated if something noteworthy happens. Till then, ride safe Edited June 2, 2022 by meepmeepmayer 6 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted March 4, 2022 Author Share Posted March 4, 2022 (edited) Still nothing new... Quote by @Chriull: Quote afaik there is nothing official by now, just mentioning of announcements of some resellers that they will replace the board with some new version in april or may... Edited March 4, 2022 by meepmeepmayer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted March 19, 2022 Author Share Posted March 19, 2022 It appears Inmotion will produce a new V12 board (likely with bigger TO-247 sized MOSFETs) that will replace the old, weak board. Dealers will usually contact their customers for a (free) board replacement, but there is no official recall. These boards may take some time be to produced and distributed, so maybe a month or two from now. Make sure to have a new board in any future V12 you buy. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted May 5, 2022 Author Share Posted May 5, 2022 It looks like some new boards are being sent out, but bigger numbers are delayed for now: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted May 10, 2022 Author Share Posted May 10, 2022 Latest update: boards are being sent out in higher numbers, and all are planned to be sent out till the end of July: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 (edited) (From the V12 cutout tracking topic) 11 hours ago, rolis said: Its probably time to put this out.Do not ride your V12 with a new board. There seems to be an issue with the new boards. There will be more information soon and your distributors will get to you too. 10 hours ago, supercurio said: Yes confirming what @rolis says right here. As observed by multiple distributors worldwide, some of the replacement boards fail either by burning MOSFET or temporarily which leads to cutout. So far, each instance happened at low, walking speeds. Inmotion is aware of the issue and working on a lead they identified but it is too early to confirm. If you have such wheel and want to do something instead of simply waiting, a valid test so far has been to walk the wheel. Like @rolis documented, the failure doesn't necessarily happen quickly, therefore although it permits to recreate the issues sometimes it is not conclusive. Walking x km successfully with the wheel doesn't mean it passed and is safe to ride. Please inform your distributor in case they are not aware. They should get in touch with Inmotion for further instructions. Inmotion hasn't been keeping distributors in the loop yet. Message to distributors: I would recommend you wait before shipping wheels to customers after a board swap. If you really don't want to then walk the wheel for some time as the absolute bare minimum test, and inform customers of the ongoing issue and risk. Just like earlier, shipping wheels to customers puts them at risk of cutout, and the reseller to further shipping costs. A very rough failure rate estimate averaging from the distributors I talked to is 10%:Edit: talked to more distributors: should be less than 10%. Can't tell if widespread yet (possibly not) Things are not looking good right now. A notable number of replacement boards are failing, too. The safety of the V12 HT board is also in question after some incidents (maybe this is already fixed with the latest firmware, I don't know). Be careful and stay informed. Edited June 2, 2022 by meepmeepmayer 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted June 25, 2022 Author Share Posted June 25, 2022 Still not entirely clear what is going on with the V12 HT and HS, and if things are completely fixed or not. Check the thread for the latest discussion: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted July 5, 2022 Author Share Posted July 5, 2022 Nothing new, nothing confirmed. I think this is the best advice: Get the latest version of the V12 board, if you haven't already. For the HS, this means not the original or the replacement board, but the "new" board which seems similar to that of the V12 HT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted July 5, 2022 Author Share Posted July 5, 2022 (edited) Great quote (about the V12 HS) from the cutout tracking thread. I would say this is the order of the day: 29 minutes ago, Cress said: Thank you @vBlitz for posting about the crash. It's a great advertisement for safety gear. We need to spread the word that no amount of testing insures the original motor-controller is safe. There isn't a guarantee that the motor-controller caused this failure but the original board is ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED to have a short service life. Nobody needs extra opportunity to test safety gear, we're supporting that industry already. Edited July 5, 2022 by meepmeepmayer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post meepmeepmayer Posted July 16, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 16, 2022 (edited) It appears the situation has cleared up a bit (this is my personal impression, please don't rely too much only on this). Here's how I see the situation: If you have a V12 HS with the original board, replace it before it tries to kill you!! If you have a V12 HS with the replacement board, make very sure the board is ok. They seem to work in general, but there were truly bad manufacturing/quality problems, and Inmotion blamed their customers, which sucks. More info here: EcoDrift article (Google Translate) If you have a V12 HT with its "new" board (TO-247 sized mosfets), you are good, I think. Make sure you have the latest firmware. Here's a disassembly of the V12 HT: EcoDrift V12 HT disassembly (Google Translate) I'm not sure if the V12 HS from now on will also get the "new" TO-247 board of the V12 HT. If it did, that would be great. I thought it would, but I can't find any actual source, so did I only imagine/wish this? If you have a source (one way or the other), please post in the V12 cutout tracking topic (or somewhere else). So far, only the "replacement board" is confirmed to exist. Here's a quite glowing review of the V12. It's a great wheel if the board is fine and safe, just be sure of that: Edited July 22, 2022 by meepmeepmayer 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted July 26, 2022 Author Share Posted July 26, 2022 (edited) General opinion seems to tend towards the V12 being good now. Make sure you have the latest firmware. If you have a V12 HS, make sure it has the replacement board (ones with the original board should never be ridden!) and that the replacement board has been properly installed and is undamaged from transport and free of production issues. For new orders, it can't hurt to have your seller confirm that they sell you a V12 HS in this latest state (with replacement board), but this should happen automatically. For the V12 HT, just update to the latest firmware and enjoy. With no issues, the V12 is a great wheel. Edited July 26, 2022 by meepmeepmayer 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meepmeepmayer Posted December 25, 2022 Author Share Posted December 25, 2022 This thread is a year old and the V12 seems to be good now. Unpinned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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