Begode Master 134V 2400WH Suspension

[Meserias]

31 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Anyone know the implication of this....

if you know Chinese, please share translation with us....
otherwise, we don't understand a thing.

Where is the problem ? please be more specific...
LiTech versions made have the same presumed issue ?

Edited April 23, 2022 by Meserias

[supercurio]

11 minutes ago, Meserias said:

if you know Chinese, please share translation with us....

I would also appreciate a translation.

From what I gather he seems unhappy about the fact that the packs are configured in series, which requires the + of one pack to be connected to the - of another. Or maybe how they are connected in series.

[techyiam]

1 hour ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Anyone know the implication of this....

All he said was that the battery packs are wired in series, and therefore, should one pack or one battery connector go wonky, the system will fail. All the probing was just to show that the packs were indeed wired in series. He spoke in Cantonese.

My view is that there is no flaw nor defect. It was a design decision. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by techyiam

[chanman]

The prodding the battery connections with the resistance checking seemed to demonstrate that the 4 packs get connected in series. This is unusual, every wheel I've seen connects them in parallel. 

I don't think it's fundamentally a problem, but does mean that the wheel presumably requires all 4 packs to be connected to operate.

Oh, didn't see there was already responses lol. Well another person's interpretation I guess.

Also, this makes mixing 40T and 50E packs an extra bad idea. In series the same current will be drawn from each pack no matter their resistances.

Edited April 23, 2022 by chanman

[Tawpie]

Here's a totally whacky idea. It would require care in implementation but.

When a pack fails, bypass it on the motherboard. Now you've got a 100V wheel, make firmware adjustments for 100V and you can probably ride home, albeit "more gently".

Second pack fails, bypass it and now you're down to a 67V wheel. Make firmware adjustments for 67V and you can probably walk it home.

Not advocating for this, and it likely has little real-life utility, but it is an interesting thought experiment!

[chanman]

On further reflection It seems like a much worse approach to me. Say you use these for 10k miles and one of the packs dies. You replace it. Your old packs are now at 90% capacity and your new one is 100%. In parallel this is fine, you get a little balancing on discharge where the new pack gives a little extra current. 

In series, not the case. all packs are drained the same, your old packs bottleneck the system. Maybe the new pack tricks the board into over discharging the old packs because it still has a little extra juice left and the board is just reading the total voltage. Not good stuff. Really wondering why they would make this design choice.

Edited April 23, 2022 by chanman

[fbhb]

Marty's First Begode Master video.

[Forwardnbak]

1 hour ago, fbhb said:

Marty's First Begode Master video.

maybe it’s just the cold but his vibe doesn’t seem overly stoked. Seems on par? with the formally known as s20/PRINCEsong

[Tawpie]

I think it might be new wheel overload! After a while, and if they're not yours, new things are kind of... ok enough? Especially when you've already found Commander.

Maybe, just maybe, wheels that can do things that you're not particularly interested in doing or don't expand the possibility horizon (for you) have a harder time pegging the excitement meter?

[supercurio]

6 hours ago, chanman said:

Also, this makes mixing 40T and 50E packs an extra bad idea. In series the same current will be drawn from each pack no matter their resistances.

2 hours ago, chanman said:

On further reflection It seems like a much worse approach to me. Say you use these for 10k miles and one of the packs dies. You replace it. Your old packs are now at 90% capacity and your new one is 100%. In parallel this is fine, you get a little balancing on discharge where the new pack gives a little extra current. 

In series, not the case. all packs are drained the same, your old packs bottleneck the system. Maybe the new pack tricks the board into over discharging the old packs because it still has a little extra juice left and the board is just reading the total voltage. Not good stuff. Really wondering why they would make this design choice.

The first one is a good point but not a huge concern: it makes mixing battery types impossible.

And what you highlighted here with each pack being in series and the implications if you get 1 a damaged pack that's replaced will more a common issue.
I hope we'll learn more about how these 4 packs are being balanced during charging.

Source

Are there any resistors here? (doesn't look like it)
Or this charging board would need to communicate with each pack BMS to ask it to drain its cell during voltage equalization between the packs?

[mrelwood]

On 4/23/2022 at 7:34 AM, dimos15 said:

I can see your point but you can only apply the braking power that the batteries can take at end of the day. In this case 2600w with samsung and 4500w with moli .

Yes. Still doesn’t affect the braking distance though.

 

21 hours ago, Mango said:

Kingsong has no experience building wheels over 84v so them jumping to 126v is just marketing.

You don’t find it peculiar that BG revealed the 134V Master exactly one BG development cycle after KS announced it’s 126V S24? BG simply can’t be second to KS in any measurable value. THAT is a marketing ploy if anything, led by misled pride. As if unicycles desperately needed to be able to ride on 50mph roads instead of just 40mph ones.

21 hours ago, Mango said:

Gotway has experience building 100v wheels, so they are better prepared for higher voltage wheels.

As was pointed out, the Master is filled with new design decisions while the S26 only upped the voltage (and designed the suspension sliders in a different way).

21 hours ago, Mango said:

Which company’s wheel would you trust?

Burning hot question indeed…

21 hours ago, Mango said:

With the Master battery options, battery fire concerns are finally addressed.

Doesn’t seem related to me. Except now the customer can decide themselves if they want to be the one who’s wheel might burn up a warehouse.

21 hours ago, Mango said:

No confusion which wheel you should buy.

For me either: None.

[alcatraz]

Let's not celebrate early. Nobody knows how the Master is going to hold up to the test of time and a full range of riding conditions.

It hasn't caught fire YET. All it takes is some rider to drop the wheel a few times too many and bam, plant the seed of 🔥🔥🔥. 

[techyiam]

You realize the people in question are people who are willing to pre-order, even with some having only seeing a few computer generated images or videos. These people won't be waiting for 2nd batches or higher. There are people like Duff who is happy to buy without a discount, the KS S20B, after watching the inferno video. For these people, who want to pre-order now---and they will buy one---which one should they buy? So people are going to be rationalizing their decisions as best as they can, given what information is available at the moment. 

For those who are waiting for the fourth batch or later, they just wait it out. No muss no fuss.

Edited April 24, 2022 by techyiam

[Grimm10]

I've changed my order for a new wheel a few times now...V12 to an S20 to a Master. I currently am riding my first wheel, a V10F, and it has become a slug for me.  I need more power, speed, suspension, and I want dependability too.  

I don't have the funds to keep changing wheels every year, so I'm hoping that the Master will be stellar...and safe.  

BUT I NEED IT NOW! 😄

[Forwardnbak]

13 minutes ago, Grimm10 said:

I've changed my order for a new wheel a few times now...V12 to an S20 to a Master. I currently am riding my first wheel, a V10F, and it has become a slug for me.  I need more power, speed, suspension, and I want dependability too.  

I don't have the funds to keep changing wheels every year, so I'm hoping that the Master will be stellar...and safe.  

BUT I NEED IT NOW! 😄

Similar to how you feel, my V11 has been amazing but i’m at the point i need something more. Kinda long run thinking of S20 or Master then sell v11 and get a Shermax as my combo.

Ive kept my money on the s20 for now but seeing good things on the master, i like the alloy and speed and extra mosfets. Don’t like the smaller rim, the bottoming out Chance mentioned and the plastic battery cases. it still kind of looks cheaper to me. 

I need a wheel now also. This is a big save for me and after I buy it will be saving a long time for next upgrade. 

I would’ve liked to have seen more form KS after the testing. Really step up with some better hardware to help seal the deal. 

Both will be good upgrades from our current wheels i think. Enjoy! 

 

 

[meepmeepmayer]

2 hours ago, Grimm10 said:

BUT I NEED IT NOW! 😄

Tell me about it! My February of 2017 ACM needs a replacement badly! Please be good (and cheap), Master.

[FrenchUsa]

My first impression of Unboxing Begode Master

 

[chanman]

Charging in series also seems complicated to do right, not sure how much the BMS can do if things get out of whack. It can't really regulate how much current it takes in without affecting the other packs in the chain. Without this regulation even subtle differences in pack resistance and capacity could accumulate to quite large differences in state of charge over many cycles.

If there's some mechanism for balancing at the pack level built in then I think that alleviates most concerns but otherwise I find this pretty problematic.

[BlckRck2014]

8 hours ago, Forwardnbak said:

Similar to how you feel, my V11 has been amazing but i’m at the point i need something more. Kinda long run thinking of S20 or Master then sell v11 and get a Shermax as my combo.

Ive kept my money on the s20 for now but seeing good things on the master, i like the alloy and speed and extra mosfets. Don’t like the smaller rim, the bottoming out Chance mentioned and the plastic battery cases. it still kind of looks cheaper to me. 

I need a wheel now also. This is a big save for me and after I buy it will be saving a long time for next upgrade. 

I would’ve liked to have seen more form KS after the testing. Really step up with some better hardware to help seal the deal. 

Both will be good upgrades from our current wheels i think. Enjoy! 

 

 

I prefer the plastic battery cases. Feels safer to me

[Rawnei]

So of course, Begode took a step away from their usual battery configuration instead of what we know and trust, now the batteries are in series and nobody outside of Begode knows why, how it's designed or how it will hold up over time, doesn't feel very reassuring.

As someone who pre-ordered the S20/S22 but thinking of maybe switching to a Master because of all the delays and problems this doesn't exactly help me make an informed decision, argh. I guess the sane decision would be to not order a suspension wheel in 2022, miss out on all the suspension fun and let everyone else be beta testers. 😣

[meepmeepmayer]

Some posts about shocks moved to here, as they were supposed to be there:

[alcatraz]

5 hours ago, chanman said:

Charging in series also seems complicated to do right, not sure how much the BMS can do if things get out of whack. It can't really regulate how much current it takes in without affecting the other packs in the chain. Without this regulation even subtle differences in pack resistance and capacity could accumulate to quite large differences in state of charge over many cycles.

If there's some mechanism for balancing at the pack level built in then I think that alleviates most concerns but otherwise I find this pretty problematic.

What if we've got five BMS boards, all able to interrupt charging. One top level 4x33.6v on the charge board and four 8x4.2v in the modules.

That would be cool. I'm curious to find out more.

[Rawnei]

3 hours ago, alcatraz said:

What if we've got five BMS boards, all able to interrupt charging. One top level 4x33.6v on the charge board and four 8x4.2v in the modules.

That would be cool. I'm curious to find out more.

That would be cool, would also be good marketing if Begode informed us about it. 😅

[Tawpie]

9 hours ago, Rawnei said:

Begode took a step away from their usual battery configuration instead of what we know and trust, now the batteries are in series and nobody outside of Begode knows why, how it's designed or how it will hold up over time, doesn't feel very reassuring.

True... but there was a reason, and a pretty good one in the eyes of the BG Engineering staff. This sort of change (shall we be brave and call it 'innovation'?) is not something to make without a reasonably good reason. I haven't thought enough about it to venture a guess, but it's either cost or performance.

4 hours ago, alcatraz said:

What if we've got five BMS boards

Too bad nobody's opened a battery pack yet.

Has anyone shared a picture of the charger? Is it 134V?

Edited April 25, 2022 by Tawpie

[Planemo]

Having seen Kevins teardown, I'm really very unimpressed with the finish on the stanchions. They should be bright, unblemished chrome plate or preferably, coated with a low friction/high hardness anodising process like every MTB fork out there. The Master looks like the sort of finish I would expect to see on an $80 Walmart bike.

As everyone has been saying, time will tell. But the slightest problem in this area will escalate rapidly, and given the stresses that will be placed on the stanchions in this application they need to be good. Further, servicing should be quick and easy - I can do a set of MTB forks in about 30 minutes with readily available and cheap genuine parts. Are the Master legs even serviceable? Given that even Fox/RockShox recommend 30 to 50 hour service intervals across their range, I would consider it essential maintenance for the Master, unless they are to turn into the horrendous mess that a friends Bull K4 has ended up in - the forks are completely shot and largely useless.