KS S22 Battery/Firmware/BMS Problem

[Elliott Reitz]

It still won't charge.  This S20 is the combination of the S20-proto and an S22 .   The prototype controller failed and the S22 Batteries Failed.  So the S20-proto bats in the S22 rides, but now it won't charge.  I'm down to 60% so this could be a last ride for a while.  

PS:  I replaced the shock with an air-shock.  

 

[Tawpie]

I don't know... it doesn't look like the shock is actually moving much? And your 'sag ring' didn't get pushed down as much as I would expect. Maybe too much air?

Have you tried charging the batteries individually? It could be that only 1 side is duff and it's calling for charge stop. Of course, that'll imbalance the two packs from each other, but might point a finger at the one that's having problems (assuming of course it's not a more general problem)

[Elliott Reitz]

No.  I did just notice where the charger comes into the motherboard the adjacent pin appears to be the other side of the connection to the battery (123V charger side, 116V on the yellow wire side).  

[Elliott Reitz]

Update:

KS reps had me upload new bms firmware.  Still won't charge.  So I'm dealing with 2x dead wheels with bms/firmware problems. 

Wh1/set1bats = S20 proto from ebay, Wh1/set2bats = S22 from eWheels.   

Current configurations

Wh2/set1bats - rode about 15 miles but won't charge.  Firmware upgrades via SoftTuner with KS reps looking at it.  Still not charging. 

Wh1/set2bats - disassembled because the motherboard is clearly failed (strange sound riding and will not power off without bat disconnect).  The set2bats are also failed because bat1 has an over/under cell report (but that's not true per hand measuring), and bat2 faults when paired with the other set's bat1).  

[Elliott Reitz]

Update:  

Well I found a means to force it to charge.  In the picture I noticed ground from the batteries and ground from the charger were 19V difference.  From my own hardware engineering experience I've seen too many ground problems manifest like this.  I like the phrase "there's no ground like mother earth".  So I tried a touch-jumper and the charger kicked in.

So I've re-assembled with the jumper kept in place.  Its passing enough current to warm the jumper through not burn or melt it.  Some risk exists with the approach, especially not knowing the actual circuit design.  I don't think that pin is connected to much when the charger is not present - so ok to ride and use after ride to charge again.  Its like its fixed though I want confirmation (requested from KS reps) in the actual circuit design and whether the solution is appropriate or worse, dangerous. 

[Wolverine]

8 minutes ago, Elliott Reitz said:

Update:  

Well I found a means to force it to charge.  In the picture I noticed ground from the batteries and ground from the charger were 19V difference.  From my own hardware engineering experience I've seen too many ground problems manifest like this.  I like the phrase "there's no ground like mother earth".  So I tried a touch-jumper and the charger kicked in.

So I've re-assembled with the jumper kept in place.  Its passing enough current to warm the jumper through not burn or melt it.  Some risk exists with the approach, especially not knowing the actual circuit design.  I don't think that pin is connected to much when the charger is not present - so ok to ride and use after ride to charge again.  Its like its fixed though I want confirmation (requested from KS reps) in the actual circuit design and whether the solution is appropriate or worse, dangerous. 

Boy! I am glad to see that you got it working!

Unfortunately, the problems of the ground are quite common. In any case, please measure the amount of current flowing through this jumper, and check that the jumper has sufficient parameters that are relevant from a safety point of view.

[chanman]

Wow, nice find. just curious if you've tried another charger, maybe this one has an issue if it's followed you to multiple boards and battery sets and you found this discrepancy with the grounds?

Edited May 29, 2022 by chanman

[Elliott Reitz]

My greatest joy has become my worst nightmare.  Sure the batteries charged via jumper-enable.  But now the wheel won't ride.  Its like its fighting itself now. 

So of the 2 wheels I've now got 2 failed controllers and at least 1 set of failed batteries.  I've done my best to trouble-shoot them but damn I just lost another day trying to fix this and it was never my fault to start with.  I've invested nearly $8000 and I'm still down and out.  I'm willing to spend that much more just to have a suspended speed wheel to ride THIS SUMMER.   

Sad, $-wasted, fooled, failed myself, and now can't even ride it.  F___ me. 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Elliott Reitz

[chanman]

Bleh. This one reminds me of the somewhat common inmotion jackhammery issue, not sure if the cause is the same, hopefully is because its an easy fix.

 

[techyiam]

50 minutes ago, Elliott Reitz said:

Sad, $-wasted, fooled, failed myself, and now can't even ride it.  F___ me.

You may be stumped now. But you are going to feel great when you get them working again. That is the thing with being techy. A lot of the time, you would manage to fix things yourself and save some money in the process. But there can be a few moments when one gets too stubborn to give up, and end up digging oneself a deeper hole, at least that is what it seems at that moment. How I see it is, the tougher the challenge, the more I will learn.

 

50 minutes ago, Elliott Reitz said:

I've invested nearly $8000 and I'm still down and out.  I'm willing to spend that much more just to have a suspended speed wheel to ride THIS SUMMER. 

Are you hinting that you are eyeing the Hero? I think the Master is still a little too far out, unless you are thinking to airfreight directly from China.

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by techyiam

[Elliott Reitz]

1 hour ago, techyiam said:

You may be stumped now. But you are going to feel great when you get them working again. That is the thing with being techy. A lot of the time, you would manage to fix things yourself and save some money in the process. But there can be a few moments when one gets too stubborn to give up, and end up digging oneself a deeper hole, at least that is what it seems at that moment. How I see it is, the tougher the challenge, the more I will learn.

Are you hinting that you are eyeing the Hero? I think the Master is still a little too far out, unless you are thinking to airfreight directly from China.

I have a deposit on the Master.  

Meanwhile, another step backwards.  It may have had something to do with the motor-cable rather than the jumper for charging.  As it was making the noise and I was just rolling it I noticed that pushing the motor-cable into the red holder seemed to make the noise stop... reliably, again and again.  So I removed the red cover and tried to better align the wires.  Seems that little white connector may have been loose.. But my reassembly seemed to suck and it shook itself then stopped.  The cover off of the older wheel and now it reports hall sensor error.  So I suspect a wire break issue in that hall-sensor-cable due to all the manipulation.  So now the motor-cable is suspect too.  And I've blown all my confidence of being an engineer for 40 years. 

+ I Have a 100V MSX on loan to a family member.  I had the S20 when I loaned it.  I'm gonna get it back soon.  It has a seat and I need more speed to commute safely with 2 lane no bike/sidewalk lanes, 30mph posted.  The S18 uses 20 amps to keep 25 mph with any sort of winds and I don't have a seat on it.  

Edited May 29, 2022 by Elliott Reitz
+

[Don Morgan]

I just received my s22 a few days ago. Updated the firmware to 2.22 i think it is, i didnt notice the bms tab at the top. Went on one ride mostly to burn off the 10km requirement total ride was 45 km. Then I intended on charging it and doing a range test and I had this alarm go off when it was charging i turned it on and off and opened the app was told I needed a bms update, it was on the kickstand and I tried like 30 times and just got this acquisition error, it was late and I needed sleep, alarm went off every few hours. The next day I rode it alot charged it 2 times and put on around 110km. For the Final charge that night the alarm went off again  and I was able to do this bms update.

Now things are worse wish I got the master as badly I wanted the s22 think its the last kingsong ever. Nobody should be making a purchase like this and can't use it out of the box could be months before I get it repaired  after an already undesirable wait. Now it sits there and ticks like a loud clock and makes a terrible squeak noise from  the bearings area and has this jerky movement when rolling the wheel and its off....... so less then 200 km on the s22 and a slew of issues waiting to hear back from  my vendor to see what to do.

 

 

[Tawpie]

7 hours ago, Don Morgan said:

waiting to hear back from  my vendor to see what to do.

You got one of the short straws, I'm sorry for you. The wheel needs to be looked at, I'm guessing the ticking when you're rolling it around is a loose magnet but have no idea. The other noise sounds like the rubber squeaking—is the tire rubbing metal anywhere? That really doesn't matter, this has the smell of a wheel that was bad from the factory.

Good luck with getting it repaired! And take heart—the initial set of Masters had/has issues as well so going Master isn't a guarantee either. Getting a 1st batch wheel out of the box with absolutely no problems is an unusually good day.

[UtahRider]

9 hours ago, Don Morgan said:

I just received my s22 a few days ago. Updated the firmware to 2.22 i think it is, i didnt notice the bms tab at the top. Went on one ride mostly to burn off the 10km requirement total ride was 45 km. Then I intended on charging it and doing a range test and I had this alarm go off when it was charging i turned it on and off and opened the app was told I needed a bms update, it was on the kickstand and I tried like 30 times and just got this acquisition error, it was late and I needed sleep, alarm went off every few hours. The next day I rode it alot charged it 2 times and put on around 110km. For the Final charge that night the alarm went off again  and I was able to do this bms update.

Now things are worse wish I got the master as badly I wanted the s22 think its the last kingsong ever. Nobody should be making a purchase like this and can't use it out of the box could be months before I get it repaired  after an already undesirable wait. Now it sits there and ticks like a loud clock and makes a terrible squeak noise from  the bearings area and has this jerky movement when rolling the wheel and its off....... so less then 200 km on the s22 and a slew of issues waiting to hear back from  my vendor to see what to do.

 

 

Damn, sorry for you! This doesn’t instill confidence that the s22 is ready yet IMO. This is the 2nd one reported un-rideable out of the box. I’d like to know how many s22s have been delivered so far and how rare or common these problems are. Only time will tell I guess but I’m going to do something extremely hard and nix my pre-order. I’ll wait a batch or two. For me, it’s just too much time and money invested to have this happen. I barely have time to ride let alone messing with EUC troubleshooting that should’ve been done at the factory and returns to distributor. Good luck and please keep us posted.

[Wolverine]

On 7/3/2022 at 10:27 PM, UtahRider said:

For me, it’s just too much time and money invested to have this happen. I barely have time to ride let alone messing with EUC troubleshooting that should’ve been done at the factory and returns to distributor.

And that's why some of us don't pre-order anything. Instead, we wait until the problems are fixed and the batch is decent. If people have excess time and money, then why not, but if there is no such thing, then it is not worth pre-ordering.

Fun Fact: The first batch of Begode Master is still on the way to customers, but Begode has already released version 3 of the board. The poor people made a pre-order and now they have to see how they can get a new board as Begode does not give these for free, let alone send them automatically to customers.

[Miko.cz]

48 minutes ago, Wolverine said:

And that's why some of us don't pre-order anything. Instead, we wait until the problems are fixed and the batch is decent. If people have excess time and money, then why not, but if there is no such thing, then it is not worth pre-ordering.

Fun Fact: The first batch of Begode Master is still on the way to customers, but Begode has already released version 3 of the board. The poor people made a pre-order and now they have to see how they can get a new board as Begode does not give these for free, let alone send them automatically to customers.

It depends, for me pre-order was with big discount and now even more with money inflation.
KS is not BG, of course they are doing mistakes and wrong decisions, but I think probability is significant lower and there is also higher probability of fw fix possibility.
S20/2 is beeing externally tested for about one year now (well, unplanned, thats true). I feel significaly lower as a guinea pig than if I order new Master, maybe its because I hate approach "competitor have something, we must have it better and very quick", could be my personal curse as Im tester .

[Elliott Reitz]

Thanks to AlienRides I have my 1st S22 working again. Nice for an evening ride chasing deer with the dogs!

They sent me a working controller-battery set in exchange for my dead-controller with seemingly working batteries.   Now I can ride it again! 

I was concerned about its firmware version and if it would brick on upgrade but its already at V2.22 (last version I tried via soft-tuner was 2.19 on those dead controllers).  Its charging ok too.  EUC World is showing all the batteries in the BMS too.  FINALLY!  

 

[supercurio]

Congrats @Elliott Reitz! Something went wrong with your early unit and it seems that so far things are working okay on the production model. I hope it continues that way!

[Miko.cz]

20 minutes ago, Caméléon said:

Bonjour mon mari a acheté la KS22, il vient de la recevoir et il a allumé tout allait bien, il a roulé avec 2 fois et le lendemain un message d'erreur E 27 ! Il a gonflé un peu le pneu... Comment vous avez fait avec votre roue? C'était quoi au final ? Car je crois que vous avez eu le même message d'erreur que nous ! Peuvent-ils en envoyer une nouvelle ? Merci vraiment d'avance pour votre retour ! Il est vraiment très déçu à peine reçu et vu le prix déjà un problème !!!

https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/3969-forum-rules-and-guidelines-must-read-before-your-first-post/

[Caméléon]

4 hours ago, Miko.cz said:

https://forum.electricunicycle.org/topic/3969-forum-rules-and-guidelines-must-read-before-your-first-post/

Hello my husband bought the KS22, he just received it and he turned it on everything was fine, he drove with it 2 times and the next day an error message E 27! He inflated the tire a bit... How did you do with your wheel? What was it in the end? Because I think you got the same error message as we did! Can they send a new one? Thank you so much in advance for your feedback! It's really very disappointing as soon as received and considering the price already a problem!!!

[Caméléon]

On 7/31/2022 at 1:37 PM, Elliott Reitz said:

Thanks to AlienRides I have my 1st S22 working again. Nice for an evening ride chasing deer with the dogs!

They sent me a working controller-battery set in exchange for my dead-controller with seemingly working batteries.   Now I can ride it again! 

I was concerned about its firmware version and if it would brick on upgrade but its already at V2.22 (last version I tried via soft-tuner was 2.19 on those dead controllers).  Its charging ok too.  EUC World is showing all the batteries in the BMS too.  FINALLY!  

 

Hello my husband bought the KS22, he just received it and he turned it on everything was fine, he drove with it 2 times and the next day an error message E 27! He inflated the tire a bit... How did you do with your wheel? What was it in the end? Because I think you got the same error message as we did! Can they send a new one? Thank you so much in advance for your feedback! It's really very disappointing as soon as received and considering the price already a problem!!!

@Alien Rides @Elliott Reitz

[Elliott Reitz]

21 hours ago, Caméléon said:

Hello my husband bought the KS22, he just received it and he turned it on everything was fine, he drove with it 2 times and the next day an error message E 27! He inflated the tire a bit... How did you do with your wheel? What was it in the end? Because I think you got the same error message as we did! Can they send a new one? Thank you so much in advance for your feedback! It's really very disappointing as soon as received and considering the price already a problem!!!

@Alien Rides @Elliott Reitz

I got a new motherboard and pair of batteries in exchange from AR.  Had same situation with eWheels S22 and waiting for their custom's containers to be released.  

[blankman58]

I was instructed to update the BMS firmware from 2.10 to version 2.14. But when I click check for update, it states that I have the latest version.

[NErider]

On 11/21/2022 at 10:31 PM, blankman58 said:

I was instructed to update the BMS firmware from 2.10 to version 2.14. But when I click check for update, it states that I have the latest version.

Weird. I'm on 2.08 and it says up to date. Maybe it's because I have the 40T version from Ewheels?

[Tawpie]

59 minutes ago, NErider said:

Weird. I'm on 2.08 and it says up to date. Maybe it's because I have the 40T version from Ewheels?

You are pretty far behind and there has been a significant change to the BMS firmware somewhere along the line. This is one instance where you should look at KS Softuner (Apple App Store). That app is a made for distributors and service centers and is not intended to be a consumer app because KS allows you to load non-production (test) software using Softuner. KS release notes are NOT good, and it is very easy to load software you shouldn't load.

My wheel arrived with mainboard 2.22 and BMS 2.15, this was most certainly installed by my reseller. My understanding is that somewhere around BMS 2.12, KS tweaked the BMS so that balancing would actually happen... earlier firmware did not allow the packs to balance.

The current scuttlebutt on telegram (you should hop over and read the back scroll, it's very very, very long but worth the read). BMS 2.15 is considered 'correct and fine to load'. Mainboard 2.22 is the general purpose version for 50E wheels and 2.23 may be 'better' although the differences aren't notable. For 40T wheels, there's some whispering that 2.24 is intended specifically for that configuration.

There is some risk with firmware update, and failures to update were quite common in the early days but to my knowledge nobody actually bricked their wheel (except perhaps Elliot). Follow the instructions exactly, and I mean exactly.

Personally, in your situation I'd take mainboard to 2.24 and BMS to 2.15, this is because I have a sneaking and totally unfounded suspicion that the early mainboard failures (high torque demand, stall the wheel, it falls on its side, spins up and board goes poof) are firmware related. I have zero evidence to suggest this, it's all imaginings in my head. Getting the BMS to 2.15 is uncontroversial and has demonstrated benefit (balancing).

But there remains the sage advice: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And never be afraid to ask eWheels, they're super excellent at answering questions.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Tawpie