Inmotion V14 Adventure: a new trail wheel from Inmotion

[bpong]

its a situation where if you where to ride the wheel to see if its claims are valid,  you may end up damaging the wheel and consequently,  voiding your warranty since the actions to test its claims come under the heading of perhaps pushing the limitations past the wheels capabilities...

[on one]

Perhaps I will have to be on the lookout for a private party offer, that could realistically be $300 above the new price.

[InfiniteWheelie]

If anyone believes there will be a network of swappable batteries for you to rent while you fly your wheel around, I have a bridge to sell you.

[Punxatawneyjoe]

33 minutes ago, The Brahan Seer said:

Probably...

Not in my experience with them,  They have warrantied just about everything on my v13 , no questions asked. They have amazing customer support.

[Robse]

5 hours ago, techyiam said:

Given that you have shared the identity of these bad shops, and these shops close down, are there good shops left where you can go to?

Whenever a store advertises with dropshipping methods / no warranty / low prices,  I go elsewhere.  Regardless, if it's dropshipping, you simply pay someone else to order the item from ALI, and you can probably do that yourself, often better.   Fortunately, I have not yet had the pleasure of dealing with one of these turds, so there is not much bad to share.  But I hope it doesn't end with every shop closing and nothing left - because that wasn't the intention - and everyone can't be out to cheat you, so I think there will probably be a enough honorable shops left

[Rawnei]

1 hour ago, mrelwood said:

I can see how there can be difficulties with this. But so far every single time I’ve had an issue with an EU purchase and the seller is not playing ball, just a relevant quote and a link to the consumer rights department’s web page has been enough to turn the tide completely. The last one was a car transmission (on a used car from a dealer) that they asked me to pay 3000€ for. Quote and a link, and suddenly I no longer had to pay anything. (It ended up being the third wrong diagnose from them, so they got off much cheaper after all.)

Car market is different, it's a regulated business and easier for consumer to exercise their right, so it depends from business to business, EUC business is so niche and mainly reputation based and some just don't care about their reputation, in the case of icafe he just prefers blame the customer for everything then stick his head in the sand if that doesn't work and then wait until it goes away.

[Unventor]

8 hours ago, Rawnei said:

This is a very nice "text" but do you know how difficult it is as a consumer to actually use these consumer rights? EUC is an unregulated market, the sellers are not part of a bigger regulated industry, they can get away with most things because they don't have to care, unless you want to take it all the way to court your only hope is that they care about their reputation enough to honor warranties.

I've had this battle with Swedish reseller iwheel/icafe (who sometimes post on this forum) and it led to nowhere because I didn't want to go all the way to court since I had already wasted many hours and a lot of my energy and my well being because reseller didn't want to honor warranty and problems arisen from modifications and mis-services that reseller did, I even won the case at the authority who handles these consumer cases in Sweden (ARN) but their verdict is just a guideline and can not be enforced unless if you turn the whole thing into a long legal battle, I spent almost a year trying to execute my rights that the above is supposed to ensure.

Story/situation like this is always sad. I have heard that the reseller you mention is not always playing by generals rules. I have no plans to use this reseller in future. Just that they dispute ARN decisions is a big warning signal to me. 

It is just another reminder to buy from reasonable and serious reseller. No matter what brand or item you are investing a fair bit of money into. 

The first company I bought my first EUC do not exist anymore due they pure treatment of their customers. 

This is also one reason that I am debating if early bird deals are good or bad for me. That is a individuelle case by case I think. There are pros and cons to this and that is where I consider risk vs benafit. These days money saved at purchase can mount up to more after service costs despite having warranty. 

Right now I view V14 as a promising EUC but I still want to see a proper teardown/service video and review by normal riders not paid influencer doing click bait videos. 

One thing I really like from the lance is the showing how to remove battery despite it was brief. And that you can monitor individual cell level of the battery. That is a big step in the right direction. To get early warning of battery at risk. To me it is a bit odd this has not been highlighted more. 

My opinion and it goes to debate this but I have yet to see solid argument to change this. 

[Rawnei]

4 minutes ago, Unventor said:

Story/situation like this is always sad. I have heard that the reseller you mention is not always playing by generals rules. I have no plans to use this reseller in future. Just that they dispute ARN decisions is a big warning signal to me. 

It is just another reminder to buy from reasonable and serious reseller. No matter what brand or item you are investing a fair bit of money into. 

The first company I bought my first EUC do not exist anymore due they pure treatment of their customers. 

This is also one reason that I am debating if early bird deals are good or bad for me. That is a individuelle case by case I think. There are pros and cons to this and that is where I consider risk vs benafit. These days money saved at purchase can mount up to more after service costs despite having warranty. 

Right now I view V14 as a promising EUC but I still want to see a proper teardown/service video and review by normal riders not paid influencer doing click bait videos. 

One thing I really like from the lance is the showing how to remove battery despite it was brief. And that you can monitor individual cell level of the battery. That is a big step in the right direction. To get early warning of battery at risk. To me it is a bit odd this has not been highlighted more. 

My opinion and it goes to debate this but I have yet to see solid argument to change this. 

I prefer to buy cheap as possible direct from China now and do all the service myself, with mixed experience from resellers seems easier and more reliable option for me, they send me parts under warranty and I do the work instead of haggling back and forth with a reseller and waiting with uncertainty, also helps with ones wellbeing to have multiple wheels if one of them needs service. Of course it's not for everyone but I'm glad I took the dive and learrned how to do it myself.

[Paul g]

2 hours ago, earthtwin said:

Not a torture test, just a drop test (if I remember correctly Inmotion claimed 1 meter) and a speed test, 43 mph, hard breaking and hard accelerations, climbing a 50 degree hill a few times for about 200 KM. Inmotion boasts some amazing feats of this wheel, so if it is really backed up with a warranty in real life, then I just gotta have it! But even the claims of the launch video invalidate the warranty policy aforementioned.

   Those bolts broke because of metal fatigue. Metal fatigue usually takes long time until breaking months, or years, so no short test would help.

[onewheelkoregro]

1 hour ago, Rawnei said:

I prefer to buy cheap as possible direct from China now and do all the service myself, with mixed experience from resellers seems easier and more reliable option for me, they send me parts under warranty and I do the work instead of haggling back and forth with a reseller and waiting with uncertainty, also helps with ones wellbeing to have multiple wheels if one of them needs service. Of course it's not for everyone but I'm glad I took the dive and learrned how to do it myself.

I am considering ordering my next wheel on Alibaba.com directly from Begode or Kingsong specifically because when my wheel breaks I have to service it anyway

[on one]

2 hours ago, Paul g said:

Those bolts broke because of metal fatigue. Metal fatigue usually takes long time until breaking months, or years, so no short test would help.

That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought about metal fatigue. I wonder if the Inmotion Adventure might be overly complicated? I know we asked for all of those special features, and Inmotion is now giving us what we asked, but maybe something more simple might be better because it would be easier to fix and less likely to fail.

[InfiniteWheelie]

 

5 hours ago, Paul g said:

   Those bolts broke because of metal fatigue. Metal fatigue usually takes long time until breaking months, or years, so no short test would help.

Steel doesn't fatigue.

Edited September 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Eucner]

3 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Steel doesn't fatigue.

Steel will fatigue under dynamic load above threshold called fatigue limit.

[InfiniteWheelie]

4 hours ago, Eucner said:

Steel will fatigue under dynamic load above threshold called fatigue limit.

Doesn’t that only happen when it’s flexed so strongly that it doesn’t return to its original shape? I don’t consider that fatigue, I consider it under sizing.

Edited September 6, 2023 by InfiniteWheelie

[Menno]

1 hour ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

Doesn’t that only happen when it’s flexed so strongly that it doesn’t return to its original shape? I don’t consider that fatigue, I consider it under sizing.

No, I think you are confusing some terms.

The elastic limit is the maximum stress a material can endure without sustaining permanent deformation, which you seems to be what you are describing. Fatigue is microscopic damage that occurs when a material exceeds its fatigue limit.[1] They are different properties.

Some materials, like aluminium, do not even have a fatigue limit, so they would always eventually snap if they were used as pedal hanger bolts. They would be a terrible choice as a result.  The fatigue limit of Chinesium is unknown, so that is why it is recommended to swap out with some known steel bolts.

Most likely the bolts snapped because they were not tightened enough; however, if the bolts snapped because it exceeded the fatigue limit too many times, then a suspension EUC would arguably greatly reduce the likelihood of people breaking their bolts. A suspension spreads out the energy from a drop over a longer period, hence decreasing the force on your legs (and also pedal hanger bolts).

[techyiam]

27 minutes ago, Menno said:

The elastic limit is the maximum stress a material can endure without sustaining permanent deformation, which you seems to be what you are describing. Fatigue is microscopic damage that occurs when a material exceeds its fatigue limit.[1] They are different properties.

There are two types of metal fatigue. 

(1) High Cycle Fatigue:   The cyclic stresses are below yield strength, and yet the component can fracture, if the stresses are above the endurance limit. 

(2) Low Cycle Fatigue:   The cyclic stresses are high enough to cause plastic deformation, and although the stresses are below UTS, the component can fracture.

In both cases, there will be crack initiation, propagation, then finally fracture.

@InfiniteWheelie was making reference to the second kind.

 

[Planemo]

2 hours ago, Menno said:

Most likely the bolts snapped because they were not tightened enough;

Nope, I totally don't buy that. Decent bolts would never snap even if they came loose. They would just fall out.

I've seen plenty of loose bolts in a far higher sheer application than an EUC pedal and I've never seen any snap.

[Scubadragonsan]

Even if in every corner of the world have batteries available, some wheels are pain in the butt to have batteries installed. They are not as simple as "plug and play."

[Paul g]

5 hours ago, techyiam said:

There are two types of metal fatigue. 

(1) High Cycle Fatigue:   The cyclic stresses are below yield strength, and yet the component can fracture, if the stresses are above the endurance limit. 

(2) Low Cycle Fatigue:   The cyclic stresses are high enough to cause plastic deformation, and although the stresses are below UTS, the component can fracture.

In both cases, there will be crack initiation, propagation, then finally fracture.

@InfiniteWheelie was making reference to the second kind.

 

     I think the way the pedals holders attach to the wheel is one of the causes for these stresses as the bolts are attached at the upper side of the holders while the lower side lack any screws. This together with the elasticity of the metals when they are stressed by jumping or simple bumps in the road lead to the bolts fracturing. 

   That is why I think it would be advisable that these bolts are periodically checked for their health.

[Paul g]

15 hours ago, InfiniteWheelie said:

 

Steel doesn't fatigue.

“Fatigue – initiation, and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading, is one of the most dangerous types of steel failures. It is a failure type when a material is subjected to repeated cycles of stress or strain and occurs even at lower stress than the material Yield Stress”

https://www.ideastatica.com/blog/fatigue-of-steel-due-to-cyclic-loading#:~:text=Fatigue – initiation%2C and propagation of,than the material Yield Stress.

[Paul g]

        My experience with V12 is that the pedal hangers screws get loose in time and need to be secured with a good amount of good threadlocker. If left unchecked the bolts can break as the bolts will be stressed more when loose.

[Unventor]

So I have a hard time seeing why discussing pedal bolts on a new wheel, that has yet to be released to masses, in this thread. 

To me this is just notice and not relevant yet for V14. The issue on V13 has been sorted out so not really likely to move on to the next wheel to come. 

Please this is a V14 thread not a generic thread. 

If you find ut interesting to debate a off topic to the thread you can do that in PMs or move to a more relevant thread. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Unventor

[Menno]

More on topic, what are your opinions on the different display compared to V12 and V13, no kickstand, no speaker, gap where the butt would go for seated riding, and general lack of safety features of the V13?

I do not really care about a speaker, since I am always carry a portable Bluetooth speaker with superior quality anyway. The lack of kickstand and removal of the touch screen kind of make it less practical for other things. Being able to lock it, and configure it without an app was kind of nice imho. Also sad to hear nothing about the redundancy that was employed in the V13 is also a shame. Would have been nice if the price hike after the first batch is going to be believed, as that would put it at a significant premium. You think these were cost cutting measures? Or do you plan to use it exclusively for trail riding, so this will not matter at all?

[Rawnei]

2 minutes ago, Menno said:

More on topic, what are your opinions on the different display compared to V12 and V13, no kickstand, no speaker, gap where the butt would go for seated riding, and general lack of safety features of the V13?

I do not really care about a speaker, since I am always carry a portable Bluetooth speaker with superior quality anyway. The lack of kickstand and removal of the touch screen kind of make it less practical for other things. Being able to lock it, and configure it without an app was kind of nice imho. Also sad to hear nothing about the redundancy that was employed in the V13 is also a shame. Would have been nice if the price hike after the first batch is going to be believed, as that would put it at a significant premium. You think these were cost cutting measures? Or do you plan to use it exclusively for trail riding, so this will not matter at all?

Display feels completely unimportant to me, more like a gimmick than anything, doesn't really provide anything useful, seated riding will see how that turns out, what do you mean by general lack of safety features?

[mtl]

For one, Inmotion confirmed in the comments to their launch event video on YouTube that the V14 will come with a single Hall sensor.

Not safety related, but they also commented that they are developing a seat for the V14.