What one thing do you wish your electric unicycle came with?

[Spiwrs]

Beginner footplates made out of rubber with foam on the edges. 

[Funky]

Seems everyone are missing the most important thing.. EUC's need to be WATERPROOF!

 

(For those who don't need it - shut the duck up. You have the option of not ridding in rain and things like that.. Other people need to ride almost every day. And in some of those days there's very heavy rain. Especially in fall.)

Worrying that wheel may catch on fire after almost every ride is worrisome.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Funky

[alcatraz]

7 minutes ago, Funky said:

Seems everyone are missing the most important thing.. EUC's need to be WATERPROOF!

 

(For those who don't need it - shut the duck up. You have the option of not ridding in rain and things like that.. Other people need to ride almost every day. And in some of those days there's very heavy rain. Especially in fall.)

Worrying that wheel may catch on fire after almost every ride is worrisome.

Good point. How do you propose to provide adequate cooling while sealing off the control board compartment? On the msx and v8 the heatsink has a cutout in the compartment and an o-ring sealing it.

What about the battery packs?

I don't think you can successfully achieve and rely on a shell waterproofing because it'll likely fail after a drop or two.

[on one]

I would provide a quick simple method for releasing the rim/motor/tire assembly for hassle free maintenance.

[Mono]

• 3 kg less weight
• adjustable pedal angle
• a decent headlight
• tire width between 2.5" and 3"

Edited June 16, 2023 by Mono

[on one]

I would provide a self test protocol (push and hold the power button for 5 seconds) that checks all major failure points (these are the ones I can think of at the moment)---> battery health, control board health, motor health, tire pressure reading.

[Mono]

4 hours ago, Spiwrs said:

Beginner footplates made out of rubber with foam on the edges. 

I never understood why so many people are fan of grip tape. In my experience it wears off quickly and performs terrible under poor conditions, precisely when I need it the most (rain, dirt).

[on one]

Each electric unicycle comes programmed with it's own personality. The user may not alter the inherently programmed personality, though the owner may mute or permanently delete the EUC's personality.

[on one]

Programmed frequencies to drive away wild animals such as malevolent humans, mountain lions, bears, and feral dogs. I would provide an integrated bear spray, taser and charging holster/station.

Edited June 15, 2023 by earthtwin
taser

[Funky]

2 hours ago, alcatraz said:

Good point. How do you propose to provide adequate cooling while sealing off the control board compartment? On the msx and v8 the heatsink has a cutout in the compartment and an o-ring sealing it.

What about the battery packs?

I don't think you can successfully achieve and rely on a shell waterproofing because it'll likely fail after a drop or two.

It all has already been done ON V13.. (And maybe some other euc's?) All manufacturers should simply follow their design.

Big heatsink coming out of the motherboard compartment for passive cooling. No fans at all.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Funky

[Kekafuch]

On the fly suspension height adjustment. Imagining the pedals can be lowered when mounting and increase in height when riding.

tire pressure monitoring. 

[alcatraz]

15 hours ago, Funky said:

It all has already been done ON V13.. (And maybe some other euc's?) All manufacturers should simply follow their design.

Big heatsink coming out of the motherboard compartment for passive cooling. No fans at all.

Zero fans, wow. I wonder how temps are on a hot summer day.

[Hellkitten]

2 hours ago, alcatraz said:

Zero fans, wow. I wonder how temps are on a hot summer day.

There are a few in Toronto and we get hot in the summer. I’ll keep my eyes open and see what happens……..👀🥵

[Cerbera]

20 hours ago, Funky said:

Big heatsink coming out of the motherboard compartment for passive cooling. No fans at all.

*except for that one that comes on with the light !

[mrelwood]

For me personally all the individual aspects of my perfect wheel have already been made, but they are scattered over several models. There’s no single feature I could name though, since the wheel has to work well as a unified and well designed harmonious product.

[meepmeepmayer]

No noisy fan = a no brainer! No excuse for wheels to get hot. There are heatsinks, and proper electronics are not supposed to get hot enough to need a fan in the first place.

[Funky]

Even computer CPU's that pull 100-200Watts can be cooled passively. Simply get big enough heatsink.. 

EUC also are moving forwards = the wind incoming acts as a fan.. Going true heatsink. Temps should be under 80C easily. 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Funky

[meepmeepmayer]

17 minutes ago, Funky said:

Going true heatsink. Temps should be under 80C easily.

Anything 20° over environment temperature is crap, in my opinion. I'm willing to go down to 10° over the surroundings, in the perfect world in my head.

I concede that it may be more cost effective, and ultimately better for everyone, to use "smaller" electronics that get a bit hotter. But if they get hot enough to require a fan (or anything but an emergency fan during the most extreme of extreme circumstances) then I still think that sucks and is a bit embarrassing.

Anyways, back to the topic of this thread: if there is a fan (avoid if possible), make it as quiet as humanly possible! Certainly not a whiner that is on during normal riding or whenever you do a quick stop.

[on one]

I will provide method of euc batteries integration to be charged with solar panels to create inverter for jump-starting another vehicle, alternate/emergency power source to power RV (30 amp), and to provide for a source of power while camping: 12 volt DC, usb and AC.

Edited June 15, 2023 by earthtwin
more ideas

[mrelwood]

1 hour ago, Funky said:

Even computer CPU's that pull 100-200Watts can be cooled passively. Simply get big enough heatsink..

Just a reminder, some EUCs pull over 10 000 watts… That’s close to a hundred processors.

Even if the MOSFET efficiency was 95% (I have no idea what it is in reality), there’d be up to 500 watts of power warming up the heat sink and the controller. That’s a lot for a heater in a small space.

[on one]

I will provide audio and video inputs and outputs for use as a DVR----1 terabyte, also provide video projection lens. Can connect to computer device to exchange information and back up computers, phones, tablets. Can be used as wireless router. Can run software, especially to control euc use as an alternative energy source.

Edited June 15, 2023 by earthtwin
more uses

[Chriull]

1 hour ago, Funky said:

Even computer CPU's that pull 100-200Watts can be cooled passively. Simply get big enough heatsink.. 

This 100-200W is short power consumption peaks. Such sustained values cannot ve reliably cooled passively in normal small computer cases.

1 hour ago, Funky said:

EUC also are moving forwards = the wind incoming acts as a fan.. Going true heatsink. Temps should be under 80C easily. 

 

59 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Anything 20° over environment temperature is crap, in my opinion. I'm willing to go down to 10° over the surroundings, in the perfect world in my head.

Thermal resistance between junction (silicon chip) to mosfet case (from some arbitrary infineon to 247 power mosfet) is lower than 0.6 K/W.

Good heatsink mounting with insulation is somewhere around 0.5-1K/W.

Some already big to-247 heatsinks (https://www.google.com/search?q=heatsink+to+247) have "just" around 6K/W. (With enough ambient temperature air around allowing _free_ convection)

So per dissipated watt one has 6 degrees celcius (kelvin) difference to ambient along the heatsink and another ~1.1 to 1.6 degrees from insulation to silicium wafer.

Limiting the case/insulation temperature difference to 20 degrees would mean 20/6 ~3 W max power dissipation allowed per mosfet! Leading to some silicium (junction) temperature above ambient of 20+1.5*3~25 degrees above ambient. With max allowed ~170 degrees very much potential wasted ...

With active cooling (headwind passing heatsink, fans) the thermal resistance of the heatsink can be drastically reduced to change these figures!

If one can reduce heatsink resistance to some range like from junction to insulation one would divide the temperature drop between 170 degrees and ambient at the insulation heatsink border. Leading to ~80 degrees insulation heatsink border temperature (and some even higher case temp). Allowing to dissipate something in the range of roughly 40W per mosfet. Which sounds very roughly  about reasonable for eucs at borderline burden.

With two such mosfets paralleled that could be around 120A motor current (again very roughly ;). So 4 such mosfets dissipating in total about 160W - at the border of frying and heating up the motor wires...

[on one]

I will provide a dockable fold up wagon for use as a small transport device for groceries, luggage, and moving. Also I would provide an integrated interlocking kinetic energy transfer bar/gear (can charge wheel with wind and hydro) to connect to the motor hub.

Edited June 15, 2023 by earthtwin

[on one]

I would provide industry standard connections to connect antennae for use as radio frequency transmitter, receiver, or repeater (could be used as a cell phone or ham radio repeater). Ham's could use this as an alternative power source by just connecting their radio and their antennae.

[Mango]

1. Super fast charging via advanced bms or massively parallel battery packs
2. Motion-activated theft deterrent alarm
3. Cloud-based locking, activation and tracking