My Inmotion V14 Adventure Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs

[techyiam]

4 hours ago, UPONIT said:

My V11, Mten4, and V13HT have all been flawless so far. And that is also anecdotal, and therefore statistically meaningless.

True enough. One data point doesn't make a trend by itself. So we need to keep this in mind.

But a data point is still important. Should enough data points become available, we can establish a trend.

4 hours ago, UPONIT said:

InMotion are objectively more safety minded than other companies. Attention to detail, build quality, redundancy... they all are part of making an EUC as safe as possible.

The V13 did indeed showcased that. Even so, there are still other factors that doesn't make every Inmotion wheel the best in class. For myself, with my own personal biases, I do think Leaper Kim has compelling offerings. Although Veteran wheels don't excel in every category, overall, some of their wheels do offer the right combination of things that I like.

And lastly, even with my biases, I do think Begode latest offerings are catching by leaps and bounds. If only they can make their suspension more competitive out of the box.

[Marty Backe]

 

[Funkymonk7]

14 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

 

Honestly, as a newbie to the hobby, the perceived ease of working on this wheel is one of the reasons I was drawn to it over the Patton with its billion screws. I'm very interested to see the rest of this teardown! I'm waiting to decide if I should keep my preorder in based on the response from inmotion and what I hear from ewheels. This will be very informative. 

[0000]

@Marty Backe

Just curious, have you tried plugging in the hall sensor array connector into the other plug on the controller and powering it up to see if it comes up with the same error?

So this is unsolicited advice, but I've done a hall sensor replacement on an ebike motor and the process should be identical here so if you already have a game plan perhaps this advice will benefit other readers.

---

If it's not a simple connection/wiring issue and you genuinely need to replace one or more of the hall sensors, and the controller feedback isn't detailed enough to report exactly what the issue is besides a general hall sensor fault/code, the first thing I'd do is figure out which hall sensor(s) failed using one of these: (or search aliexpress or ebay for an identical device).

You don't even need to make a harness to mate up to the hall 6-pin hall sensor connector if you have individual wires with female "breadboard" type connectors that you could fit on each respective pin (or if the alligator clips fit directly) sans the white motor temperature wire, then just match the colored alligator clips.

Once connected, spin the motor by hand and check if any of the A/B/C connectors fail to light up on the testing device. Hopefully the colored hall sensor phase wires make it easy to trace back inside the motor, otherwise you'll probably need to perform a continuity check while manually spinning motor to narrow down which light A, B, and/or C is failing to signal.

Pictured is a MXUS 3K ebike hub motor, but I imagine any EUC hub motor beds their hall sensors the exact same way. To remove the old/broken hall, chisel it out without damaging the steel laminations, rewire new hall(s) (power and ground are common - also make sure to use good heat shrink rated to at least 100C and not generic 60C heatshrink), and apply some heat rated epoxy to affix new hall sensor in location.

That said, hopefully the sensor array is not a snotty mess like on eevee's Sherman S teardown:

---

Hall sensors themselves are extremely cheap and so is the associated wiring. However, replacement/warranty work and shipping these heavy motors are the opposite of cheap. It's never made sense to me not to have a redundant hall sensor array on all EUC motors. If the V14 had them, theoretically speaking, resolving your hall sensor fault code *could have been as simple as plugging in the unused secondary hall sensor array.

At least I know I'd pay an extra couple dollars up front for a little bit of insurance not to have to tear-down a motor for this kind of repair work.

[Marty Backe]

12 minutes ago, Vanturion said:

@Marty Backe

Just curious, have you tried plugging in the hall sensor array connector into the other plug on the controller and powering it up to see if it comes up with the same error?

So this is unsolicited advice, but I've done a hall sensor replacement on an ebike motor and the process should be identical here so if you already have a game plan perhaps this advice will benefit other readers.

---

If it's not a simple connection/wiring issue and you genuinely need to replace one or more of the hall sensors, and the controller feedback isn't detailed enough to report exactly what the issue is besides a general hall sensor fault/code, the first thing I'd do is figure out which hall sensor(s) failed using one of these: (or search aliexpress or ebay for an identical device).

 

You don't even need to make a harness to mate up to the hall 6-pin hall sensor connector if you have individual wires with female "breadboard" type connectors that you could fit on each respective pin (or if the alligator clips fit directly) sans the white motor temperature wire, then just match the colored alligator clips.

Once connected, spin the motor by hand and check if any of the A/B/C connectors fail to light up on the testing device. Hopefully the colored hall sensor phase wires make it easy to trace back inside the motor, otherwise you'll probably need to perform a continuity check while manually spinning motor to narrow down which light A, B, and/or C is failing to signal.

 

Pictured is a MXUS 3K ebike hub motor, but I imagine any EUC hub motor beds their hall sensors the exact same way. To remove the old/broken hall, chisel it out without damaging the steel laminations, rewire new hall(s) (power and ground are common - also make sure to use good heat shrink rated to at least 100C and not generic 60C heatshrink), and apply some heat rated epoxy to affix new hall sensor in location.

That said, hopefully the sensor array is not a snotty mess like on eevee's Sherman S teardown:

 

---

Hall sensors themselves are extremely cheap and so is the associated wiring. However, replacement/warranty work and shipping these heavy motors are the opposite of cheap. It's never made sense to me not to have a redundant hall sensor array on all EUC motors. If the V14 had them, theoretically speaking, resolving your hall sensor fault code *could have been as simple as plugging in the unused secondary hall sensor array.

At least I know I'd pay an extra couple dollars up front for a little bit of insurance not to have to tear-down a motor for this kind of repair work.

You probably missed the previous video that talks about the control board being dead. There's no turning this wheel on again.

Yeah, too bad they didn't implement dual sensors for this wheel. For me though, having a redundant sensor means I'm more safe during a sensor failure when I ride. So I'd still want to replace the motor if one failed. It's a personal choice.

Here's a picture of the V14 motor. I wouldn't want to try and replace that hall sensor 

Fortunately since it's a demo wheel parts are free to me.

 

[novazeus]

34 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

You probably missed the previous video that talks about the control board being dead. There's no turning this wheel on again.

Yeah, too bad they didn't implement dual sensors for this wheel. For me though, having a redundant sensor means I'm more safe during a sensor failure when I ride. So I'd still want to replace the motor if one failed. It's a personal choice.

Here's a picture of the V14 motor. I wouldn't want to try and replace that hall sensor 

Fortunately since it's a demo wheel parts are free to me.

 

the lynx looks amazing and hopefully they'll put this kenda tire on it tubeless. sb a little more forgiving than the michelin. can't wait to hear ur review. 

btw, i waited 6 years to say it, and blew it, haha, these wheels are sooooo weird. i'm charging the v13, the first one, and i decide to move it just a little so it would fit in my keter box with a third v13 otw, and the wheel throws an error code. please repair. I unplug the charger first from the power source then unplug the wheel. wait a second and reverse the process plugging it back in and error code is gone.

everytime u touch the wheel while charging i get that error code. so tmrw i'll see if the new one does the same. why i buy multiples of the same wheel.maybe the version one v13 has a defect.

what i missed out saying in jest when u were having problems with this wheel,

"first wheel?" haha, the good ol days.

Edited November 11, 2023 by novazeus

[0000]

Just now, Marty Backe said:

You probably missed the previous video that talks about the control board being dead. There's no turning this wheel on again.

I did - wow seriously ... huh.

Just now, Marty Backe said:

So I'd still want to replace the motor if one failed. It's a personal choice.

Makes sense, I guess it'd depend upon how the controller was programmed if it could take advantage of the redundancy in real-time operation or not. I don't know enough to comment one way or the other, but logically it seems like it would be a relatively easy thing to implement, then throw a code if one sensor array faults out while relying on the remaining functioning set until you could repair/replace.

Thanks for motor internal pic. Looks like the orange was just (spray) painted on the rim, I assumed powder-coating earlier.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Vanturion

[Marty Backe]

59 minutes ago, novazeus said:

the lynx looks amazing and hopefully they'll put this kenda tire on it tubeless. sb a little more forgiving than the michelin. can't wait to hear ur review. 

btw, i waited 6 years to say it, and blew it, haha, these wheels are sooooo weird. i'm charging the v13, the first one, and i decide to move it just a little so it would fit in my keter box with a third v13 otw, and the wheel throws an error code. please repair. I unplug the charger first from the power source then unplug the wheel. wait a second and reverse the process plugging it back in and error code is gone.

everytime u touch the wheel while charging i get that error code. so tmrw i'll see if the new one does the same. why i buy multiples of the same wheel.maybe the version one v13 has a defect.

what i missed out saying in jest when u were having problems with this wheel,

"first wheel?" haha, the good ol days.

Jason is trying to get a tubeless tire put on the Lynx as standard. Time will tell if he's successful. I'm OK with the CST tire that they gave me - it's what's on all my Begode wheels.

[DavidB]

6 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

You probably missed the previous video that talks about the control board being dead. There's no turning this wheel on again.

Yeah, too bad they didn't implement dual sensors for this wheel. For me though, having a redundant sensor means I'm more safe during a sensor failure when I ride. So I'd still want to replace the motor if one failed. It's a personal choice.

Here's a picture of the V14 motor. I wouldn't want to try and replace that hall sensor 

Fortunately since it's a demo wheel parts are free to me.

 

That looks like the worse winding job I've seen (ecodrift teardown photos..not in person). I once saw a video of BMW electric motor manufacturing. Talk about uniform quality. At this point in time Chinese labour is cheaper than machines for small hub motors. So we will have to live with variable quality for a while.

[techyiam]

1 hour ago, DavidB said:

That looks like the worse winding job I've seen (ecodrift teardown photos..not in person). I once saw a video of BMW electric motor manufacturing. Talk about uniform quality. At this point in time Chinese labour is cheaper than machines for small hub motors. So we will have to live with variable quality for a while.

That was what I was thinking too. There appear to be more and more signs that the V14 build quality has moved away from that of the V13.

[Marty Backe]

 

[Paul g]

        ❤️  Thank you Marty for the nice videos you make! Very useful.

         ❤️ I will thank @Inmotion Global as well for listening to our cries for similar screws, sealed control board enclosure (not present on V12), and the mighty Raptor going bust??? Oh boy   quality is really bad from Chinese production after Covid era. What will you do about that @Inmotion Global?

[bpong]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:10 AM, DavidB said:

That looks like the worse winding job I've seen (ecodrift teardown photos..not in person). I once saw a video of BMW electric motor manufacturing. Talk about uniform quality. At this point in time Chinese labour is cheaper than machines for small hub motors. So we will have to live with variable quality for a while.

no doubt about the poor winding job on this motor.  seriously speaking,  if the motor was offered as a kit (hopefully with clear instructions),  i wouldnt hesitate to put one of those together.  its no different than the ham radio kits i have built,  and the bonus here is you have the satisfaction of building it yourself, and meeting your own level of quality construction.  the winding depicted in the picture, plus the gobs of whatever sealant that was applied (in a hurry it seems) doesnt inspire alot of confidence in me.  im sure there are easily dozens of riders on this blog who have mechanical and soldering skills and if there ever was an euc kit motor available,  it would sell like there was no tomorrow.

[Marty Backe]

New Control Board

I have shipping notification that my new control board for the V14 will arrive this coming Monday. It'll be nice to have this wheel running again.

What's a little bit frustrating is that Inmotion has told me that the cause of the V14 failure was a "loose hall sensor connector". If that's the case, I guess this new control board is also going to fail because I've done nothing to the hall sensor cable/connector to "fix" it. As shown in my video above, the hall sensor connector was fully secured with goop that I had to cut away to remove the cable.

Basically, Inmotion doesn't know what caused the failure and is making no changes.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Marty Backe

[techyiam]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

Basically, Inmotion doesn't know what caused the failure and is making no changes.

This is a possibility, or another one is that they do know what is wrong, but they rather not say, and thus is sticking to the hall sensor narrative instead. We will know soon enough whether the hall sensor story hold water.

I suppose throwing parts at a problem can get tiresome eventually, especially when they are sending them one at a time from China.

Here's to Inmotion knows what it's doing.

Edited November 16, 2023 by techyiam

[Paul g]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

New Control Board

I have shipping notification that my new control board for the V14 will arrive this coming Monday. It'll be nice to have this wheel running again.

What's a little bit frustrating is that Inmotion has told me that the cause of the V14 failure was a "loose hall sensor connector". If that's the case, I guess this new control board is also going to fail because I've done nothing to the hall sensor cable/connector to "fix" it. As shown in my video above, the hall sensor connector was fully secured with goop that I had to cut away to remove the cable.

Basically, Inmotion doesn't know what caused the failure and is making no changes.

     Oh, @Inmotion Global that’s so reassuring 😂😂😂. InMotion it’s all about safety guys, don’t forget that 😬

[Paul g]

      That motor quality doesn’t look good, it just doesn’t. It is quite possible the windings- of really bad quality, were touching the aluminium case loosing the insulation and windings from different phases touched the case at the same time and you had burned MOSFETs. InMotion explanation is a pile of nonsense. You can’t have burned MOSFETs from bad Hall sensor. 

Edit:    @Marty Backe , if you have the motor out, could you check for signs of wear on the motor windings? 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Paul g

[0000]

4 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

What's a little bit frustrating is that Inmotion has told me that the cause of the V14 failure was a "loose hall sensor connector". If that's the case, I guess this new control board is also going to fail because I've done nothing to the hall sensor cable/connector to "fix" it. As shown in my video above, the hall sensor connector was fully secured with goop that I had to cut away to remove the cable.

Marty - unfortunately the impedance test you did earlier didn't test the actual functionality (hall effect) of the hall sensors. It's quite strange and the opposite of confidence inspiring that Inmotion did not suggest this test either along with the impedence test, which I assume was largely just a means to check for continuity in the hall sensor board circuit (total resistance including hall sensor for current applied by multimeter).

Basically you need to test for a voltage delta/difference when a magnetic field is applied in proximity to the respective hall sensor tested if you want to be sure about the functional status of these sensors. The testing device I showed above makes the test more user friendly showing lights to indicate each hall sensor phase is activated (or not) as the assembled motor is manually spun, but you can do the same test with a disassembled motor using a multimeter, loose magnet, and dc power supply or battery, and compare the response from each hall sensor.

edit: here's a better link:

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Vanturion
better video link

[Unventor]

1 hour ago, Paul g said:

      That motor quality doesn’t look good, it just doesn’t. It is quite possible the windings- of really bad quality, were touching the aluminium case loosing the insulation and windings from different phases touched the case at the same time and you had burned MOSFETs. InMotion explanation is a pile of nonsense. You can’t have burned MOSFETs from bad Hall sensor. 

That is very good diagnostic skills you have. 

So you have insight to the black box logs that Inmotion normally use to analyse problems? 

And irl access to inspect parts and the wheel? 

Anyway I hope you get it back up running @Marty Backe.

Now I have not seen the inside of your V14 sample. But I have had some of these white connectors that connect hall sensor and link between control boards (read as in other models both Inmotion and Kingsong) layers crack on me. No the Raptor board should be different. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Unventor

[0000]

1 hour ago, Paul g said:

That motor quality doesn’t look good, it just doesn’t. It is quite possible the windings- of really bad quality, were touching the aluminium case loosing the insulation and windings from different phases touched the case at the same time and you had burned MOSFETs.

I think there was another comment above that essentially said the same thing about the windings, but I don't see anything egregious here. People should know that these Chinese PEV motors aren't wound by robotic arms or anything like that, all these e-bike, euc, etc. motors are wound by hand. They all pretty much look similar. Winding these motors is very labor intensive work from what I've seen, and it probably results in some serious accrual of hand/wrist/elbow arthritis with these factory workers too if they stay at the job for longer periods of time. I wouldn't want to do it as a long-term repetitive job.

That said, a multimeter continuity check between each respective winding at the connector or each winding and an unpainted part of the motor case (as motor spun full rotation) would bear out if there's a short in each respective winding somewhere.

[Punxatawneyjoe]

5 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

failure was a "loose hall sensor connector". If that's the case, I guess this new control board is also going to fail because I've done nothing to the hall sensor cable/connector to "fix" it

Perhaps the problem lies in the pin connection to the raptor board, it did look loose when you were rocking the plug back and forth almost like the pin connection to the board below was bad.

[Marty Backe]

3 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Perhaps the problem lies in the pin connection to the raptor board, it did look loose when you were rocking the plug back and forth almost like the pin connection to the board below was bad.

All the hall sensor cables use those wiggly connectors. I'm not convinced.

I don't know if the raptor control board is inside that box or if they are sending the outer box assembly.

[Marty Backe]

5 hours ago, Paul g said:

      That motor quality doesn’t look good, it just doesn’t. It is quite possible the windings- of really bad quality, were touching the aluminium case loosing the insulation and windings from different phases touched the case at the same time and you had burned MOSFETs. InMotion explanation is a pile of nonsense. You can’t have burned MOSFETs from bad Hall sensor. 

Edit:    @Marty Backe , if you have the motor out, could you check for signs of wear on the motor windings? 

I have no intentions on removing the motor or opening it. Has less than 100-miles on the wheel so I'd be shocked to see any wear on the motor.

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, Vanturion said:

Marty - unfortunately the impedance test you did earlier didn't test the actual functionality (hall effect) of the hall sensors. It's quite strange and the opposite of confidence inspiring that Inmotion did not suggest this test either along with the impedence test, which I assume was largely just a means to check for continuity in the hall sensor board circuit (total resistance including hall sensor for current applied by multimeter).

Basically you need to test for a voltage delta/difference when a magnetic field is applied in proximity to the respective hall sensor tested if you want to be sure about the functional status of these sensors. The testing device I showed above makes the test more user friendly showing lights to indicate each hall sensor phase is activated (or not) as the assembled motor is manually spun, but you can do the same test with a disassembled motor using a multimeter, loose magnet, and dc power supply or battery, and compare the response from each hall sensor.

edit: here's a better link:

 

Unfortunately I can only perform the tests that Inmotion asked me to do, being the designers of the wheel.

Good video. I only have access to a multimeter.

[Paul g]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

I have no intentions on removing the motor or opening it. Has less than 100-miles on the wheel so I'd be shocked to see any wear on the motor.

         I’ve recently seen a video of a new wheel tested and opened up by a seller and they found exactly that: a cable was showing wear from touching the side walls and the wheel was brand new. Unfortunately I can’t remember what video that was.

 

5 hours ago, Vanturion said:

        That said, a multimeter continuity check between each respective winding at the connector or each winding and an unpainted part of the motor case (as motor spun full rotation) would bear out if there's a short in each respective winding somewhere.

 

          👍 you just need a multimeter connected in turns to each phase and someone spinning the motor, no motor disassembling required.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Paul g