My Inmotion V14 Adventure Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs

[Marty Backe]

 

[MandatoryFun]

Bummer. I was really looking forward to your review. It's a bit worrying that Inmotion didn't even know what the issue was. Glad I didn't pre-order the v14 yet.

This has to be quite the headache. Thanks for all your work, Marty!

[Punxatawneyjoe]

50 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

 

Dear god, I'm glad it didn't work for you. I do hope you are planning on removing that raptor controller and buying yourself some thermal paste and properly coating it.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Punxatawneyjoe
sp

[techyiam]

Is this a trend?

(1) The V12 was Inmotion's first 100 V wheel. It had controller problems.  Bob Yan wasn't the CEO then.

(2) The V13 was Inmotion's first 126 V wheel, no controller problems. Bob Yan was the CEO at the time.

(3) The V14 is Inmotion's first 134,4 V wheel. It is having controller problems.  Bob Yan isn't the CEO.

Also, why is Marty fixing a bad demo wheel. 

Shouldn't Inmotion just send him another demo wheel, one in which Inmotion has verified not to be defective. 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by techyiam

[Hellkitten]

7 minutes ago, techyiam said:

Shouldn't Inmotion just send him another demo wheel which already has been verified by them that it isn't defective.

I would if it was my company……..😔

[Punxatawneyjoe]

6 minutes ago, techyiam said:

Shouldn't Inmotion just send him another

Fairly certain ewheels sent him the wheel. And I'm fairly certain it wasn't under the Instruction of Inmotion to send him one.

[MandatoryFun]

6 minutes ago, techyiam said:

 

Also, why is Marty fixing a bad demo wheel. 

Shouldn't Inmotion just send him another demo wheel which already has been verified by them that it isn't defective. 

 

Is this really even a demo wheel? Ewheels listed that the first batch is supposed to ship out mid-November (right now). I doubt they would send a demo to a reviewer now because it would have a higher probability to experience issues.

[techyiam]

47 minutes ago, MandatoryFun said:

Is this really even a demo wheel? Ewheels listed that the first batch is supposed to ship out mid-November (right now). I doubt they would send a demo to a reviewer now because it would have a higher probability to experience issues.

Then we have a bigger problem.

If this is indeed Batch 1, then there is potentially a lot to worry about, especially for those who pre-ordered them. Without this resolved, how can Jason send batch 1 out?

Inmotion doesn't know what is wrong, and is throwing parts at the problem, one at a time from China, by the trial and error approach?

 

I have read on Liam's Telegram posts in which he tells his readers whether Begode was going to send him a demo wheel or not, for example.

I don't understand the ordering or timing of this "promo" wheel.

 

Denis Hagov and Eevees got their V14's only recently.

So, in other words, no dealer / distributor got demo wheels? They are all batch 1 wheels. Then where are demo wheels for the international market.

This is bad for those who ordered batch 1.

What a big contrast to what Bob Yan did with the V13.

 

It looks like then, only Jack got a demo wheel, if that. He is an insider in China. And he did only a "quick look", and hasn't done a follow up.  I am not even sure that could be considered a demo wheel.

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Fairly certain ewheels sent him the wheel. And I'm fairly certain it wasn't under the Instruction of Inmotion to send him one.

You are correct

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, MandatoryFun said:

Is this really even a demo wheel? Ewheels listed that the first batch is supposed to ship out mid-November (right now). I doubt they would send a demo to a reviewer now because it would have a higher probability to experience issues.

Mine is most certainly not a "demo" unit, but an early production one

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, techyiam said:

Is this a trend?

(1) The V12 was Inmotion's first 100 V wheel. It had controller problems.  Bob Yan wasn't the CEO then.

(2) The V13 was Inmotion's first 126 V wheel, no controller problems. Bob Yan was the CEO at the time.

(3) The V14 is Inmotion's first 134,4 V wheel. It is having controller problems.  Bob Yan isn't the CEO.

Also, why is Marty fixing a bad demo wheel. 

Shouldn't Inmotion just send him another demo wheel, one which Inmotion has verified not to be defective. 

 

Based on another test that I concluded tonight, the fault is in the motor. The controller never had a problem so I would say your statement #3 is inaccurate.

Inmotion has updated the firmware to reduce it's susceptibility of burning up a control board due to spurious hall sensor inputs. That's a positive output from my failure.

They have decided to directly send me a new V14 (not from Jason) and interestingly, they want me to send the broken V14 back to them. Haven't seen that happen before (due to costs no doubt). I see that as a good sign that they want to understand what exactly failed in the motor and if it could affect other production units.

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Dear god, I'm glad it didn't work for you. I do hope you are planning on removing that raptor controller and buying yourself some thermal paste and properly coating it.

There's really no issue in reusing the thermal paste. That's what we do with the S22 every time the sliders need work. There was plenty of paste remaining inside the compartment.

[Punxatawneyjoe]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

There's really no issue in reusing the thermal paste. That's what we do with the S22 every time the sliders need work. There was plenty of paste remaining inside the compartment.

It's ridiculous that you are saying that, I'm glad you don't work for NASA. It's almost like you purposely destroy Inmotion wheels when you get them. Even my wife who knows nothing about thermal paste was like WTF is he doing. If it were me i wouldn't send you another and god help anyone else who gets that wheel after you. Just because you have been doing something for 30 years, doesn't mean you have been doing it right.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Punxatawneyjoe
afterthought

[Robse]

0,45 seconds later (ok google is not the allm.god, but it's true) I'm in the computer business. We never ever reuse thermal paste. No way. It does not work. Punto.

 

[SoleCycle]

I don't think it's as dire as you're making it out to be. Another search finds this,

 

I think the BEST practice is to have new paste on hand and use it. But I can see it being okay to reuse in cases like this for the following reasons:

• Most of us have this latent thermal paste knowledge from experience with installing CPU's. This is not a CPU. We're not dealing with CPU temperatures, nor the delicate nature of a lone ceramic chip. There are likely CPU chips in the case that have their own thermal bridges. So this would be the secondary thermal bridge.
• That surface area is huge. Any air pockets are likely to not matter, comparatively.
• That paste is clearly not old, or dried up. It looks to be of good quality and/or new enough to still have all of its thermal properties.
• The paste layer looks really thick, which goes against the tight-fitting theory where the the paste is merely to fill the micro-crevices between two tightly adjoining heat-conductive surfaces. If the paste is that thick, there's no tight fit and heat transfer is mediocre anyway. Again lots of surface area provides a lot of temperature margin and makes perfection not matter so much.

If I didn't have extra paste to add, and I wasn't concerned about doing it perfectly, I'd probably just take a few extra minutes to smear it on a little more thoroughly than Marty appeared to do. Making sure there's no 'dry' metal is probably good enough in this case. I'd also give the board a little massaging and shifting before fastening to give it a bit more chance to smear together.

Source

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by goodsignal

[techyiam]

5 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Based on another test that I concluded tonight, the fault is in the motor. The controller never had a problem so I would say your statement #3 is inaccurate.

Inmotion has updated the firmware to reduce it's susceptibility of burning up a control board due to spurious hall sensor inputs. That's a positive output from my failure.

They have decided to directly send me a new V14 (not from Jason) and interestingly, they want me to send the broken V14 back to them. Haven't seen that happen before (due to costs no doubt). I see that as a good sign that they want to understand what exactly failed in the motor and if it could affect other production units.

Thank you for updating the status of the original Raptor controller. It is good to know. Earlier, I could only go by your diagnosis stated in your previous video below (time-stamped). But to be sure, it would have been good to put the original controller in a good machine to verify.

Good news that Inmotion has updated the firmware to protect the controller should it receives bad hall sensor signals.

In other industries, such as in the automotive, or motorcycle sectors, manufacturers often request bad units back for detail examination. This is especially important when such failures are found early on in the production cycle. In mass production, it is prudent to resolve issues early on to reduce the number of bad units getting into the field. Fighting fires in the field is both frustrating for the customers and costly for the manufacturers.

Additionally, this action taken by Inmotion gives early adopters and potential customers more of a piece of mind in the product since the manufacturer is seen diligently wanting to determine whether the bad demo unit failure was an isolated incident, and if not, the source of the fault determined and resolved.

 

 

[eezo]

Not that another opinion is needed about thermal paste, but if anything the existing installation was what I'd consider too much. It looks more like someone spilled their hummus inside the controller box area. An "ideal" thin layer with no air pockets would maybe not have been reusable because of drying out or heat causing degradation. This is a new wheel though within which there was a thermal paste bukkake session, so in my (non-expert) opinion, reusing it in this situation is a non-issue.

[techyiam]

10 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Mine is most certainly not a "demo" unit, but an early production one

 

This confirms then that there were no demo V14 units for the North American, and European markets, since none was posted.

By looking at the timing of each respective video release dates, it looks like Denis Hagov, Eevees, and you got an early batch wheel. 

This is contrary to how the V13 was tested and promoted prior to first the production batch.

Edited November 22, 2023 by techyiam

[eezo]

5 minutes ago, techyiam said:

This confirms then there were no demo V14 units for the North American, and European markets, since none was posted.

By looking at the timing of each respective video release dates, it looks like Denis Hagov, Eevees, and you got an early batch wheel. 

This is contrary to how the V13 was tested and promoted prior to first the production batch.

It also calls into question the whole InMotion V14 Adventure "be an early tester" program / form they posted. I realize there was a kind of "NDA" on these wheels for the people who allegedly got an early unit, but did we ever hear of anyone actually getting one of these demo/early test wheels? Is there anyone in the EUC community that has confirmed that they received a demo wheel from this program? At this point, any "NDA" from a demo wheel should be lifted and so we would have heard by now if anyone in NA/EU had a test/beta wheel.

Edited November 22, 2023 by eezo

[Marty Backe]

5 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

It's ridiculous that you are saying that, I'm glad you don't work for NASA. It's almost like you purposely destroy Inmotion wheels when you get them. Even my wife who knows nothing about thermal paste was like WTF is he doing. If it were me i wouldn't send you another and god help anyone else who gets that wheel after you. Just because you have been doing something for 30 years, doesn't mean you have been doing it right.

Wow, a lot of vitriol in this post. Have a good day  

[Marty Backe]

3 hours ago, goodsignal said:

I don't think it's as dire as you're making it out to be. Another search finds this,

 

I think the BEST practice is to have new paste on hand and use it. But I can see it being okay to reuse in cases like this for the following reasons:

• Most of us have this latent thermal paste knowledge from experience with installing CPU's. This is not a CPU. We're not dealing with CPU temperatures, nor the delicate nature of a lone ceramic chip. There are likely CPU chips in the case that have their own thermal bridges. So this would be the secondary thermal bridge.
• That surface area is huge. Any air pockets are likely to not matter, comparatively.
• That paste is clearly not old, or dried up. It looks to be of good quality and/or new enough to still have all of its thermal properties.
• The paste layer looks really thick, which goes against the tight-fitting theory where the the paste is merely to fill the micro-crevices between two tightly adjoining heat-conductive surfaces. If the paste is that thick, there's no tight fit and heat transfer is mediocre anyway. Again lots of surface area provides a lot of temperature margin and makes perfection not matter so much.

If I didn't have extra paste to add, and I wasn't concerned about doing it perfectly, I'd probably just take a few extra minutes to smear it on a little more thoroughly than Marty appeared to do. Making sure there's no 'dry' metal is probably good enough in this case. I'd also give the board a little massaging and shifting before fastening to give it a bit more chance to smear together.

Source

 

Thank you.

What everyone seems to be focusing on is the little bit that I smeared on the control board. The vast amount of thermal paste was still on the bottom surface of the control board chamber.

[Marty Backe]

2 hours ago, techyiam said:

Thank you for updating the status of the original Raptor controller. It is good to know. Earlier, I could only go by your diagnosis stated in your previous video below (time-stamped). But to be sure, it would have been good to put the original controller in a good machine to verify.

Good news that Inmotion has updated the firmware to protect the controller should it receives bad hall sensor signals.

In other industries, such as in the automotive, or motorcycle sectors, manufacturers often request bad units back for detail examination. This is especially important when such failures are found early on in the production cycle. In mass production, it is prudent to resolve issues early on to reduce the number of bad units getting into the field. Fighting fires in the field is both frustrating for the customers and costly for the manufacturers.

Additionally, this action taken by Inmotion gives early adopters and potential customers more of a piece of mind in the product since the manufacturer is seen diligently wanting to determine whether the bad demo unit failure was an isolated incident, and if not, the source of the fault determined and resolved.

 

The motor was locked up (extreme resistance to movement) which indicates fused MOSFET's on the control board. It would have been a waste of time to put the controller in a "good machine", assuming that I had extra V14's to utilize 

[Jason McNeil]

1 hour ago, eezo said:

It also calls into question the whole InMotion V14 Adventure "be an early tester" program / form they posted. I realize there was a kind of "NDA" on these wheels for the people who allegedly got an early unit, but did we ever hear of anyone actually getting one of these demo/early test wheels? Is there anyone in the EUC community that has confirmed that they received a demo wheel from this program? At this point, any "NDA" from a demo wheel should be lifted and so we would have heard by now if anyone in NA/EU had a test/beta wheel.

That's a very good question...  One of the preconditions for placing our order was an early preproduction sample for testing & evaluation. Jack had the Wheel for just a few days, couldn't get it back after installing the 50S cells to demonstrate no material changes were required for the high-power cells. 

Once again it's this vicious cycle of total-secrecy-then-release, with the inevitable outcome of being bitten by insufficient stress testing. Statistically, the typical rider over there is like 120-150lb,  babying the Wheel, where the incentives are to complete a 'pass' checkbox. 

On the day the V14 was announced, I prepared a 31 point questionaire to try to anticipate the potential issues before they went into change lockdown. They've got a new CTO who's going to be working to get the program(s) back on track. 

I've tried to analyze every attribute of the V14, using my 10+ years of experience in this business, to anticipate possible questions/failure scenarios. Please ensure it gets the attention it deserves. 

PRI	Category	Summary	Details
1	System	Limit Testing	To determine the strength/performance limits of the hardware, we ought to find a 150+ kg Rider who is prepared to do extensive limit/abuse testing for a couple months to find the weak areas of the machine. This can also be used for marketing purposes to demonstrate design superiority.
1	System	Speed	Increased Speed from 70kph to 75-80kph to compete with the Begodes modes. The gap of the free rotation of 110kph vs the 70kph riding speed is large enough to have a decent margin for bumping this up a bit?
1	System	Max slope details	What method was used to derive this 50° formula? Maximum rider weight & for what duration?
2	Motor	Torque Rating	Is there a torque/RPM rotation curve graphic for illustration of the capability of this motor unit? The 850N of torque rating, is this the motor power calculation, or has this been actually tested on a dyno?
2	Motor	Bearings	How are the motors sealed faceplate/motor wire ingress? What type of bearings are used roller, or ball-bearings? How are the bearings fixed to the stator cylinder—this has been a common problem on all the hollow motors produced since the V11?
3	Motor	Hal fault-tolerance	Will the V14 be using redundant hal/temperature sensors, similar to the V13? Extra protection of the wiring around the motor stator?
2	Battery	Power Output	Claim 450A continuous, this is inaccurate because calculating the battery outputs the maths do not add up. The GB cell is only rated for 10A. Is there a specific datasheet for the GB? These cells should only sustain 10A/40A for all 4x packs = 40A. We need to get that corrected on the marketing literature
1	Battery	Cell Selection	Has consideration been made to the use 50S instead, this one seems to be so much superior in every metric, charging of 6A continuous/10A step charging & 25A/45A discharge. If we want this Wheel to be perfection, we must use the best cells being made! Begode has started to use the 50Ss now on their machines.
1	Battery	Charging	Claiming 16A, which is 4A/cell. Is there any data to support this specific cell can continuously charge at this rate without ill-effects? Are there any thermal camera images of 16A charging? Charge-port connector interfaces, will the Wheel be using the GX20-4 interface? Fuses on the charging circuit, are they replaceable, or better yet, logic reset circuit for reverse-polarity? 0.33c * 5000mAh = 1617mA 1617 * 4p = 6,468 mA =6.468A max charge rate
1	Battery	Battery pack BMS	details of BMS, what brand/model is used? Is there a specification sheet for the BMS?
1	Battery	Cell Protection	Are the battery cells encased in a thermal protective sealant for water-proofing & containment of a cell thermal runaway event?
1	Battery	Extra Packs	What's is the expected cost per pack/set? How will the Wheel manage packs which are at different voltage levels? Is it possible to design the BMS/FW to allow this scenario, so that the higher voltage packs will be engaged, until they're all at the same level?
2	Battery	Pack Voltage Display	If this is to be sold as a 'quick battery swap' Wheel, then logically, there ought to be a display on each pack to show the current voltage on each pack?
1	Battery	Battery Certification	Is there a UL2272 certification plan? This is now a requirement in regions like NYC, which has had a lot of battery fires over the past few years.
1	Battery	Pack Fault-tolerance	Data for generating alerts/errors from App, what are the threshold values for cell invariance & other error conditions that prevent Riders from using? Can the BMS ignore a single NTC/temperature sensor, which has occurred several times before on the V13.
	Battery	Chargers	What is Inmotion's plan for chargers? What is the power output of the stock charger? If Inmotion is not planning on offer a rapid-charger, will there be an 'approved'/certified charger test program for 3rd party chargers?
1	Battery	Independent Pack Charging	will there be an adapter for charging packs individually, without having to be connected to the Wheel? This is going to be an inevitable question with the quick battery change feature. Consideration must be made to current limit input for individual, or 2-3 packs at a time.
2	Battery	Tool-less Pack Removal	Is it possible to use hand-tightened screws for pack removal without having to use any tools in the field
2	Suspension	Suspension Linkage Arms	What type of metal are those composed of? Has there been any stress/fracture analysis on these components? How easily can they bend, causing distortion, rubbing & friction? Movement of the joints, how are they lubricated, what considerations have been made to minimize rubbing between the arms? Are nylon washers used on the securing bolts/screws?
1	Suspension	Suspension Holding Pin	Details on the diameter of the pin, & using 12.9 grade steel? This has been a common problem on the S22 & now the Begode Extreme.
2	Suspension	Vertical stanchion cylinders	How does this system work in conjunction to the rear shock system? Are these parts loaded, e.g. asserts an upward force? How much force is applied? Are they oil filled? Does this part require maintenance?
2	Controller	Fault Tolerance	Although the Raptor controller has 42x MOSFETs, based on the experience of the V13, there have been about 10x cases of failed controllers. Is it possible to design the algorithm to have fault-tolerance for one, or more, FET failure, rerouted across the remaining H-gates? What is the model of MOSFETs used?
2	Controller	Voltage Margin	In the marketing video, there was a statement about a 40% voltage margin; what does this mean, exactly e.g. that even under the highest rotation speed, that the voltage being delivered to the motor will never exceed 80V?
2	Panels	Side Panel/Bumper Colors	A number of Customers are asking if the panels can be offered in different colors, just 2-3 would be sufficient. What would be the MOQ of that change? This would be just the 4x pieces, two upper sides & lower bumpers?
2	Tire	Tire brand model & Street tire	What brand/model tire will be offered? The feedback from the Patton's Dingxin J802, is that it's very durable, degrades after only 500 miles, we must not use this tire. Limited street tire demand is predicted for 25-30% of Customers.
1	System	Waterproofing Analysis	Can Jack do a visit to review the water-proofing measures implemented? From the experience of the V13, the main area of concern is going to be the display areas, pooling water in the top panel. What measures have been done here? Has Inmotion considered doing a complete immersion test for 1hr in 1m of water to ascertain weak points? In contrast to Begode's marketing, this would be public, but just as a FYI on a bullet point. Has the IPx6 been certified, or just internal testing?
2	Pedals	Pedal Details	Can the pedal height be adjusted, as one can do on the V13/V12? Will IM be using the same pedal bracket as the V12/V13 for aftermarket CNC pedals? What is the stock size of pedals width/length? Pedal standing height& clearance from the ground?
2	Pedals	Pedal Rods	Can titanium pedal rods be sourced? Those are already widely avialable for most models, would be another unique 'first' from a manufacturer.
2	Accessories	Pads & Kickstand	Will the production of pads be outsourced to Xiao Rong? Will the pads be fitted with Velcro? Will a kickstand be offered as an accessory?
1	Parts	Parts Availability	Are there plans this time to produce a limited supply of urgent parts for initial release? Most frequently requested parts are: front/rear handles, trolley-kit, bumpers, panels, & stock pads.

 

 

 

[Punxatawneyjoe]

1 hour ago, Marty Backe said:

Wow, a lot of vitriol in this post. Have a good day  

I'm sorry you feel that way. My assertiveness was deliberate in hopes that you would come to your senses and realize the potential for massive air gaps under that controller especially since you pasted it onto the new controller in just a few thick blotches. There certainly isn't enough downward force to spread that stuff around evenly where it needs to be. I am not riding the wheel, so i am not concerned with myself getting hurt. However you just got over a broken ankle and not taking the time to correctly coat the new controller puts you and anyone who rides it in jeopardy of doing worse since it will probably burn out under a high load situation if it's going to. Obviously, you feel like you know better than the Inmotion engineers and there is no getting through to you. So good luck and have a nice day as well.

[Marty Backe]

9 minutes ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

I'm sorry you feel that way. My assertiveness was deliberate in hopes that you would come to your senses and realize the potential for massive air gaps under that controller especially since you pasted it onto the new controller in just a few thick blotches. There certainly isn't enough downward force to spread that stuff around evenly where it needs to be. I am not riding the wheel, so i am not concerned with myself getting hurt. However you just got over a broken ankle and not taking the time to correctly coat the new controller puts you and anyone who rides it in jeopardy of doing worse since it will probably burn out under a high load situation if it's going to. Obviously, you feel like you know better than the Inmotion engineers and there is no getting through to you. So good luck and have a nice day as well.

No doubt the video doesn't portray reality perfectly, but there was copious amounts of moist thermal paste remaining in the control board cavity. And yes, I believe 8 bolts do apply enough downward pressure to assure good contact along the entire surface area of the control board bottom plate.

I also monitor the control board temperatures and if I were able to ride this wheel (I won't be since it's being sent back to Inmotion) I would be monitoring the temperatures and if it was running hotter than before, I would take corrective action.

You may disagree with everything I just wrote, from your couch perspective , but from my view of having actually done the work, I'm confident that I did a good job.