My Inmotion V14 Adventure Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs

[techyiam]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

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.

+1

As the bottom surface attests, the two surfaces in contact were sufficiently parallel, the spread was even, and the coverage was complete. Once the controller is pressed against the bottom plate, the surface-to-surface contact made will be full for conduction heat transfer.

[techyiam]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

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 

I see.

What you are saying is that the original cause of failure is due to the motor, which subsequently damaged the controller. So the original controller is still damaged nevertheless.

[Cerbera]

Yep - I have to concur with what Marty said / did. 8 bolts hard down and a hard parallel surface to bolt down to, that paste is going to self distribute itself if given half a chance... it's got nowhere to go.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Cerbera

[Paul g]

17 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

 

  Just as we suspected, rubbish quality motor windings and subsequent phase contact and failure 😬

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Paul g

[Robse]

My point regarding old thermal paste and computers is that when installing cooling on cpu / motherboard or gfx card, it is imperative that the thermal paste is new and is distributed in a correct layer that is neither too thin nor too thick. Here, the application of the heatsink must not spread the paste to the sides, but simply create a contact surface for the upper side of the CPU and the heatsink. In a computer where the performance is always pushed to the limit, the margins for excessive temperature are very small, and even small fluctuations can create "the blue screen of death" etc. etc. I am aware that the same does not apply to an EUC, but I would always recommend using new thermal paste anyway.   Apart from that,  MB's problem has nothing to do with whether or not there are thermal paste at all.  It would perhaps only show itself later with heavy and prolonged strain, but he didn't even get that far. And then let's bring out the smile

[Ronin]

3 hours ago, Jason McNeil said:

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.

 

That is an exhaustive questionnaire, Wow. Did you get answers for all these asks? Would be an interesting read. Do you have the same questionnaire for other brands too? 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Ronin Ryder

[Punxatawneyjoe]

4 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

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.

Yes, i do. Monitoring the "overall" temperature of the board would not show whether or not you have an area with a poor thermal connection to the heat sink unless it was of course in the area that the thermistor is at. What you don't know is that i may have watched your video "from my couch" however one of the first things i did to my v13 was to change the raptor controller and the thermal paste left behind looked exactly like what was left behind in your video. So i have hands on experience with this exact change and although you have a few fan boys agreeing with you, in my opinion you did not have enough. It doesn't bother me that you want to do " should be ok like that " work on your wheels, i was just pointing out it wasn't enough and since you are an "influencer" , i wouldn't want someone else to make such a careless mistake and get hurt. It would have only costed you like $10 to be sure.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Punxatawneyjoe

[UPONIT]

11 hours ago, Robse said:

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.

 

I build my own desktops and work on my laptops. So my two cents is that--like with most discussions on the internet--nuance and details got lost here.

1.   CPU and GPU heat management is different from EUC controller heat management. All the links are for CPU/GPU, which are much more sensitive to heat and much more expensive to replace. In general, such a small amount is used that, even when the paste is new, unless very carefully recovered, the reapplication is unlikely to make sufficient contact.

2. The warnings about reusing thermal paste are aimed at people who would be searching for the information. Computer techs wouldn't have to ask. So it's easier, and true, to just say it's best to use new every time. But "best" isn't always required.

3.  When those articles say "reuse," in most cases they are talking about reusing OLD paste. Marty's paste is NEW and still pasty. Besides, from the looks of it, the original application wasn't exactly high-precision.

4. Even with CPU/GPU tighter tolerances, it IS possible to use old dried out paste in a pinch, if you are able to remove enough of the old and reconstitute it with a drop of VM&P Naphtha. I've done it. It isn't ideal, it's more tedious, but in every case temperatures remained in normal ranges.

IMHO, in @Marty Backe's use case, all that slathered paste being reapplied is fine. It isn't pretty, but it should work.

---------

This is a good example of why it's good to avoid being extra spicy in comments about what other people do. There's almost always some detail or nuance you haven't thought of, that makes things not so clear-cut. Even when you are absolutely sure you are right. For that, and many other reasons, it's hardly ever good to harsh on well-meaning people.

My 2 cents. YMMV.

 

 

[techyiam]

9 hours ago, UPONIT said:

IMHO, in @Marty Backe's use case, all that slathered paste being reapplied is fine. It isn't pretty, but it should work.

But the kicker is that there is closed loop feedback from the MOSFET's temperature sensor(s). And Marty was well aware of that and would monitor the situation.

Unlike cpu's, the mosfet's in Marty's situation were not going to go up in smoke in a fraction of a second. Ask me how I know.  

Edited November 23, 2023 by techyiam

[techyiam]

58 minutes ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Yes, i do. Monitoring the "overall" temperature of the board would not show whether or not you have an area with a poor thermal connection to the heat sink unless it was of course in the area that the thermistor is at.

In the build-in display on my lowly V12, among the many temperature readouts, it has a temperature reading for the MOSFET's, aside from other temperature readings like the board temperatures.

Check your V13 display, on the secondary panel, there is a bunch of temperatures being monitored.

1 hour ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

however one of the first things i did to my v13 was to change the raptor controller and the thermal paste left behind looked exactly like what was left behind in your video.

And....., what was the running temperature improvement after all your extra effort, under normal riding conditions, and under heavy loads?

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

Yes, i do. Monitoring the "overall" temperature of the board would not show whether or not you have an area with a poor thermal connection to the heat sink unless it was of course in the area that the thermistor is at. What you don't know is that i may have watched your video "from my couch" however one of the first things i did to my v13 was to change the raptor controller and the thermal paste left behind looked exactly like what was left behind in your video. So i have hands on experience with this exact change and although you have a few fan boys agreeing with you, in my opinion you did not have enough. It doesn't bother me that you want to do " should be ok like that " work on your wheels, i was just pointing out it wasn't enough and since you are an "influencer" , i wouldn't want someone else to make such a careless mistake and get hurt. It would have only costed you like $10 to be sure.

I will continue to promulgate false information to all my fan boys here 

[EUC Phenomenon]

If I was replacing that controller board, I probably wouldn’t of put any thermal paste on at all, as there was copious amount already on the heat sink. IMO, what Marty did was perfectly fine, the paste was still good and would of levelled out once the board was tightened down. 

[Cerbera]

4 hours ago, Punxatawneyjoe said:

So i have hands on experience with this exact change and although you have a few fan boys agreeing with you, in my opinion you did not have enough.

Well, having painstakingly transferred all the thermal paste that came off on the old controller to the new one, he has exactly the same amount of paste as Inmotion themselves have deemed sufficient. Are you postulating that they are incorrect about this amount ?

And let's not forget that too much thermal paste is almost equally as useless as not enough, so had he trowelled a load more in there, that could have been detrimental, and if so would have been very much the wrong advice to dish out to all his followers.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Cerbera

[stizl]

13 hours 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.

I was selected to be an early tester. I received a “Formal Invitation to Beta Test the INMOTION Adventure Electric Unicycle”, was assigned points of contact at IM via email and Telgram, signed the NDA, and was told it would be shipped to me “by the end of August”. 

After hearing nothing else, I asked for an update in the first week of September. Their response, one week later, was:

“We are currently redesigning our project based on user input. The prototype is expected by early October, and we aim to ship the Adventure Unicycle to you by mid-October.”

Again, after hearing nothing else, I asked for an update on the first week of November. It’s been almost three weeks. They ghosted me.

For the record, none of what I said above violates the terms of the NDA. 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by stizl

[stizl]

  (Deleted due to redundant post)

Edited November 23, 2023 by stizl

[Punxatawneyjoe]

[Tomallo]

44 minutes ago, stizl said:

I was selected to be an early tester. I received a “Formal Invitation to Beta Test the INMOTION Adventure Electric Unicycle”, was assigned points of contact at IM via email and Telgram, signed the NDA, and was told it would be shipped to me “by the end of August”. 

After hearing nothing else, I asked for an update in the first week of September. Their response, one week later, was:

“We are currently redesigning our project based on user input. The prototype is expected by early October, and we aim to ship the Adventure Unicycle to you by mid-October.”

Again, after hearing nothing else, I asked for an update on the first week of November. It’s been almost three weeks. They ghosted me.

For the record, none of what I said above violates the terms of the NDA. 

 

This would confirm that the first production batch buyers are just treated as testers 

For real though, that's disappointing

[techyiam]

3 hours ago, Tomallo said:

This would confirm that the first production batch buyers are just treated as testers 

For real though, that's disappointing

Change of CEO, change of roadmap, and change of testing strategy. For example, no international testing. Also, a V13 with bigger battery by September gone up in smoke.

I am suspecting perhaps this V14 may not be the V14 that Bob Yan had in mind, since there may have been a partial redesign. 

They reaped what they sow.

 

[Forwardnbak]

I spoke with them today and they have met delays due to testing each unit to ensure what happened to Marty will not happen. 

[Robse]

meanwhile, Begode had not needed to rush so much with the launch of the extreme model

.... cough cough

[Forwardnbak]

I'd prefer no one rushes but takes whatever time needed to get it rolling out right.

[stizl]

8 hours ago, Tomallo said:

For real though, that's disappointing

For sure it’s certainly better they get it right over rushing it out, but they would be better served by managing customer expectations in their marketing and ETAs.  The recent reactive business model of the manufacturers of promising something better than the latest from their competition by quickly making unrealistic claims about their upcoming model to nudge potential buyers into waiting…it’s getting old.

Not to sound like “sour grapes”, but at this point if they offered me the V14 I would likely pass. Getting in the requested 1000km in 30 days sounded like fun in August. Getting it in during the short days of winter would mean mostly riding at night in the cold. I ride year round and some nights, but having to average 20mi/day in those conditions in a rural area…meh.  

Edited November 23, 2023 by stizl

[Jason McNeil]

18 hours ago, Ronin Ryder said:

That is an exhaustive questionnaire, Wow. Did you get answers for all these asks? Would be an interesting read. Do you have the same questionnaire for other brands too? 

Yes, but not to the same extent. The scope on a more incremental upgrade of the Lynx builds on the Patton platform. The IM Engineering responses were mostly perfunctory; it was a epic round of negotiations for the three main change requests of the 50S, black panels & split of street tires. Looking on the bright side, at least these 'teething' issues are being fleshed out now.  

There's some other projects in the works where I'll be adopting a similar approach, will put it out here to solicit community feedback. 

[Cyberwolf]

On 11/10/2023 at 11:10 PM, DavidB said:

That looks like the worse winding job I've seen...

^I wonder if that might not have had some responsibility for creating the failure-mode which Marty experienced with this, given potential issues/variations in field strength/shape and their Nth-Order effects...

Just speculating, but I would hypothesize that if there was enough variance in the windings, the field(s) could have been off by enough to decrease efficiency (or increase/create a destructive resonance) by enough to then start burning out components...Who knows?  (not I, and certainly not without spending time I don't have to try modeling it in software...)

Edited November 23, 2023 by Cyberwolf

[0000]

1 hour ago, Cyberwolf said:

Just speculating, but I would hypothesize that if there was enough variance in the windings, the field(s) could have been off by enough to decrease efficiency (or increase/create a destructive resonance) by enough to then start burning out components...Who knows?  (not I, and certainly not without spending time I don't have to try modeling it in software...)

The speculation is interesting, but would bet the issue here is more likely to be something more mundane. This short research paper on rewinding electric motors only speaks of rewinding in terms of efficiency gains and losses, and nothing about possibility for causing unwanted harmonic effects. You would think they'd at least mention the possibility if that was a real risk or concern in manually rewinding electric motors (presumably outside of design tolerance). Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence as they say though.

For what it's worth I can't remember harmonic resonance from motor windings coming up either in the years lurking the endless-sphere e-bike forums. For all the different motor threads that come to mind, generally it was heat --> running too much power for too long with maybe internal rust that tended to do the motors in a few cases that tended to do these motors in. Hall sensor replacements weren't unheard of either. This trend holding steady all while motor controllers evolved from square-wave to pure sine-wave to Field Oriented Control too.

So I was curious and searched endless and this thread came up. Resonance from current in this example was only felt in vibration as product of very high current rather than in terms of controller component destruction. Anyway, I wonder if anyone here has the background in circuit design / electrical engineering to speak intelligently about whether resonance in the circuit is either commonly protected against or not a concern in this application. It's not me