Have you ever had a Control Board Failure?

[Jonathan Tolhurst]

A quick poll on control board failures - I would be interested in how common a problem this is.

[Gimlet]

Often it's caused by riding beyond the capabilities or limits of the board. But very few do it knowingly.

I've had this with both my KS and my Gotway mcm2s. One was climbing a kerb during a long fairly steep hill climb and the other was idling a little too vigorously.

[Smoother]

No, but I've had a few brain farts. can I get an upgrade?

BTW the survey forced me to answer the last question, or I couldn't submit my data , so the "other or unknown " category will fill up with "no" respondents. When actually, for these people, there was no failure to "know"

additional: I started checking "NA" but in reality anyone who answers "no" to question one need not answer any other questions.  I tried to remove my "NA" s because they skew the data, but apparently all questions must be answered to submit the data.  So if you look at question  1 and 2, for example, the numbers are identical ( as of this s writing) 57% yes 42% no. Now look at question 2. 57% warranty, 42% NA, 0% "no" obviously 100% of control board failures were covered by the warrantee but a quick glance would seem to indicate only 57%. I do not know of a way to correct this, as the answer to q 1 is important, so the "NA"s have to stay.

may I also suggest that in question 5, choice 3 the words "knowingly attempting To" be removed.  Whether the responds knowingly or unknowingly exceed the limits of the EUC does not change the nature of the failure.  I suspect these three words might cause respondents to not select this option when "exceeded EUC limits" was the actual reason for the failure. ?

BTW "Monday morning quarter-backing" is my other job.

[Jonathan Tolhurst]

8 hours ago, Smoother said:

No, but I've had a few brain farts. can I get an upgrade?

BTW the survey forced me to answer the last question, or I couldn't submit my data , so the "other or unknown " category will fill up with "no" respondents. When actually, for these people, there was no failure to "know"

additional: I started checking "NA" but in reality anyone who answers "no" to question one need not answer any other questions.  I tried to remove my "NA" s because they skew the data, but apparently all questions must be answered to submit the data.  So if you look at question  1 and 2, for example, the numbers are identical ( as of this s writing) 57% yes 42% no. Now look at question 2. 57% warranty, 42% NA, 0% "no" obviously 100% of control board failures were covered by the warrantee but a quick glance would seem to indicate only 57%. I do not know of a way to correct this, as the answer to q 1 is important, so the "NA"s have to stay.

may I also suggest that in question 5, choice 3 the words "knowingly attempting To" be removed.  Whether the responds knowingly or unknowingly exceed the limits of the EUC does not change the nature of the failure.  I suspect these three words might cause respondents to not select this option when "exceeded EUC limits" was the actual reason for the failure. ?

BTW "Monday morning quarter-backing" is my other job.

Thanks @Smoother, I think I have updated the poll to reflect your comments. It would be great if the poll functionality allowed a bit more flexibility to allow dependent and optional questions.

[steve454]

Good poll, very interesting that 50% selected don't know or other as the cause of control board failure, but aren't all failures due to riding beyond the limits of the EUC?  I had already voted by skipping the last question before N/A  was added, got a message that all questions must be answered but apparently it let me vote anyway.  The results might be skewed slightly by that.

However, water damage, faulty firmware, and faulty control board would lower the limits, so it is good for narrowing down the causes.

It seems that the more aggressive and fearless riders might ride beyond the limits more often than people just riding from place to place.

Thanks for starting this poll.

 

[Cerbera]

I hope more people vote in this, because at the moment a 3rd of us have had control board fails, and that's one hell of a high percentage...

[Mono]

You can't expect any representative numbers from such a poll anyways. Meaning, I don't think you will have any chance to know from this poll whether control board failure on EUCs is in general 1:3 or 1:1000. @Jason McNeil has for sure much more precise numbers even depending on the model.

[Jonathan Tolhurst]

9 hours ago, Mono said:

You can't expect any representative numbers from such a poll anyways. Meaning, I don't think you will have any chance to know from this poll whether control board failure on EUCs is in general 1:3 or 1:1000. @Jason McNeil has for sure much more precise numbers even depending on the model.

I agree that polls will only show part of a picture and are definately liable to bias. It would be really interesting to get some data from retailers & manufacturers, although it probably wouldn't be in their interest to give precise numbers unless failures were incredibly rare. My interest comes from that I have had 3 control board failures so far (only voted once in the poll). I did notice that the new Speedyfeet website flashes up with what individuals have recently purchased and was intrigued to see a number of control boards being shipped.

[One]

What answer (5.) should I select when the board burned because of my own fault? In this case the wheel got stuck under a bench (rider wanted to be cool riding backwards and sit down on the bench)... 

[Mono]

4 hours ago, One said:

What answer (5.) should I select when the board burned because of my own fault? In this case the wheel got stuck under a bench (rider wanted to be cool riding backwards and sit down on the bench)... 

That was clearly riding beyond the limits . 

I am still not entirely convinced about the analysis of blame. IMHO the board should limit the current (also depending on the temperature), and hence it should not fry even when driven under a bench.

[dmethvin]

1 hour ago, Mono said:

the board should limit the current (also depending on the temperature), and hence it should not fry even when driven under a bench.

Ideally all the components in the system are sufficiently over-engineered so that they work properly in the most demanding situations, then you introduce a weak link like a fuse that is designed to fail before any of the components do when you're way outside normal operating range. However it must be difficult and/or expensive to design an EUC like that. It doesn't help that we emphasize maximum speed/range and constantly try to shave any margin of safety these wheels offer. Plus, when a tall 120kg person is riding it, all the testing by short 70kg Chinese riders mean nothing.

The current state of the art seems to be a "shut off to protect the device" versus  "keep balancing at all costs to protect the rider" trade-off. Wear a helmet.

[Mono]

2 hours ago, dmethvin said:

Ideally all the components in the system are sufficiently over-engineered so that they work properly in the most demanding situations, then you introduce a weak link like a fuse that is designed to fail before any of the components do when you're way outside normal operating range.

I can't quite see that over-engineered components and a fuse is a better solution than limiting the current and heat sensors.

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

The current state of the art seems to be a "shut off to protect the device" versus  "keep balancing at all costs to protect the rider" trade-off.

I doubt that. Of course we only see the negative examples coming up in the forum. Yet many wheels start to get soft when getting into overload situations and also neither fry nor shutoff unless they reach max speed.

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

Wear a helmet.

Buy the right wheel and the number of tumbles due to technical faults will become a tiny little fraction of all tumbles.

[One]

I want that over-engineered EUC - here are my suggestions:

1. brake assistant (abs)
2. 5000 Watt motor
3. Triple redundant controlboards
4. fartigue sensor
5. gyro stabilization for the sides (so you can't tilt to left or right) 
6. 360 degree crash sensor
7. drunk sensor 
8. stuck under a bench sensor 

China, I am waiting for your inventions!