Hiring an EUC on Holiday

[Keith]

I thought I would wait until the holiday season again to post my experiences last October with hiring an EUC on holiday.

Thanks to this forum where I mentioned holidaying in Malta, I had @IPS Malta, contact me to ask whether I'd like to hire a wheel - you bet!

For those of you geographically challenged, Malta is a tiny group of islands in the middle of the Mediterranean between Italy and Libya with a warm, mostly dry, climate which coupled with its friendly people and very long history (one of seemingly constant invasion from east and west such that it is the only country in the world where the entire population has won a medal for bravery ) makes it a superb holiday destination. Since its language is a kind of mix of Arabic and italian but written with a Latin script understood by only a few 100,000 people the vast majority learn English and Italian before even going to school. Where else could you circumnavigate an entire country on an EUC - the main island is only 17 miles long.

In a previous year we had gone on a Segway tour which my wife and daughter were very keen to repeat, but me less so now I could ride an EUC. The stage was set and a series of emails to book Segway Malta's Dingli Cliffs ride:http://www.segwaymalta.com/tours/details/?tour=segway-tour-dingli and check they were OK if I tagged along on a wheel and then to Glen @IPS Malta, to arrange hire for the same time. 

It was all fairly easy, Glen offered my an IPS XIMA LHOTZ 181, which with its wide tyre seemed ideal for the rough terrain around Dingli.

 

On road around Dingli, more like off road anywhere else, this hill is first gear in a car and we came down it!

I agreed a price for a day's hire plus a refundable deposit, and a cycle helmet was also supplied.

Turning up at Segway Malta for our 2 hour ride there was some good news, and, as it turned out, bad news, unlike the previous year when there were about 10 of us in the group, this year there was only the three of us and our instructor was quickly able to see we had all done it before.

Since we knew what we were doing our instructor suggested we could make good time and complete the tour he usually did in 3 hours, great but that sounded a bit further than my Lhotz battery might manage. 

I wish I'd set up GPS on my phone to find out how fast and far we went but we set of at a good speed through Buskett Gardens, on terrain that was far harder than I'd ever ridden before, steep hills of loose rock, tree roots, fields, there is absolutely no way I could have stayed upright on my Kingsong 14C or climbed or descended some of the hills. I was very impressed by how well the Lhotz, and its wide tyre handled the terrain, in fact I was convinced our instructor was trying to prove the superiority of the Segway, but I had no trouble keeping up ?. The ride was really fun, other than the Lhotz very high side pads rubbed badly against my legs with all the bumping around, by the end of the ride my legs were quite sore. Not really a criticism of the wheel it's just its padding was not where I am used to.

1.5 hours later having covered an awful lot of very challenging terrain my wheel slowly tilted back to a halt- I'd run out of battery. 1/2 mile down the road was a viewing point with a refreshment van so the others rode ahead to get a drink whilst I carried the wheel in 35 degrees centigrade heat - boy did I miss my trolley handle at that point. When I arrived our instructor was missing, he arrived a cooling drink later with a second Segway in tow for me - what a guy! To my surprise we didn't just ride back, but continued the tour, only after we had ridden along the 250 metre Dingli cliffs did he mention the Segway company owner had died falling off a cliff on one!

The edge of Dingli cliffs just metres from the pathway.

Riding a Segway off road, whilst carrying an Lhotz was certainly challenging, my arms felt like they should look like Popeye's by the end of it but I was certainly VERY grateful for the Segway.

Segway to the Rescue.

In conclusion, it was a brilliant afternoon and I got to ride an EUC and a Segway. IPS Malta and Segway Malta were both gave excellent service it was just a pity the IPS didn't have a bit bigger battery.

The only other thing I didn't think about and would do differently next time was that the hire fee and deposit was taken as a credit card transaction and the deposit then refunded to me when I returned the wheel. Unfortunately, that meant I paid foreign exchange conversion fees in both directions which meant it cost me an additional £4-£5. The deposit should have been taken separately as an authorised, but not actioned card transaction that was cancelled on return of the wheel, that would have prevented me paying additional charges.

Since I had the wheel overnight, once recharged (Glen had supplied me with the charger as well) I, of course, took the opportunity to show off my death defying one wheeled skills to some of my wife's Maltese cousins - confirming, I suspect their already held views as to my sanity!

Finally talking of death defying, we were staying in a farm house, so not surprisingly, we did have to get used to quite a range of animal sounds we are not used to, sheep, goats, dogs, chickens and tigers could be heard at all hours.

Wait a minute - Tigers - yep, the next farm seemed to be owned by the man who had everything including a whole cage full of tigers - now there is an Electric Unicycle hazard you don't risk every day! I certainly wouldn't want to be the guy going in to milk them ?

[meepmeepmayer]

Coolio.

How many Wh do these Segways have?

[Rehab1]

I am jealous! You had an awesome experience! 

[Dingfelder]

Fun story!  I envy you ... except for the tiger part maybe?  

Reminds me of an old Woody Allen bit in one of his books, parodying Nostradamus predictions ... one of them teasing at the Bible too:

"The lion shall lay down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much rest."

I could see having some insomnia there!

[Keith]

9 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

How many Wh do these Segways have?

They apparently have two batteries (for redundancy apparently) originally NiMh but now 92 off LiIon configured as 23S4P although they say that makes them a 73.6V 5.2Ah pack. Which is odd as 23 series cells ought to be 85.1V and 4P would only be 1.3Ah cells - pretty low capacity these days. I guess for safety they do not ever charge them to full voltage  as their advice also says keep the batteries fully charged which if really full (4.2V/cell) would be very bad advice.

Anyway that means they have 2x73.6x5.2 Watt hours on board =  765.44 Wh.

[IPS Malta]

Hi @Keith, Finally I get to know all the story I am sorry for the battery on the IPS as we only have the 260wh batteries on them. There are bigger batteries available on the market but since we just started the business at that time I thought they might be enough for the common use. You proved me wrong and we had our lesson too You were the first person we had leased the Unicycle for. As for the bank charges incurred, we will sort that out too as it was out of our control. I'll message you privately with regards.

[Scatcat]

Impressive service @IPS Malta, if we ever go to Malta, I'll make sure to contact you.

The island seems made for something like the Gotway MSuper3 with 1600Wh! Broad tire, loads of battery power and good power overall.

[esaj]

3 hours ago, Keith said:

They apparently have two batteries (for redundancy apparently) originally NiMh but now 92 off LiIon configured as 23S4P although they say that makes them a 73.6V 5.2Ah pack. Which is odd as 23 series cells ought to be 85.1V and 4P would only be 1.3Ah cells - pretty low capacity these days. I guess for safety they do not ever charge them to full voltage  as their advice also says keep the batteries fully charged which if really full (4.2V/cell) would be very bad advice.

They're likely LiFePo's (lithium iron phosphate), not the "typical" Lithium-ion, the nominal voltage is 3.2V instead of 3.7V (23 * 3.2 = 73.6), and maximum voltage of about 3.6-3.65V per cell. They are much more safer, said to be not prone to thermal runaway and incombustible, even if short-circuited, have longer lifecycle etc., but it all comes with a cost of having to put more in series for higher voltages  and lower capacity vs. weight/volume (less than half the Wh per same volume/weight as higher-capacity chemistries).

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_ion

Li-phosphate is more tolerant to full charge conditions and is less stressed than other lithium-ion systems if kept at high voltage for a prolonged time. As a trade-off, its lower nominal voltage of 3.2V/cell reduces the specific energy below that of cobalt-blended lithium-ion. With most batteries, cold temperature reduces performance and elevated storage temperature shortens the service life, and Li-phosphate is no exception. Li-phosphate has a higher self-discharge than other Li-ion batteries, which can cause balancing issues with aging. This can be mitigated by buying high quality cells and/or using sophisticated control electronics, both of which increase the cost of the pack. Cleanliness in manufacturing is of importance for longevity. There is no tolerance for moisture, lest the battery will only deliver 50 cycles.

 

[Keith]

35 minutes ago, esaj said:

They're likely LiFePo's (lithium iron phosphate), not the "typical" Lithium-ion, the nominal voltage is 3.2V instead of 3.7V (23 * 3.2 = 73.6), and maximum voltage of about 3.6-3.65V p

Damn, yes, I've spent enough time discussing Uniwheel's LiFePo4 batteries to have known that. Segway themselves refer to them as"Lithium Ion" which confused me however in the below link they do actually state: "The new Segway Lithium-ion Battery Pack features Valence's proprietary phosphate-based Saphion® lithium-ion technology." http://www.segway-madrid.com/personal-transporter/lithium_ion.html. So @esaj you are spot on as always ?. 

It also explains why the are so keen to emphasise charging them regularly in storage. As you say, they have a high leakage current, and also a BMS that will refuse to charge a pack if it's voltage drops too low so if you let them get too low a voltage they become useless.