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Has your MiniPro ever cut out and dropped you?


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Look at this post at: https://forums.segwaychat.org/showthread.php?t=34957&page=2
From pcarlson79

"Hi,

I just bought a Ninebot Elite second hand and my battery went flat after just 8km with 4 bars remaining but it vibrated and shook with Error 37 so I walked it home. Plugged it in to charge for 10 seconds then it was all good again.

I took it to the carpark to test with 4 bars and then with ZERO warning I lost ALL power and fell backwards and opened up my elbow. 

Now, being an electrical engineer I decided to NOT charge the battery and open it up. The Ninebot Elite does have 2 battery packs. Each battery is 15s2p with their own BMS onboard. I found that the BMS had tripped on both battery packs which left the system with 0v to try and balance me.

After a few weeks of trial and error, I tracked down the problem to 6 bad cells on BOTH packs. I replaced all the cells and am now getting a much better 17km range and I can safely get down to 2 bars where it limits your speed to 7km/h and then nothing.

So moral of the story is that it IS INDEED possible for the system to cut ALL power with no vibrating, stick shake or beeps, just BOOM no power. Honestly, after looking at the poor LG battery cells they use in the 450Wh packs and the poor SAMSUNG cells in the 670Wh packs, what a terrible decision. Each time they have gone for the cheap low AMP cells, where for an extra $0.30 per cell ($18) they could have put REALLY good LG or SAMSUNG cells like the Samsung 30Q. 

But anyway, the fact they have separate BMS inside the battery box that can be triggered without being controlled by the motherboard is a bad design. I would much rather the battery get hurt by dropping under 3v than my elbow or worse. Rather than limiting current, they use a really cheap MOSFET cut design. Looking at the BMS it's no different to a cheap $15 BMS from ebay"
=======


And that's for the premium Ninebot Elite!

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54 minutes ago, FLORIDIAN said:

Look at this post at: https://forums.segwaychat.org/showthread.php?t=34957&page=2
From pcarlson79

"Hi,

I just bought a Ninebot Elite second hand and my battery went flat after just 8km with 4 bars remaining but it vibrated and shook with Error 37 so I walked it home. Plugged it in to charge for 10 seconds then it was all good again.

I took it to the carpark to test with 4 bars and then with ZERO warning I lost ALL power and fell backwards and opened up my elbow. 

Now, being an electrical engineer I decided to NOT charge the battery and open it up. The Ninebot Elite does have 2 battery packs. Each battery is 15s2p with their own BMS onboard. I found that the BMS had tripped on both battery packs which left the system with 0v to try and balance me.

After a few weeks of trial and error, I tracked down the problem to 6 bad cells on BOTH packs. I replaced all the cells and am now getting a much better 17km range and I can safely get down to 2 bars where it limits your speed to 7km/h and then nothing.

So moral of the story is that it IS INDEED possible for the system to cut ALL power with no vibrating, stick shake or beeps, just BOOM no power. Honestly, after looking at the poor LG battery cells they use in the 450Wh packs and the poor SAMSUNG cells in the 670Wh packs, what a terrible decision. Each time they have gone for the cheap low AMP cells, where for an extra $0.30 per cell ($18) they could have put REALLY good LG or SAMSUNG cells like the Samsung 30Q. 

But anyway, the fact they have separate BMS inside the battery box that can be triggered without being controlled by the motherboard is a bad design. I would much rather the battery get hurt by dropping under 3v than my elbow or worse. Rather than limiting current, they use a really cheap MOSFET cut design. Looking at the BMS it's no different to a cheap $15 BMS from ebay"
=======


And that's for the premium Ninebot Elite!

dont use it! Contact seller that is how my old ninebot mini acted when the battery got water damaged it (well i did some lies and got a new one) muahah ;D

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  • 3 months later...

i feel very happy for upgrading to my gotway tesla when i see this  :D 

guys give up on these mini segways they are not worth it i got an electric unicycle it is 10 times better than this slow, cut off extreme tiltback and slow sped segway mini

thank me later ;)

 

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3 hours ago, Shad0z said:

i feel very happy for upgrading to my gotway tesla when i see this  :D 

guys give up on these mini segways they are not worth it i got an electric unicycle it is 10 times better than this slow, cut off extreme tiltback and slow sped segway mini

thank me later ;)

 

I have over 1000km on my Segway MiniPro and it has been a totally reliable workhorse for me, having never cut out or dropped me.  And I ride it off-road, through very rough terrain about half the time.  I am also on my second unicycle in a year and I still love the MiniPro and trust it more than any EUC.  I'm not sure how you calculate your EUC to be 10 times better, but it's a matter of personal taste.  You have not had your EUC long enough to make a genuine comparison between it and the MiniPro for safety and reliability.  Gotway is infamous for being among the more dangerous and less reliable of the top EUC competitors.  There have been many reports of cut-outs, failures to tilt-back and instead maxing out the power and dropping the rider as well as under-spec wiring burning out.  Gotway would be near the bottom of my shopping list if safety and reliability were my top priorities.

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The biggest things holding the mini-pro back are speed and laws.  More speed, more user adoption, more pressure to change laws.  It looks like EUCs are doing OK in some countries, but still a niche here in the US.    Electric Bikes are OK, but the lower cost ones tend to be crap.  There are still lots of laws in almost 1/2 the states that cripple the e-bike as well.  Technically you need a drivers license in Massachusetts for example to ride one.... insane.... but you also need to register it at RMV and pay excise tax.... moronic.   Not sure how heavily the rules are enforced, but get into trouble with one and they will not look past these laws.  

Most e-bikes are way over priced, and seem like archaic electric vehicles compared to the Segways and EUCs.  In many ways they are even more dangerous to operate than a Segway, but you do have a brake which evens things out.  Still. my recent e-bike while 3 times what I paid for most of my Segways gets me further on a battery, has more utility in terms of cargo transportation, speed, distance and exercise.  It has a battery at close to 1/2 the Wh cost of MiniPro batteries ($0.64/Wh) (not the case for all e-bikes).  The e-bikes typically have disadvantages in terms of size and weight, although some folding options do better they usually have other specification limitations.  I'll probably get a second battery soon, they are easily swappable with no tools, just unlock slide out, slide the new one in.  If they didn't waste their design money on the MiniPro Plus trying to make it trendy, they could have designed a real update to the MiniPro with quick swappable batteries of decent capacity.

I just have not got into riding my e-kick-scooter, but I keep saying I will give it a chance, in a way it seems like one of the best options.  For some reason I can't get excited about it even though the specs are crazy (they may also be inaccurate).  Time will tell. 

EUCs still, in theory, seem to me the best personal transporter for a lot of commuting and sight-seeing, but seem difficult to master to me (maybe I'm a bit too lazy right now).  I need to feel safe, which is not the same as being safe mind you.  I didn't have much time for it this last summer.   I could be very happy with a MiniPro that went a decent speed.  When I first get on it I feel I'm crawling.  I'll probably end up using it less since the e-bike just doesn't have the speed issues and is actually safer on some of the roads around here, even though in some ways not as fun.  Maybe I'll settle on the scooter for the short trips eventually, it has speed and range the two most important things for my area.

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3 minutes ago, FreeRide said:

The biggest things holding the mini-pro back are speed and laws.  More speed, more user adoption, more pressure to change laws.  It looks like EUCs are doing OK in some countries, but still a niche here in the US.    Electric Bikes are OK, but the lower cost ones tend to be crap.  There are still lots of laws in almost 1/2 the states that cripple the e-bike as well.  Technically you need a drivers license in Massachusetts for example to ride one.... insane.... but you also need to register it at RMV and pay excise tax.... moronic.   Not sure how heavily the rules are enforced, but get into trouble with one and they will not look past these laws.  

Most e-bikes are way over priced, and seem like archaic electric vehicles compared to the Segways and EUCs.  In many ways they are even more dangerous to operate than a Segway, but you do have a brake which evens things out.  Still. my recent e-bike while 3 times what I paid for most of my Segways gets me further on a battery, has more utility in terms of cargo transportation, speed, distance and exercise.  It has a battery at close to 1/2 the Wh cost of MiniPro batteries ($0.64/Wh) (not the case for all e-bikes).  The e-bikes typically have disadvantages in terms of size and weight, although some folding options do better they usually have other specification limitations.  I'll probably get a second battery soon, they are easily swappable with no tools, just unlock slide out, slide the new one in.  If they didn't waste their design money on the MiniPro Plus trying to make it trendy, they could have designed a real update to the MiniPro with quick swappable batteries of decent capacity.

I just have not got into riding my e-kick-scooter, but I keep saying I will give it a chance, in a way it seems like one of the best options.  For some reason I can't get excited about it even though the specs are crazy (they may also be inaccurate).  Time will tell. 

EUCs still, in theory, seem to me the best personal transporter for a lot of commuting and sight-seeing, but seem difficult to master to me (maybe I'm a bit too lazy right now).  I need to feel safe, which is not the same as being safe mind you.  I didn't have much time for it this last summer.   I could be very happy with a MiniPro that went a decent speed.  When I first get on it I feel I'm crawling.  I'll probably end up using it less since the e-bike just doesn't have the speed issues and is actually safer on some of the roads around here, even though in some ways not as fun.  Maybe I'll settle on the scooter for the short trips eventually, it has speed and range the two most important things for my area.

Great post.  I agree with a great deal, if not all, of what you said.  EUCs in my opinion are the most fun and most portable electric transport solution.  The MiniPro for me is more versatile because it's more stable than an EUC (because of the two wheels) and it can stop, start, reverse, without any drama or needing to get off.  I can walk my dog on a leash with it, whereas on the EUC this is not safe.  E-bikes are by far the safer of the three options because they do not rely on power to remain upright.  A power cut on a bike results in nothing more than a reduction in speed, not a face plant and loss of teeth.

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14 hours ago, RooMiniPro said:

I have over 1000km on my Segway MiniPro and it has been a totally reliable workhorse for me, having never cut out or dropped me.  And I ride it off-road, through very rough terrain about half the time.  I am also on my second unicycle in a year and I still love the MiniPro and trust it more than any EUC.  I'm not sure how you calculate your EUC to be 10 times better, but it's a matter of personal taste.  You have not had your EUC long enough to make a genuine comparison between it and the MiniPro for safety and reliability.  Gotway is infamous for being among the more dangerous and less reliable of the top EUC competitors.  There have been many reports of cut-outs, failures to tilt-back and instead maxing out the power and dropping the rider as well as under-spec wiring burning out.  Gotway would be near the bottom of my shopping list if safety and reliability were my top priorities.

the reason that gotway cut out, wires burn and reliability issues is its because its the only brand that makes eucs where you can disable all the safety features and max out the power

*not a good idea*  but people do it anyways and they push them to the limit on a hill and then such things happens... but as long as you keep the last alarm (80% of max performance) turned on it should be good 

i just loved my mini pro when i had it but then i upgraded and it turned out that what i "loved" was just a slow 2 wheeled cut off machine. . .that could barely get me to school and back

but its personal taste afterall ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎09‎.‎02‎.‎2018 at 3:31 PM, Shad0z said:

the reason that gotway cut out, wires burn and reliability issues is its because its the only brand that makes eucs where you can disable all the safety features and max out the power

*not a good idea*  but people do it anyways and they push them to the limit on a hill and then such things happens... but as long as you keep the last alarm (80% of max performance) turned on it should be good 

i just loved my mini pro when i had it but then i upgraded and it turned out that what i "loved" was just a slow 2 wheeled cut off machine. . .that could barely get me to school and back

but its personal taste afterall ;)

Failures on Gotways are much deeper rooted than just user "ignorance" unfortunately... Quality control is superficial to say the least... They prioritize speed and quantity before safety of the end-user and this is just unacceptable. The whole Gotway production is the semi-organized unit that is just a little bit more than a typical chinese disorganized workshop...

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8 minutes ago, Vik's said:

Failures on Gotways are much deeper rooted than just user "ignorance" unfortunately... Quality control is superficial to say the least... They prioritize speed and quantity before safety of the end-user and this is just unacceptable. The whole Gotway production is the semi-organized unit that is just a little bit more than a typical chinese disorganized workshop...

I think youre a little over eccagerating... But gotway wheels have the problem with 3% failrate.. Too high.. But usually its not a problem unless youre in the 3%.. But you can do a few things to make that percentage a lot lower example find a good seller and make sure you can get. Refund or a new wheel if it doesnt work

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19 minutes ago, Shad0z said:

I think youre a little over eccagerating... But gotway wheels have the problem with 3% failrate.. Too high.. But usually its not a problem unless youre in the 3%.. But you can do a few things to make that percentage a lot lower example find a good seller and make sure you can get. Refund or a new wheel if it doesnt work

That is not the seller/buyer problem but an issue of a much larger scale  - manufacturers attitude ang their short-term goals - making wheels faster, longer range, bigger motor etc without any proper safety measures developement and by the cost of the users being used as guinea pigs. Just take a look at various Gotway manufacturing videos to gather a sense of it.

Now it's nothing new when it comes to the chinese productions at general and shouldn't be surprising for many... still there are more than a few good examples of really good organized factories in China that are really on par with better western companies but Gotway is just not one of them...

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3 minutes ago, Vik's said:

That is not the seller/buyer problem but an issue of a much larger scale  - manufacturers attitude ang their short-term goals - making wheels faster, longer range, bigger motor etc without any proper safety measures developement and by the cost of the users being used as guinea pigs. Just take a look at various Gotway manufacturing videos to gather a sense of it.

Now it's nothing new when it comes to the chinese productions at general and shouldn't be surprising for many... still there are more than a few good examples of really good organized factories in China that are really on par with better western companies but Gotway is just not one of them...

i mean theyre getting closer.. They are listening to us buyers and make changes like thicker wires. Thicker axles

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9 minutes ago, Shad0z said:

i mean theyre getting closer.. They are listening to us buyers and make changes like thicker wires. Thicker axles

They do... but there are other companies that are not pushing the poorly tested devices onto the unsuspecting buyers just so they can fix the production weaknesses and design faults after the end-users faceplants and gets injured..

 

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2 hours ago, Vik's said:

They do... but there are other companies that are not pushing the poorly tested devices onto the unsuspecting buyers just so they can fix the production weaknesses and design faults after the end-users faceplants and gets injured..

 

agree they could atleast do some more testing.. :blink1:

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  • 3 months later...

The bug also persists in the firmware version 1.1.7.
Unlike the Mini Pro the ninebot Plus seems less secure.
I performed this test after a fall similar to the previous video. It would seem that in the holes the ninebot plus behaves abnormally, as if rising from the ground with consequent sudden shutdown of the engine.
Ninebot / Segway / Xiamoi! Please solve this dangerous problem.

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hi, Shad0z , if you write like that it seems that only Segway has this cutoff problem. Instead I wanted to highlight that only the PLUS has this bug, while the mini-pro has never, nevere failed. The Cutoff is a problem closer to the EUC, all brands, they should update the PLUS firmware.

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5 hours ago, Mapyx said:

hi, Shad0z , if you write like that it seems that only Segway has this cutoff problem. Instead I wanted to highlight that only the PLUS has this bug, while the mini-pro has never, nevere failed. The Cutoff is a problem closer to the EUC, all brands, they should update the PLUS firmware.

Yeah. But i had 2 mini pros the first stopped working after  cutoffs. The other worked but cut off a lot of times too. And the hall sensor broke... And no problemd yet in  months with euc. And yes its not only segway that can cutoff. But they do it a lot. in my experience. and also i think the power it has is insuficient

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26 minutes ago, Shad0z said:

Yeah. But i had 2 mini pros the first stopped working after  cutoffs. The other worked but cut off a lot of times too. And the hall sensor broke... And no problemd yet in  months with euc. And yes its not only segway that can cutoff. But they do it a lot. in my experience. and also i think the power it has is insuficient

But that was a clone, not a ninebot, wasn't it?

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1 minute ago, Vik's said:

But that was a clone, not a ninebot, wasn't it?

i also had a clone. and my freind was the one who owned the 2 mini pros. but we basically shared them. he was a roomate

and now he got a ks16s

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1 minute ago, Shad0z said:

i also had a clone. and my freind was the one who owned the 2 mini pros. but we basically shared them. he was a roomate

and now he got a ks16s

Ok, but anyway, the minipro's shouldn't be judged just by a single failure, without mentioning the circumstances like firmware version and possible overleaning etc.

Owning 3 of them I can stand by them minipros being reliable and safe. Not running them against the beeps and tiltback and not using early versions of firmware known to be dangerous, of course.

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20 hours ago, Vik's said:

Ok, but anyway, the minipro's shouldn't be judged just by a single failure, without mentioning the circumstances like firmware version and possible overleaning etc.

Owning 3 of them I can stand by them minipros being reliable and safe. Not running them against the beeps and tiltback and not using early versions of firmware known to be dangerous, of course.

good to hear you have good experiences with them

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On 5/31/2018 at 8:45 PM, Vik's said:

not using early versions of firmware known to be dangerous, of course.

And what's wrong with earlier versions of firmware? When I bought my MiniPro I almost immediately downgraded it from 1.2.x to 1.1.7. Because all newer firmwares starting (AFAIR) from 1.2.2 are more and more inconvenient (beeping to often, too aggressive platform tilting on high speeds, speed limiter if it thinks that it's bumpy or speed is too high, etc.). Meanwhile the old 1.1.7 does not have all this aggressive "safety" stuff (Personally, I don't think that it's safe doing forceful tilting of platform on high speed, so even knee pillows go behind my legs completely) and allows to do more (accelerate, for example).
Almost 3000 km and not a single issue. Also I have to notice that I replaced stock tires to tires with a slightly larger diameter, so my speed increased by 15% or so.

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@GrAnd 

as I said, "known to be dangerous", like i.e. 1.2.7 (?)

Not to mention the security breach in all fw versions prior to 1.4.0... (can't find the link right now) The Segway miniPRO scooter has a critical vulnerability.

1.1.7 is surely a popular version or so it seems.. at least among the early adopters. But not the safest one as there is a greater potential risk of being thrown off the minipro and the fact that in case of stepping off it (unintentionally) while moving, the minipro will proceed without rider pretending like nothing happened… On the plus side - It is probably sometimes marginally faster and starting more swiftly from standing still. Not too many pro's for users looking for safe and reliable ride.

Latest FW version is safer by giving the user all the important feedback (both audible and tiltback), is easier to maintain cruising speed on, providing better range (lower battery consumption than on 1.1.x and 1.2.x).

Remember we are talking about safety and most users reporting here got latest version of firmware on their minipro's.

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