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New Ks16s - trouble with LEDs


Martijn Cogenbach

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Hi everyone, 

I just unboxed my first ever EUC, a Kingsong 16 sports edition. I ordered it through AliExpress, as I couldn't find a local dealer in my country. 

I've connected the wheel with my phone and the official Kingsong app. It arrived with firmware v1.02, which seems to be the latest. I went through the options and tried a few things. Among other things, I set the EUC to learning mode and chose to switch off the side LEDs animations. Also I calibrated the bike. 

Something I did messed up half of my side LEDs, on both sides of the wheel.  I uploaded a video to YouTube to show you what I mean. Does anyone recognise this behaviour and /or has a clue what I can do to fix this? 

I have not yet tried to ride the wheel. Everything seems to be working, but I'm not confident riding it until my LEDs behave... 

 

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51 minutes ago, Martijn Cogenbach said:

Hi everyone, 

I just unboxed my first ever EUC, a Kingsong 16 sports edition. I ordered it through AliExpress, as I couldn't find a local dealer in my country. 

I've connected the wheel with my phone and the official Kingsong app. It arrived with firmware v1.02, which seems to be the latest. I went through the options and tried a few things. Among other things, I set the EUC to learning mode and chose to switch off the side LEDs animations. Also I calibrated the bike. 

Something I did messed up half of my side LEDs, on both sides of the wheel.  I uploaded a video to YouTube to show you what I mean. Does anyone recognise this behaviour and /or has a clue what I can do to fix this? 

I have not yet tried to ride the wheel. Everything seems to be working, but I'm not confident riding it until my LEDs behave... 

 

As BOTH Led's stripes on the front(or back, whatever) are defect...i would suspect, that the Connection on the Motherboard got loose, or is not connected correctly.

If this fault would be only on one side....i would say on of the LED Strip is just defect...but so it Looks like a Connection fault...or a Software fault on the LED steering

 

What happens when you set the LED's to ON again with the app? As i understand it you shut off the LED lights? Try to Play around with the different LED Settings, perhaps it gets better again....

 

Whatever: This should not affect the driving ability of the wheel.

What i would do if the lights dont get better: Is to open the wheel, and check the Connections on the mother board.

As this seams to be your first wheel, for sure something you will not be happy about....But if it helps: It is not that difficult.

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Thanks for your quick response @KingSong69 I'm at work now;  but I'll try fiddling with the app a bit more tomorrow. I'm 100% sure the lights were OK when I first powered on the device, so I think it's *probably* a software bug of some kind. I'm a bit worried it didn't disappear after a shutdown/restart  of the device. Is there any way to reset the entire thing to factory defaults? Or re-flash the 1.02 firmware to overwrite any settings I may have changed?

As I did not drop or even ride the EUC I don't think the connector has come loose - although of course it is possible. If I can't get the thing to behave I'll try opening her up. Worst case I'll pull the plug on the 'weird' LED strips. 

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Sorry to hear about an issue on a new wheel. I wouldn't let it disturb your riding though! The leds operate with a lower voltage and are a separate section on the mainboard.

Accessing the mainboard requires a bit of effort. As I think the mainboard connector is unlikely to be the issue here, I would work with the connector in the future once I had to open the wheel for another reason, like a tire change.

All the leds share a common connector at the mainboard, so if you wish to unplug only two of the led stripes, best to do it from the led end of the cable. They are a lot easier to access, just pry out the see-thru black plastic led cover, and unscrew the 3 screws holding down the led stripe. The connector is on the underside of the led stripe. Don't leave out the screws though, as they also fasten the outer shell.

After 3 months, 5000km, and almost a dozen disassemblies, three of my 16S's led stripes died. The leds themselves work fine and all the connectors seem fine, so I think there is an issue in the led section of the mainboard. Decided not to be bothered about it.

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Thank you @mrelwood for reassuring me the LEDs are separate from the motor.

I have tried most I could think of. I've tried reinstalling the kingsong apps found in these forums:

-ksv4.apk does not detect my wheel at all. I keep looking at a radar screen but nothing happens. Should this version work with ks16s? 

-ksv5.apk works, but wants me to update to a package called 'Kingsong_aligned.apk'. Both v5 and the suggested update work and connect to the wheel. However playing with the 'Lightscape' options and colors in either version has no effect on my problem. 

Is there any way to hard reset or re-flash the device? If not, I guess I'll go with your suggestion and unplug the front LED strips. Maybe a future firmware update, if any are to be released,  will do something. 

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I don't know of a factory reset procedure on these. I also know nothing at all about Android as a system, or the KingSong app for Android. Sorry! A new firmware (and hopefully a working app!) will be out eventually, could be worth looking forward to.

One thing you could try is to swap the front led stripes with the rear ones. That way if the issue follows, you'll only need the new led stripes. It would be an easy enough warranty case from the sellers perspective as well.

In any case I would contact the seller. This is a defect after all, and if nothing else you might get reimbursed slightly.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I tried swapping the LEDs strips. The 'weird' front ones act okay on the rear plugs and the 'normal' rear ones act weird on the front. So it's definitely not the ledstrips that are faulty, unfortunately.

I'm not sure what else I can try. My guess is software error or maybe a main board problem. I think it's easiest to just pull the plug on the front strips and try to not care too much about it. 

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2 hours ago, Martijn Cogenbach said:

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried swapping the LEDs strips. The 'weird' front ones act okay on the rear plugs and the 'normal' rear ones act weird on the front. So it's definitely not the ledstrips that are faulty, unfortunately.

I'm not sure what else I can try. My guess is software error or maybe a main board problem. I think it's easiest to just pull the plug on the front strips and try to not care too much about it. 

Have you tried different Led settings? Or perhaps a wheel Reset....by plugging out the battery....Then powering the wheel on, to empty the capacitors....and then plugging in the battery again....

 

Aah, and afaik on the new app it is possible to load up the firmware again...even it is the same...maybe also worth a try....

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V1. 34 of the kingsong app (the latest I think?) gives me 'latest version, no update' when I try the 'firmware update'  button. I can't force it to flash anyways. 

I have tried different LED settings in the app, that did not help. 

Plugging out the battery is worth a shot, although I'll have to open her up completely... I think I'll go with @mrelwood suggestion and unplug the two front LEDs, that's a little easier to do.

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I have never seen such behavior but I know this LED. This is WS2812B.

http://www.seeedstudio.com/document/pdf/WS2812B Datasheet.pdf

All are connected in series. When some of them work fine, that is looks like control algorithm is fine.

I have idea. Please remove LED decorating frame on both side and change place of LED strips. Then try. If the same LED strips have same behavior that is mean some wrong components are on PCB.

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13 minutes ago, _r1 said:

I have never seen such behavior but I know this LED. This is WS2812B.

http://www.seeedstudio.com/document/pdf/WS2812B Datasheet.pdf

All are connected in series. When some of them work fine, that is looks like control algorithm is fine.

I have idea. Please remove LED decorating frame on both side and change place of LED strips. Then try. If the same LED strips have same behavior that is mean some wrong components are on PCB.

He already changed the LED strips...so it is clear now, that its no hardware fault...it must be the PCb or the software.. 

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I've unplugged both front LED strips  yesterday. The rear ones are acting okay, so at least I can still see the battery level when powering up. Plus I'm no longer annoyed by the weirdly flashing.

I'll revisit this thread if I ever get the front ones to act properly in the future. For now, many thanks for all your help and suggestions. 

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  • 5 months later...
On 01/11/2017 at 11:50 AM, Martijn Cogenbach said:

I've unplugged both front LED strips  yesterday. The rear ones are acting okay, so at least I can still see the battery level when powering up. Plus I'm no longer annoyed by the weirdly flashing.

I'll revisit this thread if I ever get the front ones to act properly in the future. For now, many thanks for all your help and suggestions. 

Did you ever get to the bottom of this.

my new wheel is doing some something similar but with random colours ?

IMG_4545.JPG

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Actually, mine started doing the exact same thing! Only one led stripe position works, the rest are usually dead but I’ve seen the same few random color leds turn on.

I have disassembled my 16S for a few dozen times, so I think the issue is with cabling or connecors not being designed for this many disassemblies.

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I had the same random LEDs like in the above picture the other day.  I was riding hard at the time and figured it may be heat related.  After turning the wheel off for a bit and then back on, the lights worked correctly again.  I've never taken it apart, as it's only about a month old.

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  • 5 weeks later...

My new KS16s  (shipped early May 2018 ) came with one LED that is Yellow. I did not notice it until I set it up to turn Red,White and Blue. They use RGB  (red green. blue) LEDs . The Blue is bad, so it can turn green and red but without blue, any other color ends up a shade of yellow. Not a big deal to me. I run with the lights turned off anyway. 

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2 hours ago, RockyTop said:

My new KS16s  (shipped early May 2018 ) came with one LED that is Yellow. I did not notice it until I set it up to turn Red,White and Blue. They use RGB  (red green. blue) LEDs . The Blue is bad, so it can turn green and red but without blue, any other color ends up a shade of yellow. Not a big deal to me. I run with the lights turned off anyway. 

Not an uncommon fault in Chinese built RGB strips. I’ve never bought any that didn’t have several LED’s with faults like this.  if you do ever need to take your wheel apart you will probably find it is just a dry solder joint on the that LED. A bit of fluxed solder and a thin soldering Iron will probably fix it. Not worth bothering with unless you are taking it apart anyway. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

i had trouble with my leds too after i was abusing the wheel going up a really steep hill, i shut down the wheel for a full 10 minutes and it fixed itself, the problem has not returned.

it was also 27C outside and the battery was indicating 48C

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  • 2 weeks later...

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