Carbon GT cutout/connection issues

I'm sure Evolve HQ must be working on a solution to this before someone gets hurt falling off their board due to one of these cut outs..... quite a few incidents reported now....

 

I've had these cutout issues that have led to the rear left motor no longer responding to imputs other than braking, the brakes now work to the point where I can hardly turn them. This is the 2nd motor that it has happend with and Evolve is just telling me to resend them the motor to get a new one, again, as if that'll do something different.

However another person is replying from them telling me to send the whole board back to them again. It may be worth calling them when you have issues rather than just e-mailing, otherwise you may get the same kind of service I have.

 

Bluetooth is a bad choice of frequencies to use for an electric skateboard. Its very overloaded and higher frequency contamination also overrides the signal. Evolve needs to go to RF / 2.4Ghz to resolve the issue. They also should work on an upgrade for existing customers to upgrade and swap out the unreliable bluetooth technology for the better RF one.

 

we got remotes to interfere and control acceleration and brakes of multiple boards at the same time recently, not only is loosing power a danger issue, this possibility of being not in control of your own remote is scary, a few of us got caught up in this recently, check out the short video below.:

 

Dude that's so terrifying! Literally my riding nightmare. Any word from evolve on this? How often does it happen? Is it rare?

 

My guess is that the remotes are speaking / listening on the same frequency, bluetooth, however there's most likely no unique identifier per remote/board paired connection which they should have enforced where evolve gives a unique number to each board. Without that enforcement the remote/boards turn promiscuous. Is like those wireless outlet switches you can turn off with a button. You buy the same or another from different company and you find every single outlet in your house turns off or on with someone elses remote. Same frequency and no pairing identifier.

 

We got the issue to happen about 4 times during our day, never seen it happen before, and we usually ride with multiple people.
first time we were all in the same area when we turned on our boards to head off, and the other times we were at least 100meters away from others and still had it happen when you passed someone who was on the same freq. Seems there is no security protection for the bluetooth connection, and it is possible for it to control other boards. On the Evolve site in the FAQ section it says this can never happen, but we have found that it can and does. Evolves official response was basically turn it off and on and re pair. This is not really a proper fix, this should not exactly be able to happen ever, and I can tell you this is quite dangerous, even if this is a small chance of this issue happening, we got it to happen 4 times during a 5 hour ride day, even once is enough for someone to be seriously hurt. I did email about the issue and call them to let them know, but I do not think they will follow trough, Once a company becomes aware of such issues, they should have a duty of care to let their customers both old and new know that this can happen, how to avoid it, and what they are doing to fix the issue. I trust every rider would agree with this. Perhaps I should make a post about it in the forum under tips/troubleshooting.

 

I don't think the response from Evolve is good enough - if their website says this can't happen and you guys have had the unfortunate experience of proving it can happen resulting in injury - then for it to be dismissed with a standard ''turn it off and on again'' answer just doesn't cut it. I've not fallen off my GT yet but I hate to think of what could happen in a group ride when I'm going flat out and my board brakes unexpectedly!

 

exactly, if you feel the same about the issue, use your power to voice your own concerns, a certain level of duty of care when they now know about an issue is paramount.

 

As a community we need to all take some action.i am in the US .i assume you contacted evolve Australia. Can you tell me exactly who you emailed and what you told them. I will also reach out to express my concern. Also, has this been expressed on their facebook, twitter and other social media? We need to make this as loud as possible. Lastly, I think this issue is serious enough, dangerous enough and scary enough to warrant its own thread. Any chance you can create a separate thread just for this?

 

Ah I see you created the thread already

 

I contacted Evolve via phone and email, they said they are aware of the issues I raised, and would pass it on to their design team, thats about it. If you want to post in other places, keep in mind it may be taken down or have others make negative comments about it, it is the way things work, most FB groups are run by Evolve, which is fine, but I think if people are concerned they should voice their opinions.

 

That's interesting about most of the Forums being run by Evolve. Had a post get deleted right under me from the GT Owners Group, possibly they don't own that one. Was talking about the motor drive gears wearing down as an owner posted his pulley teeth being mushed / bent. A guy who replaced his with the aluminum ones added to the discussion, so did I. A guy then replied saying, there's nothing to worry about, this pulley will easily last you a year. I ended up replying saying no it wont, not under everyday use of a regular hard rider it won't. Then right out from under us the whole thread went poof. I ended up making a new post saying what just happened with that post, one guy said that the original poster can delete the post. But why would that guy do it? Another guy said he's seen that happen there before. So with that, just be aware. I don't like posts being deleted. Don't know who or why they did it in this case, but its not a good thing to have on a forum or FB group page. I can see if you're really doing something that hurts someone verbally, but this was a discussion to improve things and help the owner out as a group.

 

Hay Andy, thanks! Appreciate that people like yourself volunteer their time so we all have a free exchange of information on these forums and groups. Same with Alex and for creating and hosting this forum.

The same thing ended up happening regards to disappearing posts on the Tesla Forum (TMC CLub). Been a longterm member there and as soon as the Model S got big a huge influx of people subscribed. Then it took one person's emotions to get bent the wrong way and they deleted a long thread full of good discussions. With that happening you no longer can delete posts over a certain time period as well as do any edits, after 10-20 mins you get locked out. Sucks since people make editing and specification mistakes as well as other types of mistakes that can steer people wrong.

Thanks again guys!

Back to the connectivity issues on bluetooth. Bluetooth is divided into 79 different channels that are 1Mhz in range and appears to change channels many times per second. If a channel is overloaded, this can cause drop outs. If a channel is shared, meaning running at the same frequency, then you can have multiple devices listening and talking to a single control mechanism.

Bluetooth
Main article: Bluetooth
Bluetooth devices intended for use in short-range personal area networks operate from 2.4 to 2.4835 GHz. To reduce interference with other protocols that use the 2.45 GHz band, the Bluetooth protocol divides the band into 79 channels (each 1 MHz wide) and changes channels up to 1600 times per second. Newer Bluetooth versions also feature Adaptive Frequency Hopping which attempts to detect existing signals in the ISM band, such as Wi-Fi channels, and avoid them by negotiating a channel map between the communicating Bluetooth device

List of 2.4 GHz radio use - Wikipedia

 

I've had my GT Bamboo less than a week and have just started experiencing almost the exact same problem...

 

Sorry man Contact Evolve and have it sorted out ASAP before you get hurt. They'll send you some instructions on how to 'properly' pair the remote to the board which fixed my issue, more of a distraction, but its worth a try. Then if you ***** enough, they'll send you a replacement remote, and if you ***** more saying that didn't fix it, they'll ask you to send them your board and remote which you have to pay on your own dime to ship back, and if you ***** again they'll cover the shipping cost. Really a customer shouldn't have to *****. Picking up my board from Evolve which they said they changed out my motor controller, they say my board is smoother now, they indicated they couldn't reproduce my drop-out issue which I knew they wouldn't at a warehouse with limited interference unlike many of us who ride around crowded areas with bluetooth and RF interference such as down-town and along crowded bike paths. I honestly don't feel confided they addressed my issue, but I won't know until I unbox the thing. Picking the board up at the local UPS store in 15 mins and will get padded up with pillows all over my body to test this thing. I feel like an airplane test pilot honestly.... Well hope I'm alive to report back in a few hours! -- Just saw that b*tch like a female dog is filtered out on the site. I don't think that's bad word, anyways, that's what I said if you replace the "*" with an "i" in this sentence.

 

first reports on newly shipped boards - looks like the problem continues ......

 

^Sad^

I replied after they sent my board out that I would like the new update to the remote and possibly the new remote that softens the throttle / braking curve as I had asked for earlier. This is after they said they can't do anything with this curves due to the high torque of the board compared to previous boards, which is total BS. Email contact went cold. I also b*tched that my battery cover in the front is convex right were the lid sits in the front, so the seal does NOTHING to keep water, sand, dirt and dust out. No response. I honestly can say from my heart I got a POS board in terms of quality and not pleased. I also got seriously injured from my POS board and that's uncool.

 

yea no kidding - looks like they are still in denial - good luck with your replacement - suit up like you're a GP bike racer and stay close to the grass for bailing if you need to......