Evolve - radio is using nRF24L01

How do we get a remote into a Farday cage to confirm / disprove and document what we think is happening?

 

Shouldn't be difficult - the simplest design would be a box with a small box large enough to fit your hand through.

Then cover the box completely with aluminium foil - completely sealed and all the foil touching all other bits of foil - then make sure you have a wire connecting the foil then to earth.

Effectively what you then have is an antenna shaped like a box connected to ground - so any radio waves emitted inside the box are picked up by the antenna and flow directly to ground. A perfect shield to prevent radio waves.

The only place the radio waves could escape is through your arm holding the remote....which is possible, but they would be limited to that exact direction. Place the board as far away as you can, so it still works with remote outside of the faraday cage - then hold the box so that the arm hole points away from the board.

That should work.

 

I wonder though in the end if we are just wasting our time - even if we had a "smoking gun" as to what EXACTLY was happening would Evolve listen to us ? (maybe passively and just "roll our recommendations" into a future update) - frustrating HQ has never commented on any of this

 

In the end they might adjust future products to include an automatic safety braking system - in event of a communications break - that is what i would do.

Will they recall all boards? i doubt it - I wouldn't - that would be too expensive - and they are a new company doing their best to survive. The product is amazing and really really good, i love it - but it is not perfect - this problem does appear to effect a sub set of users. Not all.

It is possible they will investigate themselves (they could not make any announcement without opening themselves to a load of requests for replacements etc....)

Once they find a solution - at that point they might do the calculations and see what they can do to help people - especially the sub set involved - could be as simple as a new remote firmware - but more than likely a new controller main board / software.

For now - I would take all precautions possible - and not react to drop outs until the comms return. At the first sign of no reaction from the board - stop sending commands until the last one has occurred.....that way it can still be safely used in the meantime.

 

You can avoid radio waves coming out of the Faraday Cage through your arm by just taping/rubber banding the trigger down, drop the remote into the cage and seal it shut.

 

I'm not sure if this is unique or not but if I do get a dropout I can still accelerate and brake fine (tested multiple times) just better not shift! Lucky learned that while going slow.

 

I think it depends what type of dropout you have at that moment. I've had all the cases you can experience on my board and remotes. I had where you could not brake, no response at all from the board, and I've had the board keep accelerating while I had the remote sitting in neutral. Had the board jump into reverse as you said, don't shift if you can detect you have a drop-out. But you need to be staring at the screen and what if you're in bright daylight, you're just gambling then since the LCD bleeds out and you can't see a damn thing. And I had the board accelerate full blast in GT mode on its own while sitting a steady 7mph cruising. All of these issues have been reproduced by others beside myself and some have been injured like myself.

All I can say always wear a helmet and be prepared for the unknowns on this board. Much is environmental where the board just can't handle interference well. Some people live in areas that are not affected or also have stronger radios, meaning higher gain / signal strength and lower signal to noise ratios.

Anyways sent my CGT back for a full refund and my Trampa 2-in-1 custom build is underway. So this mess is in the past for me thank God and happy I have the majority of my motion back from my CGT induced injury back in November.

 

Same here. It has droped out on the lcd but the Bamboo keeps going like normal.

 

Who is building you Trampa? Kaly? I have been looking into these and really like how beefie they are and look bomb proof.

 

Yes, Kaly. I was going to go the same route while stumbling on his own posts and doing research for some time on the DIY forums. Talked to others who made Trampa builds, calculated my costs, then talked to Kaly, Kaly knows his stuff and keeps making things better with the Trampa build. I figured I'd be going down the same path but would have a change or mistake that would cost me at the end, which as I thought, others who do these builds are over what he's charging. He's also working with Alien motors and changing up the design a bit to make it better, same with the Ollin VESCs. But we're not locked out and still are able to access everything on the board so we can modify the brake, acceleration, and top speed of the board. The build I'm working with though him will do 36mph, already tested, and will be quicker than the GT. I'm also going to run the same RC 2.4Ghz remote I've been running on my 2 Metroboards which have been flawless and had ZERO dropouts. Solid. Kaly also is offering a "boosted" style thumb remote that is compact. Great guy, totally stoked I came across him. We get to use the Trampa hollow axle trucks that are machined aluminum, not crappy cheap cast like the GT which I'm sure will show fatigue over time if you rattle them enough. Cast is very bad and I've seen pictures of broken GT trucks and that cast job is beyond terrible.

I've also been sharing ideas with Kaly to make his future builds better, so he's looking into that. He's definitely a geek and understands this stuff, best part is he enjoys it and is passionate about it. A true DIY type of guy and what the DIY community is all about. Most of his customers are people who've had bad experiences with the Evolve GT like myself, and Kaly took on the challenge.

Should have my board built up in 4 weeks, will post in a new thread (trampa / DIY) when I get it and will give a review. The build should come out to be the best of the best. Also get to run the Trampa hubs which are kick ass.

 

I truely look forward to seeing your build. I to am thinking about having Kaly build me a board but right now I am locked in with Carvon which I excited about. If the new Carvon pans out then I will sell my Bamboo and order a Trampa build from him. From what I have heard the Alien motors are the best.

 

The Carvon looks pretty neat but I'm not sold on hub motors at all, so that turned me off. Some like them. I know the motor bearings are under lots of stress and curious how they'll hold up in the long run. Even belt motors have lots of stress on the pulley side of the motor shaft, but not as much as what the hub motor bearing is exposed too. Kaly is a soul believer of regular motor bearing maintenance, 2-3x a year. I totally agree with him on that if you do ride your board regularly like many of us too. II have to say the Carvon has a pretty sleek look. Only downside about the Trampa build is the weight, but most of that is because its being built with quality components that add up across the build. I have a MetroBoard I use for jamming to the store and a quick and carry board, my 40 mile Metroboard is my commuter and the board I take up to San Francisco. It climbs those hills and I use it to go from one side of SF to the other, all without walking and total hill climbing. The hills take a toll on the pack, but I still can get 11 miles of range out of it which is crazy impressive. People go nuts seeing you pass them up on a hill when they're in a car stopped in line at a hilly stop sign. Like Wha-What!? The Trampa build will come in a little lighter than the Metro 40 mile board, so I'm use to that weight and it really won't be an issue for me. Its manageable and definitely solid, and that's something I welcome with an electric skate board.

The Trampa trucks are works of art, no cast. All CNC machined aluminum. Talk about strength, quality and beauty all in one. Really can't wait to see and ride this thing that's for sure. But feel free to PM me anytime. Take care!

 

@julian46 @Covert - Any progress, were you able to test anything else? What do you think, would it be possible to build an alternative open sourced remote?

 

I dunno about springs... they don't seems as tunable as normal skateboard trucks where you tighten a bolt to dramatically change handling. They are beautiful tho.

 

Springs work great, you just have to set them up right just like bushings on your standard skateboarding trucks. Regular trucks don't turn well if not setup correctly. Springs can work well due to preloading the opposite spring to help the corresponding spring to compress. And you can change the loading on each individual spring which governs how the board will react and ride. But if its not setup right it will ride like crap, just like anything not configured correctly Also there's bushing/bumpers inside the springs that the pic doesn't show which are installed.

Only issue I saw with the spring Trampa trucks was that Ernesto / Kaly found fracture cracks on the rear trucks over time of the street carver running the knobby MBS 100mm wheels. The Trampa truck's he's running has a couple of CNC cutouts that are there primarily for looks. I looked at the cracks as well as other people and its most likely due to a limited narrow contact patch of the MBS wheel. Its sending vibrations from the knobby wheels through the trucks which then is resonating and causing the stresses. Since the motors hang off the rear on the motor mount, the amplify the forces and the magnitude of the stresses. He's not building them with the MBS wheels but rather at this point putting the ABEC 97 or 107mm wheels on them as well as the AT setup. I talked to him about this, looked at the pics, and said if the Trampa truck didn't have the cut-outs that the stresses don't have anything weak point to work towards. With that he said he has a solid truck, so we're building mine with the rear not having the cut-outs in the truck (hanger) and the front will have the cut-outs. Since there's no leverage of motors dangling off a motor mount the stresses are not affecting the hanger/truck up there. Note that regular trucks have more dampening due to the bushings and pivot cup design. But this is all about trying things out, seeing where they fail, and making them better. The fun and great part of a DIY community as well as a DIY community built board. Flexibility and versatility. Anyways, should have my Tramp board in 1-2 weeks, I'll be out of town for a bit hence the longer delay. Will definitely create a thread about what I like and don't like about it.

 

no update on my end with the nRF24L01 research - the motor controller firmware may be closely tied into the remote control (nRF24L01) transceiver code - at this point we just don't know - only Evolve could tell us more - but they likely would have no interest - again would really like to see a field upgrade-able (easily by us) Bluetooth remote with proper App for the phone that can talk to the board etc.

 

Tnx,

I am thinking about hooking up logic analyser on nrf24l01 in remote and slowly try to reverse engineer the data passed between radio and "motherboard".

 

Was under the impression that the data is encrypted, but the truth is really with the anylyser and the eyes.

 

I would think not due to the ability of one remote being able to control another board like Warren showed the video on (although we don't hear about that as much now) - worth checking tho

 

I don't know, yet. At the moment we have nice weather and I am charging and riding In the meantime I am waiting for some nRF24L01+ boards to test the connection, software, development ... - to learn about them