Yet another dropout thread + My 60day review

What an annoying way to end a day. A 'damn you Evolve controller issues' post. Lol.
So what I intended to do was a vlog and just drop a link to YouTube....but, I cannot find the charger for my camera and didn't want to do it on my phone, so I spent 3 hours pulling the house apart looking for the charger, no luck. But the house is cleaner and I got rid of some dusty old garbage too. Anyway I digress....

So I'll start with the 60 days in review...In text...

CUTOUTS!
I've been getting dropouts since out of the box. Didn't think much of it at first, now I am smashing around in Fast all the time, it's a serious safety issue that is always playing on my mind.
Yesterday, I was cranking and no issues. Very first time ever that I had no dropouts at all in 10km of riding.
On some occassions it just won't connect, sometimes, especially in the CBD (is this a pattern?), it goes flaky then becomes so unresponsive that I have to shut it all down and restart. These issues happen at least once a day during my various commutes. Reminds me a bit of Win95

RANGE.
My regular disappointment is the range, I get 10km and then battery sag sees me limping home. It's cold here during Winter, maybe that's the issue.
Yesterday I did 11km, started to cut down to Eco mode. I am not the lightest guy and when commuting with my laptop bag I'm probably getting near 93kg. (Must lose that middle age expansion)
I have noticed that the auto cut to Eco mode is much more smooth than my selecting a different mode. E.g. Fast to Eco, when I do it it stops and cuts back in.
I have also noticed that delay/lag in changing modes and then abruptly cutting in, so I too have started just to use Fast as the default. Trying to 'gear' it is just risky and annoying.

BUILD.
Seems ok, nothing has come loose or rattled apart and I do ride on gravel, grass and dirt tracks.
The off road setup is just friggin' awesome and suits all surfaces.
I have one issue with the front truck which is quite plainly mounted crooked. It's maybe 2mm out, but it catches my eye. It also means a track screw is perilously close to the edge of the inner cutout, a potential weak point?
The Bamboo board is super flex and I like that. Suits my style. I have heaved down on the flex in tight turns and occasionally thought I am going to bend the battery beyond repair, but no issues at all.
The charge plug cover pops open all the time, easy ingress for dust n dirt. Fail.
The Controller is flimsy. The touchiness of the throttle and/or the programming of the board means Fast mode is inherently twitchy. You need your fine motor skills on the trigger finger to have this under control. I don't know why they can't program for a more gradual responsiveness which still hits those awesome top speeds.
I have only just got my 90mm ABECs on tonight and can't yet comment. They look mean though and according to speedo give me an extra 6kmh. Dangerous! Yay!

MANUFACTURER SUPPORT
Well meaning but not greatly encouraging. They did get me my extra parts on back order after 3x attempts , credit for persistence there!
My dropout concerns were received with bewildering and disinterested responses. Given the array of concerns I have now read about online no wonder they shrug their virtual shoulders and go ' eh, what can we do?' via email. They did offer for me to send the whole thing back no questions or doubts, so that's pretty good.
I made some general enquiries via email about belt alignment with pictures included, the belts runs slightly off cog with off road setup, and they couldn't answer with any authority or confidence, not inspiring. Turns out it's not an issue at all, but they weren't prepared/unable to comment accordingly.
The instructions via Vimeo for swapping out the wheels leave some knowledge gaps, mainly coz it's a v1 board demo, and how to select cog sizes? Do I have to count the teeth on the cog, really? Still it's not difficult at all to do maintainenance and change the board configuration.

WOULD I BUY ANOTHER ONE?
Hell yes. This thing rocks. The 2in1 setup is an absolute winner. But I'm really keen to check out a Boosted in the interim, just to check. From what I've seen it appears to be a more mature product development.
But I am very happy to have bought Oz made!

Meanwhile check my new 90mm ABECs and dangerous dropouts vid. So glad I wasn't out on a test ride! Geez.



Cheers
Ramjet

 

You're right about giving Evolve the credit for the 2-in-1 design. I haven't seen others do this other than Evolve hence why I ended up buying my GT (but later returning it due to drop-outs). But I really feel there's some QA / Engineering / Communication break down or just a huge ego at Evolve for the way they deal with issues and respond to the customer as well as letting issues continue on and on without addressing them. I was down for helping them out and getting through these issues, shared the issues and how to resolve them, but they gave me zero confidence in my case that the many issues will ever be resolved hence why I pushed to get a refund. They just don't listen. I'm riding a Trampa (Kaly.nyc) 2-in-1 build and its the best board ever. I've also given feedback to Kaly about issues and how to improve them to make the board better for the customer, thing is, Kaly listens and wants the board to be safe and top notch quality for the consumer. That's the difference. Hearing the customer's voice and making changes.

 

UPDATE: Now had my beast for over 6 months.

>>>>This board simply cannot be trusted to operate safely.<<<<<<<

Its friggin dangerous and continues to have random disconnects which don't appear to have any discernible pattern.
The only 'pattern' I have discovered (as noted above) after full charge both remote and board it will most often be glitchy for km's , despite 5, 6, 7, up to 10 restarts. If it's glitchy it seems to stay glitchy. Especiallly after coming off full charge (though this could all be coincedental too)

The last time it slammed me into the pavement about 10 weeks ago. Kind of my fault, I knew it was glitchy and I tried to use the braking function before I sailed dangerously out onto the road. SPLAT. Better I splat on the path than in front of a car I guess.
Since that ride and the continued random dropouts I now ride with extreme caution and TBH it has seriously diminished my enjoyment of the board. I just cannot trust it.
Today for example it seemed fine, all connected, cruising at near 30kmh and halfway to work suddenly the partial dropouts started. Stopped and restarted the board probably 5 or 6 times before it normalised. Then the remainder of the commute I live in fear of getting to work alive.

I will follow the dismantle and connection check video Evolve have posted on Vimeo, but really I am now regretting not buying a Boosted. There is some fundamental build issue here that Evolve have shown no acknowledgement or interest in working with their customers to resolve.
So disappointing.
Will I keep riding this board? Yes. Until it throws me one more time. In the interim the fear factor and untrustworthy behaviour really saps the fun out of riding. Such a shame.

 

I'm so damn happy my dropouts are gone, I'm playing Johnny Appleseed with the wire twist tactic. I had very frequent dropouts (could seldom ride a mile on asphalt w/o a disco/reconnect) for the past month. I had this problem with both the original LCD remote, and the R2 remote. Bumps/ruts or heavy current draw (hills) seemed to prompt disconnects. I bought my board used, thought the dropouts were due to voltage sag (perhaps so bad that the BMS was cutting power, shutting off the controller.) It also seemed that I might have a loose connection since a nice hard bump often caused a disco. Twisting the motor and battery cables seems to have completely cured the problem, and took very little effort to do. My working theory now is that the motor cable that runs close to the RF board was producing EM interference proportional to motor current. Going over a bump or through a rut caused a brief spike in current = spike in interference. Twisting these wires reduces the EM field produced when they carry current. This tactic works for network cabling, audio cabling, so I guess it helps for power cabling too. I hope we can all overcome this issue... I love my board, don't want to see Evolve's reputation damaged any farther over this easy-to-fix, but dangerous problem.