Design issues with the Carbon GT

I purchased the Carbon GT as my fourth E-board. I consider myself an ok skateboarder and have a degree in Electrical Engineering albeit do not practice in the field. I was thrown from the CGT as it suddenly stopped. It then accelerated into debris and $400 later I had a new controller and gears. With my second remote I experienced momentary dropouts. I then decided to open the board to see what was going on.

It turns out in the CGT they have put the RF receiver on the same board as the motor controller. In fact there is no antenna that I can see on the skateboard but for a tracing on the PCB. The problem is the motor controller and motors are RF noisy. In fact a bad bearing can cause noise too. Best practices would have the receiver as far away from the motors and controller as space would allow. i.e. the design of the Boosted Board.

This looks like a design change from the Gen 1 as you can purchase an RF receiver daughter board from the website. Also instead of using multiple smaller FET's for less forward resistance and redundancy they chose to use fewer larger FET's that are poorly heat sinked. Poor design choice to save money. For the price of this board we deserve better.


-Ken

ps; I could be wrong on all of this. I did not dissect the entire board and am not passing judgement. Yet I have concerns.

 

There's lots of threads on this, and your point on the noise is valid. Also they enclosed the RF transceiver inside carbon fiber on the CGT which is an EXCELLENT RF filter! So with that they just made a problem they skimmed by on the earlier Carbon balance on a tightrope which if anyone has other RF interference, has dropout issues that make the board extremely dangerous. Also the remotes are varient in terms of their RF strength, I had a remote that I could predict when my board would act up from RF interference, could ride the board to work if cautious, but then the usb charge port fell off the remote while pulling out the charge cable, another design flaw, so I bought another remote. Well with this brand new remote, latest and greatest, I can't go more than 100 feet now on the same CGT without the darn board cutting out. Only thing that changed was the remote. But it shows Evolve didn't do much in fixing the drop out issues or their QC testing of them. Instead they're allowing them to get out in the wild for the customer to end up in a bad predicament with them.

By the way, if your USB charge connector falls off your remote and your board is under warranty, I push those who are not under warranty too since its a bad design not to support the connector right, is that Evolve will replace it if you let them know of the issue.

I've been complaining about all these issues since November, fighting people saying its "user error" and such. Its always people who have ZERO engineering background or knowledge. My dad was an engineer and helped me engineer things to work right on our own when something broke on my dirt bikes when I was 12 and older... So the start of my engineering foundation. Anyways.... Well as we can see the data trends here, its not user error, but rather a major design flaw. Also this is what I do for my career and have been doing it for over 20 years! Testing, designing, and shipping embedded customer electronics that use RF. No way in HELL would I ever allow a product to ship like this, EVER. And when issues arise a full investigation needs to be conducted and a transparent communication with the customer needs to be established until its fully understood and can be 100% resolved and regressed in the future testing suites. So just for those who fight for their right to preserve your own and others safety, don't give up when you get people try to shoot you down.

I'm not a Boosted fan, however, seeing how Sanjay the owner reacts to customer impacting issues, especially ones that can risk the customer's life or cause injury, I for sure feel Boosted would have nipped this one in the but and not allow this to keep going on for as long as it has.

Evolve needs to set their priorities straight. Stop pushing the boards out and setting up all the API's to push the boards and advertisements and communications that surround buy buy buy, and first clear up the communication channel between you and your existing customers, listen to them, if there's an issue that is serious which any issue that can cause injury is, stop what your doing, investigate, ask questions, bring in expert contractors who can diagnose the issue of you don't have the expertise, shut down the buy buy buy mentality until you can be 100% confident you indeed did respond to the customers impacting issue, and once you have a confirmation you did, then move on with your buy buy buy process since then you've earned it.

And lastly have someone answer your phones during normal business hours. Even if someone is sick, you need to show you're a professional company, not someone running a business out of their garage. Pay someone, a kid or intern to sit on the phone and take messages.

 

Good stuff noticing this. What did Nick at Evolve HQ have to say about it when you sent them a friendly email letting them know what you had come across and your suggestion of improvement? Nick is only human and does not work for NASA so he can not be expected to be the best in the world at his field so I am sure he would of loved hearing about a flaw that he could improve on. He must be very appreciative. How did it go? Did he sound like he would look into your advice?

 

I emailed service in Australia as they are the designers of the board. They said they were passing the email upstairs. Nothing since. I sincerely think the Evolve could be great with a slight bit of rework.

 

Wiztecy, I am dead set over drop outs mate. I busted a few ribs on my first one. I am currently on my 4th controller and 3 or 4th remote since buying my board last July. I've done **** loads of kms on it and the problems really only started when Evolve (oz) replaced my battery as I had a dead cell in Dec last year. I am going to try some RF shields where I can fit them in the hope that may help. A few days ago, my board shut down about a dozen times, which it's never done. Not a momentary drop out, but a complete shut down requiring the board to be rebooted. I dropped the board off yesterday only to be told today that it has worked flawlessly since I dropped it off. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bagging the guys, in fact they seem like they genuinely want to help me but they say they "can't fix something that isn't broken when there". I am not an electrical wiz so apologies if you've covered this elsewhere but Christ, there are only a few components, surely this recurring and unsafe issue can't be that hard to solve right?

 

They can't fix it because it will cost them $$$ to fix it, a new run on a PCB board possibly, changing out the RF/radio in the board as well as the remote. Hardware change is something a company drastically tries to avoid since it raises the cost significantly.

Sorry about your incident. I read about that. Just happy it wasn't worse if you can really say that, I guess getting smacked by a car would be however. No way should a board be acting up like this and putting the rider in a dangerous situation. I honestly feel Jeff isn't taking the issue seriously at all, hence why I didn't want to go the replacement route. I have ZERO trust in Evolve and its more like giving your 5 year old kid the board to say, hey, here go fix it and I'll ride it to see if it works. RF needs to be full-proof if you're using it as a sole controller for a personal propulsion system. Jeff knows about all this, period. So he's set in his own ways and I don't feel he's going to ever fix it. I have my shoulder sticking up that never settled down after my issue with my board. Still recovering to this day and if I get hurt again tripping I'm most likely going to be where I was when the damn GT threw me off. Total personal injury to the rider that was fully out of their control where it could have been caught with proper Quality Control from the Manufacturer. If you're not happy with your board, ask for a refund if they can't fix it. Your money / credit card worked well for them, and if they had issues where the transaction had an error, they for sure would be on you to get you to fix it and make it right.

My Trampa build is done, I worked with Kaly.Nyc and went back and forth discussing the build. Leveraging his ideas with my ideas, making the best of the best. The Trampa is heavier than the GT but it is 100% dependable, won't do anything stupid and will be just as reliable as my MetroBoard. Ernesto who is the builder has a little kid he rides with, SAFETY and QUALITY is #1 priority for him. And if there's any issue with safety things get shut down, customers are immediately contacted about the issue, and an investigation and full resolution is put in place. That's the quality and safety of the true E-Board enthusiasts of the industry. Follow the E-Builder forums and you'll see. Jeff's attitude is NOT the genuine attitude of E-Skateboard Builders at all. This issue should have been solved, boards recalled or parts sent out to the customers who are affected, and emails sent to owners of a possible issue. So for Ernesto, he found that the rear Trampa Truck started to crack with his street carver builds. This was due to running the MBS / knobby urethane wheels. Trampa said they haven't had any cracks since they've been making these trucks back in 2012/13, and they're being punished. So its a one off issue, but still an issue that needs to be taken seriously since it involves safety and quality. Talking it over with my engineering friends and also the input from the Eskate builder community, it appears most likely the issue is the knobby tires and very limited contact patch which is only down the center with those wheels. Its resonating / vibrating and acting like a lever. The Motor hangs off the back like the GT, and that's resonating too. The stresses are going to the weakest part of the truck which is all CNC machined. There's a milled out part of the truck on the inside that has not the best milling work, should only be circles and no rough edges, or cut turns, well the weakness / crack ends up shooting towards that. I honestly think if this was Evolve they'd let people still ride on these things and not contact them to let them know of a major safety issue. So my board we're going to be running the 107mm ABEC 11 wheels, it has a better contact patch, wider, that will distribute the stresses better and not act like a lever as much with amplifies the resignation of the bumpy roads. The cool thing is that *EVERYONE* was involved in this discussion on the eBuilder site, the guy who makes the Trucks (Trampa), Ernesto, and other very talented and smart builders. That's what its all about, people helping people, people having fun, people pushing the limit, and people enjoying what they do.

I should have my Trampa build here next week, looking forward to it. Also will be giving feedback to Ernesto on things I like / dislike as well as if the board is acting up in any way, which always is possible with any build. However I know Ernesto WILL listen and he WILL take the issue seriously if it involves quality and / or safety. So I have full confidence in that I'm actually being heard and that my feedback is important to him.

But as for you and your GT, I'd still keep putting pressure on Evolve until you get the resolution you want. As in my other threads, you really have to keep on these guys, keep pushing them, get them to respond, etc, but in the end I did get my full refund. It honestly shouldn't have been that difficult.

 

Yeah I was having trouble but that was the first time I took it on a dirt track. The street carver does turn a lot better, I'm seriously considering building one. I just want someone to sell a nice segmented enclosure that's at least dust and dirt proof

 

Here's a couple of pics of my board Ernesto built up. I passed on the idea that if we run a rear truck that's not milled out for weight savings, don't save much with that but rather its there for looks, that it would be stronger and the stresses of the vibrations won't have a place to work its way to. Ernesto said Trampa has one like that, so we're going to do that for the rear of my board and see how it goes. I like having it stronger back there due to the motors hanging off the truck. Front doesn't get the same amount of abuse so we're going with the milled out ones up there.. He's also going to put a rubber pad under the spring towards the board side to help reduce the vibration resonance which was suggested by Frank of Trampa. So he's going to have it for a couple more days so he can do some of these tweeks on it which is fine by me. I'll also give some feedback on turning / carving with the board once I get it. I know Frank from Trampa said there's a particular way the springs need to be setup so it carves perfect. Both springs need to work together, as one spring compresses, the other should be pushing, basically you have to preload them it sounds. My board was built with the Trampa SuperStar hubs, these are sweet top of the line hubs made out of CNC aluminum. I'll be picking up some differnt colors for the rim and hub to personalize up my board in the future, fun changing colors and livens things up. Same with the truck springs, those can be swapped out color-wise. Also will be switching out the pneumatic tires most likely and aim for an 8" tire that's similar to the street AT Evolve runs.

@EssEnn - There's a couple different enclosures like the one Kaly uses and whitepony uses on the Ebuilder forums. They all will keep dist, dirt and water out when riding the board. Key is to put a good foam seal around the edges. We built my board with hte Ollin VESC-x and Ollin puts water-resistant protection over the PCB board so you're good with that if that's what you have.



The pic below are of Ernesto's board with the MBS wheels, however as I mentioned these are causing vibration issues with the Trampa trucks.

 

Also Ernesto gives you an option to use a finger trigger RC remote (one on the left), the same one I run on my MetroBoards and absolutely love. No Dropouts and great feel. I went with that one. Or you can use a Boosted board style / thumb style remote. That one is nice since it is simple and slim. The RC trigger remote is bulkier but I haven't had too much of an issue with that. Slim is for sure nice though. Super Nice having options there to suit your personal taste.

 

I'm going to to have to build one I think, money is the only obstacle

 

I see the answer as being two fold. Have them offer an RF ugrade that would put the reciever at a protected positon. Or replace to RF deck cover with something RF transparent and hope for the best. Kydex would be easy to mold. Fiberglass would be even easier. If we knew the internal frequencies we could design an external RF antenna for peanuts

 

Issue is the Bamboo GT's are having the same exact issue, I think the Carbon is the worse out of them. But the problem is across the board, literally! Curious if this will propagate as well to the Evolve One board.

 

How did you get on with your Trampa Kaly