Evolve Suggestion No more connection issues due to wood instead of carbon deck

Hi guys,


I didn’t write in this forum earlier because I was afraid my English wasn’t good enough.


My very first ride after getting my CGT in Duesseldorf was in a hotel corridor in Duesseldorf. There I noticed a little cut-off, but I couldn’t classify this.

On the next day on the street I could reproduce this: With my right hand (holding the remote control) inside my jacket pocket (due to the low temperature outside) a few very short cut-offs happened. When I held my hand 1 cm (0.5 inches) away from my body or when I took my hand out of my jacket pocket the connection was always fine.

I wondered whether the signal strength of the remote control is that weak, whether it is normal or a failure?

In the meantime, I found out: Yes, it’s an electric-shield problem. I can’t rule out the possibility that my body causes connection issues under bad circumstances. So I improved the other shield: the carbon deck. I replaced it and mounted a wooden deck. It really works! Not even a single cut-off! And I feel that now switching the board to various speed levels is going easier/faster than before.

So I think Evolve should either move the receiver antenna to a better place, improve the signal strength, or replace the deck material (for example wood, glass fibre, plastic …).

I feel much safer now and after further tests I will build a better looking wooden deck.

Peter [Gelnhausen, Germany]

 

Good work mate, and your English is fine

 

I guess we should get a Bamboo GT with the range of the Carbon and all is solved.....

 

Sweet, I was just thinking of doing this before the board kills me!!! Thanks for the post.

Would like to hunt down a fiberglass panel to put in there, the wood looks great! Adds a nice touch. Now thinking about it I'd love to hunt down a sweet looking bamboo plank to drop in there. Bamboo is very strong too.

Keep us updated if this hold up.

 

Interesting. I think Evolve should provide a revised cover or antennae for the carbon boards before somebody sues them. If this is indeed the fault, this public post may contribute to a "known or should have known safety issue" liability. Leave it to a German to figure out a technical issue. BTW, that looks like very clean work...Some thin, stiff plywood finished with grip tape shouldn't be too expensive to produce.

 

A bunch of us actually came to the conclusion already that the Carbon Fiber (CF) cover was acting as an RF shield and a root of some of the issues related to the remote and sportiness of the remote. The person who made this clear pointed out that Enertion boards did the same mistake with their first Raven board and the owner noted the issue, identified that CF is indeed a shield to RF, and made a fiberglass one and offered a replacement. We also supplied videos showing RF signals dropping significantly as a CF tube or cover was surrounding the transmit / receive antenna. My gut feeling is that Evolve got really lucky on the Gen2 Carbon Fiber board, that they didn't have any issues with that for that the BT radio was stronger to overcome the drop in RF signal by the CF. With the GT I think what's happening is that there's a variance in signal strength from radio to radio made, I honestly don't think Evolve did any tuning or verification on the strength with any simulation of a rider. Such as when SARs testing is done with a cellphone, there's Gel that mimics body fluid of the body, which absorbs RF signals. Anyways, in my opinion Evolve got lucky and then it was a matter of time that they got hit, well literally the customer got hit, with the defect that is major. Think of it this way, even though some say the defects are low, 4 out of 350 for remote issues, would you want to fly on an Airplane that has 4 defects out of 350 for the airplane control flight system where your life is on the line? For me, NO!!! This is a ZERO defect area, you CAN NOT have defects on a consumer piece of equipment where the defect is linked with communication between the rider and the board. NEVER. Every wonder where the NTSB, National Transport Safety Board in the US came from? It came from the 70's when auto manufacturers were trying to sell cars to consumers, they could have made the car safer, understood the risks, had all the signs, but didn't for that it cost the auto manufacturer more money to make them safer so nobody would get injured or die in them. Well remember the Chevy Corvair and the Ford Pinto? The Corvair was killing people due to the rear mounted engine and under inflated recommended tire pressure. Cars would dig their rim into the pavement and roll. The Pinto was killing people due to a gas tank that would puncture and leak due to a poor filler tube and upon impact would be a disaster for the consumer. it took many accidents, injuries, and lives for the Government to step in and say we need a board to oversee what's going on here. And as I mentioned, many of these mistakes by the manufacturer were known and could have been prevented but were not all due to cost savings and pushing their product out fast fast fast to consumers with cash. With Evolve, how I see that they're lost debugging my issue, I feel we really need some oversight for this here. Our only defense are lawyers at this point. I hate lawyers but when the company fails to respond and resolve our issue that threatens us as a the consumer in terms of life and injury, its our only option.

Now I emailed Jeff, the owner of Evolve and stated I got injured bad from the GT due to defects, I also mentioned that the board went into reverse or at minimal made itself lock up the brakes either by a software bug or again RF interference while I was going around 8mph forward in ECO mode. I also indicated we talked about on this forum and pointed to the possible root issue of the CF battery cover and to look there and do proper testing to identify the issue. This was at the end of December, no reply from Jeff at all. Seems a bit different than the approach at Enertion boards and MetroBoard where the owner responds back immediately to identify the issue and wants to know every detail about the issue, let alone they don't want you to ride the board until its 100% fixed. I honestly feel I will never get a reply back from Jeff so this leaves a sour taste in my mouth and no confidence in making another purchase of an Evolve board in the future. Here's a customer trying to help them resolve an issue and you're left out in the dark with a defective board where the community bonds together to debug and resolve the critical issues.

I did get an email from Evolve USA when they returned, they indicated they got my mail about the issue of the board not going into reverse/braking. They asked if I can make a video doing a bench test of it having issues. This is what I don't get. I have been repeating to them that I cannot repeat this with a bench test, it won't happen. Why? The rider who also is a shield to RF is not standing on the board with the remote in front of them and away from the board. Second, its in a controlled environment in a house. RF interference that causes issues with communication problems is a dynamic environmental issue, around cities, towns, and around people with many different types of RF devices/ communication going on through the air. I don't understand why they don't get this!!!! Again, I hate to say this, but Evolve does not have the proper technicians and tools to diagnose these issues and I suggest they send out the defective boards to a professional facility who understands RF technology and has all the proper tools to diagnose the issue so that its not wasting the customer's time and endangering their lives.

I feel that the guys Evolve (at least Evolve USA from my experience) who are put to troubleshoot the customer boards have no technical trained knowledge on RF technology and nor do they have any equipment to diagnose any of these issues, so its blind debugging. These guys are electric skateboard enthusiasts and I'm pretty sure they didn't goto school for Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and RF/Communications training. Even if you did have training, you need the proper equipment to do your job properly. From my experience its all trial and error in their troubleshooting techniques They try to reproduce by bench testing, if they can't find the issue, they ride the board, if they can't find the issue they begin replacing parts in hope this has somehow resolve the issue and they send it back to the customer. If they can't 100% understand the issue I feel they should not send the board back to the customer giving them false trust that the board has been fixed.

 

Thanks for taking time to communicate your experience. I have been in touch with Brandon here in the US. My hope is that Evolve will find a fix and get it out to owners without any case being filed...that's not good for anyone but the attorneys. I own two Evolve boards, so I'm double vested. Evolve does publish a warning that the power/brakes can cut at any time. That may offer some legal protection for them, but that's not helping customers or sales. These boards are fun, but having to worry about being thrown on your face by a power cut out is a major detraction.

 

Just checked availability on the current Evolve pre-order that's been open a few days. All models show availability. The current Boosted pull out is probably helping demand, but these issues have to be hurting sales. People tend to research for problems before drooping this kind of cash. If/when Boosted starts shipping again, competitive pressure will increase. Last I heard from Boosted, they were hoping to resume sales mid January.

 

In the meantime I asked Evolve Germany if there were a possibility to increase the signal strength of the Remote.

And YES, it was.

So I sent in my Remote and they have increased the power output.
The reach of the remote-signal is about 8 Meters with the carbon-deck.
Maybe this is for some people a Solution?

Now, when I press the Remote hard and deep in/against my belly, AND experimenting with adverse conditions of my posture, there are still short cutouts.
In daily routine I never never have had connection issues.
So, with the improved Remote, Im on the safer side, but the improvement was not necessery. Its a little plus in Safety.

Ive improved my wooden deck with the Evolve-Logo and some Griptape.
To protect the original Carbon-Deck from the humid,salty,dirty winter conditions, and through to the interesting look,
I leave my wooden deck mounted.

I have leaved it, because of a 2nd reason: I wanted to drill holes in it, to put cables trough, to measure the powerconsumption (Wh)
with a Wattmeter.
Meanwhile I use the holes under the deck for this cables, and it was not necessary to drill holes in the deck.

Greeting from Germany,

Peter

 

Wow, that sounds and looks great. I'll have to contact Evolve USA and see if they can bump up the transmission power on my remote then see if my intermittent interference issues are resolved. The wood deck looks great. Does it stick up any? What thickness is your wood battery cover? Thanks a bunch!

 

It is mady from plywood 6mm ~1/4inch (0,23622047inch) and a little bit thicker than the original carbon deck, does not disturb.

By the way, the EVOLVE - Logo was applied by Photo-Transfer-Potch.

 

just keep in mind that the Bamboo GT has also suffered from the dropouts

 

This awesome man!

Quick question. Did you keep any foam between the batt and ply? Or is the ply just sitting straight on?