Koowheel thread

The biggest question with hill climbing is how quickly do the motors heat up? People keep complaining about evolve shutting down due to heat on hill climbing. This board likely won’t shutdown, but blow electronics when they get to hot. If you think the quality of this board is on par with the DIY boards, you will be very disappointed.

its’ good to see some use and hills.

The missing and critical variable for me is that you never see the rider.

Yes, i could have my 90lb (40kg) niece ride the board up a ramp/hill/incline - but a normal sized rider (let along a gargantuan rider such as myself) will be slow - or more likely walking.

It’s a budget board - i’d personally get the ego which seems to be a proven setup if slow.

or better yet - take that $$ and put it into a better DIY setup. Ton’s of options here to get inspired and spend that $!

I agree that their presentation could be better, but that doesnt mean that they are hiding something. These guys are workers from the factory, not pro-skaters. Btw you should know that Yuneec is a Chinese company aswell. Sure the Ego is proven and they have dealers all over the world. You can get it on Amazon and Ebay and 2nd hand. But why would I favor a weak single belt drive over a dual hub drive that promises to be way more powerful?

Now in terms of DIY. It’s just not for me, I find it overly complicated, time consuming and dangerous, I have no workshop, no tools and no ambition to build my own board. Doesnt mean I’m trolling here. Maybe trying to bug you with a different perspective.

No worries and appreciate the question and discussion. No issues w/ DIY not being your thing. Totally understandable.

back on topic - why this is potentially misleading in my mind. Not likely it’s intentional, but when you don’t see anything except the rider’s shoes you have no idea on the load/weight the board is carrying. So when smaller asian riders are half my weight - i watch this video and think i too can go up that incline (which i couldn’t). Not likely it’s intentional, but definitely worth noting as folks get excited seeing these videos of them being ridden.

I don’t have any issue whatsoever with chinese companies or components. Most of what i use in DIY is made in China. It’s all in the QC and overall quality of what’s made. Good feedback here and elsewhere let’s me know if it’s worth the $. Some things are more $, other less $ and a good value - regardless of where made.

The E-Go is a really well proven board, which is why i suggested it vs this less-known Koowheel.

Now the single belt motor vs hub motors. This is where others likely will disagree, and i welcome their input to give you some perspective.

A geared motor will allow for gearing below 1:1. Those ratios (i usually aim for right around 3:1(3 motor : 1 wheel)) equal torque, acceleration, and hill climbing ability - with less top speed capability (i’m ok with that compromise).

Dual hubs is a great option, but it definitely may not out perform a single belt/geared motor for hills and acceleration. It should do well on the flats assuming the same rider weight, but likely will suffer poor performance up hill where the geared motor has the 3:1 gear ratio to help keep rpm’s up and keep power going to climb.

So depending on your weight, a hub motor(s) may work well, but i would set your expectations lower for hill climbing. Especially if you aren’t a light weight rider.

Now we should get the perspective of an expert - @LEVer - can you shed some light on this?

Well I saw the hub motor comparison that Jason did, Jacob vs. Hummie, and they seem to climb the hill pretty nicely. You can check it out here if you havent seen it yet. I guess Carvon’s also do well in the dual setup. So how do you think that dual hubs would be inferior to a single belt drive in terms of hill climb.

i don’t think you are understanding the idea of gearing.

a hub motor is 1:1 drive - no gears (stary’s planetary gear being unique/unusual). So every RPM of the motor = 1 RPM of wheel.

A more traditional belt motor setup will have some gear reduction. So using Enertion’s 15/36 - you get 2.4:1 - so 2.4 rpms of the motor for every 1 RPM of the wheel.

Keeping RPM’s up w/ a brushless motor gives you more power/torque.

The hub motor comparison you linked (i saw it when originally posted) is a hub motor comparison. Not a hub vs belt comparison. Two hub motors being compared…

The new hub motors are awesome - some unique advantages with free-wheel resistance being really low, and super stealthy w/o the motor mount, belts, gears, etc. But for a bigger guy and/or hills i still feel a belt drive is superior - even a single motor would likely climb and accelerate better w/ a larger rider like myself. I can adjust gearing lower to give me better hill performance sacrificing top speed. Take a look at any of the traditional speed calculators if you want to see the trade-offs.

Again - if you are 55kg/120lbs - a hub setup likely would work really well for you. But a single belt setup still might out perform the dual hubs uphill.

here’s a good thread where you can see a Boosted Dual+, Evolve Bamboo GT, and Stary do a hill climb.

What i’m asking you to read and note - is two belt drive setups and one hub (with planetary gears - not 1:1 hub drive). Real world performance and the Stary does the worst of the 3. Rider weight is obviously variable, but they look pretty close in size.

but this is a comparison between two dual belt drives and a single hub. Now of course I have looked into the Stary a bit and it really looks cool, light weight and all but I’m not sure whether their “planetary gear” (not pretending to know what it is) is doing the job. That is a special hub design. I think to make it fair you had to compare a dual belt with a dual hub. I would like to see that. I hope someone in the community who owns both can come up with it.

let’s simplify it a bit further for you. A hub motor will not perform as well on hills as a similar belt drive setup. Simple and you can now do additional research on what you want.

a planetary gear is simply gear reduction like a belt. just without a belt. A set amount like 3:1 - multiple rotations of the motor for 1 rpm of the wheel. I don’t think Stary has released the specific gear reduction. As for wear and noise - unknown and i’d rather swap belts as they wear.

If you get the Koowheel please post up your feedback when riding it. I’m sure it’ll work well on the flats, so as long as you don’t expect it to climb bigger hills you should be fine.

I personally would still go belt before hubs (in a budget setup like this), but again i’m not an average sized rider. You’ll have to sort that out on your own.

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The video is very misleading, I mean it’s not that difficult to get a tripod, or another person to hold the camera. It looks interesting, but there are a lot of prebuilt options, and the newer prebuilt boards need to stand out against the competition not only in price, but quality, power, speed, etc.

This is one of our customer ride to work.

I understand Koowheel is new and not proved yet, but there is more better way to understand a product is try it in person.

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we are saying 25%, sorry for misunderstanding.

Glad to see guys are talking about us, but we are new on electric skateboard,and we all are not skateboarder actually, so maybe not look so good and fast as what your guys want to see, but that doesn’t mean our board can’t do.

We are the biggest manufacturer of hoverboard in China, we have work with the best motor supplier in China, and every single cell are original Samsung battery,our electric skateboard battery pack are with 20pcs 18650 cell.

We are new and we will prove,to let guys know Chinese factory can do something really good with really affordable price.

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I just rode mine up a 30% grade hill! I am 6’ and weight 195lbs. When you unlock the speed (click power button 7 times) I got 23mph! Battery Range is about 12-15 miles, shorter if you ride in unlocked speed. Yes there are issues but I am working with them to fix.

Wow - that seems promising! Brother is looking at one to start, then build DIY after.

What issues are you having specifically?

Honestly, its a GREAT board for the price. I am about to place an order for 5 boards (green color wheels). I am thinking about becoming a re-seller here in the USA and stock them here by December 27th right after Christmas. If your brother is interested in purchasing one let me know. I am not in the market to SELL someone something that is not good nor am I going to tell your brother to buy one because I might sell them. I own one and have been testing it and working out the kinks DIRECTLY with KooWheel and they have been very responsive. They even sent me the updated remote to resolve the disconnect issues and new screws.

I just posted about the issues here: http://www.electric-skateboard.builders/t/koowheel-hubs-dry-run/8838/17?u=speedyzach

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Ordered it 2 days ago and should get it Friday, at the latest. It is shipping outta Cali. The guy was cool and called with 30 minutes of the order to ask me what color wheels I wanted. I told him I wanted the fastest of course, orange. :wink: (no offense @SpeedyZach)

Pretty excited to get it and start putting some of the claims to test. We have some killer hills around here and I’m blocks from a trail that runs miles into the city. Gonna try to talk @sl33py into coming and doing some videos with me.

I’m glad to hear @SpeedyZach looking to become a distro and the close relationship you have with the company. I am assuming you would have parts as well? I’m sure wheels will need to get replaced soon. I would also like to know how to get my hands on an extra battery or two. Also, have they mentioned a stand-alone charger?

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Hi SpeedyZach,

Can you tell me if the board has regenerative braking? How smooth / strong is braking power ? Good enough for long/ steep braking, or emergency stops? Thanks for the first hand insights :slight_smile:

it’s probably 8ah and they lied to make it seem like magic and get everyone talking about it.

Why does this worry me?

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An old guy on youtube said he gets 20 miles at 8mph