The following is sort of a journey of discovery that has come from my using Slime in my MX60 as well as examining Slime and comparing it to other products. The focus of this post is about Slime.
A UK based MTB enthusiast friend of mine (hey Leadville) uses Stans in his MTB and in a recent discussion about the dealing particle size and density we had I became more interested in this product. Anyway, I was reading the label and found this guidance:
So the hint about arid climates and drying piqued my memory. Should be no surprise because Stan like slime Slime is water based (as are they all).
Now I recall how when I changed my tyre last time that the Slime was all clagged up on the inside of the tyre, and I recall too how easily it dissolved putting the tyre into a tub of water (in an attempt to clean it). Thinking about this made me soon realise that the wheel spinning (often doing 30kmh) is acting as a centrifuge, which is commonly used to separate out things suspended in water; and quickly too. See this video:
BTW, if you're not seeing the videos, then either use a computer (not a phone) or put your phones browser into "Desktop" mode because to be frank much of the internet doesn't work on phones. Even youTube is still a better experience on a desktop setting.
Which isn't ideal for how the product was intended to work and indeed may also be part of what Stans is getting by replenishing.
So as I'd previously done an experiment with adding "cheapo-slime-alike" into my tyre because I noted that it benefited from being bashed around and refreshed with some of the cheapo stuff
Towards the end of that I mentioned also that I bashed the tyre with a hammer ... So I thought I'd do a blog post consolidating all that and showing what I did on a youtube video.
In summary, what I do is:
let the tyre down (by removing the valve from the stem)
insert water with my syringe
bash around the circumference of the tyre with a hammer to loosen off any slime caked in there
give it a quick spin and a sudden stop
re-insert valve into stem and reinflate
take if for a ride
So ultimately this now seems to be the best way of making the most out of slime
PS: this is the result of a weeks drying in a glass with a lid and then re-hydrating with a few drops of water
Well I last charged the MX60 on Thursday night, so it was "fresh" Friday. I did some "around town little blurts, but this morning decided to go for a quick saunter over to the next village
When I left it hat 61% showing on the battery. The battery is 1200Wh in capacity (claimed) and so if I assumed prior usages I should be able to get there and back. I returned with 38% on the dial. Now Li-ION batteries are quite linear in the middle of their discharge cycle so I can say that its reasonable to estimate this has consumed 23% of the 1200Wh : meaning 276Wh.
Rounding this trip to 22km that means my MX60 returned an economy of 12.5km per Wh or 1.2kWh/100km
This is pretty good, better than this test where I found 2.8kWh/100 and this test where I also got 2.8kWh/100km. I believe this comes from a few possibilities:
the fact that I kept speeds on the flats to 25km/h, and only engaged power on the down hill (which was on tar not dirt) sufficient to keep speeds above 27km/h (wind resistance is an issue that gets bigger with speed)
I only used the battery %-age indication and it was a shorter trip.
So further research is needed, but it suggests that at these speeds 80km is possible.That's pretty good and I'm pretty pleased with that.
In this post I explore a small issue which if not noticed by the rider (meaning being so bloody stupid to ignore it) will lead to greater problems.
So I have the MX60 for a little while and I'd say my usage of it has been "patchy". This is quite simply because as a "grab and go" scooter I prefer the WideWheel and the MX60 tends to be what I reach for if its wet (mudguards are fantastic) or I want to go for a longer ride across bumpy or dirt roads (such as here),
Part 1 - the hinge screws
The stem hinge on the MX60 is an excellent piece of work which is held strongly by a central bolt and two small screws at its pivot hinge. One of these screws failed. The one on the left:
You can see in the picture that the screw on the right shows the remains of a goodly amount of red thread locker. Naturally I took care in removal of the good screw (with my proper fitting socket driven hex keys) to not round out the end (and give myself more grief).
I had to pull the remaining parts of the screw (still down in the threads) using tool called an Easy Out
which involves drilling down the core of the stuck thread. In doing this you need to make sure that you drill in the center of the remaining part of the screw and not to go off at an angle and destroy the thread that the screw screws into.
I strongly advise using a smaller diameter drill to start it, and a center punch to accurately place a small "starting mark" for the drill to begin the hole. The tool I bought didn't come with the drill (but I already had one.
You can see here that I got a pretty tidy hole in there and plenty of space for the easy out to bite into. You can also soo some rough burrs of metal around the mouth of (and inside) the hole, which is caused by the easy out biting in and gripping and turning the remains of the screw to work it out.
I did a brief video to show the results and provide a quick discussion on this
I replaced the screws with a higher tensile strength material, but as its not snapping from "tension" but being cut by essentially shear I'm not sure that's a good idea ... perhaps softer would be better.
I may take to replacing these every 6 months from now on because I bought 10 of these for $2.50
Part 2 - the washer on the securing bolt
rather than create another blog post for this I thought I'd add in a part 2 and a video explaining what I did.
It seems that the bolt and nut on the front of the stem securing system also has something subtle which I did not notice before that may be what led to the the shearing of the hinge screw.
So, my mate got a new skateboard and wanted to test it on the roughest track close to down. Calls me up "did I want to come" ... silly question really :-)
this is at a cattle grid while I was waiting for him to walk up the hill ...
then I had to carry that bloody thing across that. Suddenly the skateboard seems more sensible.
Further up the track was this nice little grove, there was a kangaroo there but he buggered off before I could wield the camera.
So this is the route:
with elevations like this:
Only the steep bit was track, the rest was dirt roads, similar to this ride.
Today at lunch I thought I'd take the Pajero over the track to give a better idea of just where the MX60 can go.
and I thought I'd update this blog post with me doing it on the MX60
Some time back I installed Slime into my MX60 because - pneumatic tyres and my knowledge of what that brings. Of course it brings some amount of bump compliance, but it also brings the possibility of punctures (you know, popped rubber balloons).
Inevitably I noticed this ...
yep, a puncture to my tubless tyre (because while tubes are a whole different ball game all balloons can be popped.
which is where Slime comes in, it remains "sealed" in the tyre as a goop and when there is a puncture it oozes out carrying its little particles with it, to block the gap, which is exactly what they did.
Clearly this is a large cut and exceeds the claimed capacity to block holes, yet block it it did.
I observed the "ooze" of liquid and wondered what it was, did I run over some snot or something?
Nope, it was just it "doing its thing" letting the water out,but the particles becoming trapped. Pressure was still good 30PSI.
I observed that something was still in there, puffing the rubber out. So wondering if I'd run over some glass or something I decided to look carefully and indeed I could see something still in there. I decided to dig it out. Surprisingly this is what I found:
a small but sharp shard of "blue metal" rock that's commonly used in road surfacing. Clearly it had flung up and striking the rear tyre at exactly the right angle, had penetrated and been pushed in.
This whole episode highlights why on a scooter I didn't want pneumatic tyres, but if you're going to have them, then use slime.
PS
Well I went for a ride this morning and when I put the scooter out in the sun to give it a recharge (its still a bit cold for optimal charging here) I found that there was slime all over the rear guard
you can still see that the hole is wet ... so I'm assuming that its centrifugal force pushing this out, as the tyre is still at 30PSI (where I inflated it to yesterday afternoon and before I went on a ride.
But its still clearly leaking out, so I'll have to see about taking the tyre off and see what if anything I can do from the inside.
So this means that while slime hasn't meant I don't need a new tyre it means I can keep on using it till one arrives (or I try to repair it).
POST Script
having now done the change I put together this small set of videos
and an analysis
puncture is actually just under the shadow of my fingertip ...
Well after a week cooped up all daylight hours (well, more or less) in the house (working from home), its nice to go out for a ride on the scooter around the countryside where I live. Well after having done the shopping (by motorbike) and the usual stuff around the house (washing, chopping some wood) I can go out for a little scoot.
Fortunately its quite dry here at the moment.
So I took the MX60 out for a longer run and did about 30km
and from leaving home to getting home (including taking some pictures, bumping into a mate out on the tracks on his dirt bike and having a yak with another mate at the servo) I took about an hour.
I didn't use the GPS, but looking down at my speedo I was doing 24kmh in rougher places and 35kmh in nicer places (and down hills) and hit a max of about 51kmh on the steep downhill back into town.
There were some long steep uphills like this:
and some nice gentle rolling countryside (although quite a many corrugations which you need to pick your lines around to avoid them)
I returned with 30% showing on the battery indicator (no, not the dash one, which just shows volts). So assuming that it is correct it'll require 840Wh to recharge having done 30km. So thats 35km/kWh or 2.8kWh per 100km which is more than my Widewheel at 1.96kWh/100km but then its going faster over rougher roads.
All up a nice afternoon out on the MX60 doing stuff that the Widewheel couldn't but a dirtbike would do perhaps better but somehow I prefer the scooter
When I first got my MX60 I felt that the stand leg did not come down far enough and that unless the scooter was on a slope with the back down to hold the stand down it would roll off the stand.
So I checked out my angle grinder wheel for size and found it would fit in nicely:
allowing me to grind a little off that pin.
So I took the stand off, mounted it in a clamp and carefully ground and inspected in stages.
when I was satisfied enough was offm I could then rotate where I ground off to allow the leg to move further forward. I used a pair of small vice grips to grasp and rotate the pin (I ground it from the left side so have rotated it around 180 degrees).
The MX60 is proving a very interesting experiment for me. Yesterday marked a month of ownership. Over easter I've taken the opportunity to put a few more miles on my MX60, making it to 500km in this time. So I've now got some experience with it to make some sort of evaluation.
One of the things I "knew" before even buying my first scooter was "I wanted to avoid pneumatic tyres". So within a month of ownership I've already had my first example of why this was. I went to go for a ride on Saturday morning and found the tyres were very low in pressure.
Already (I thought) - Fuck Me!
A quick inspection confirmed I could ride it to the local servo (1.5km) and there I found that the pressure was down to 10PSI in the back and 15 in the front (they'd been 30 each the morning before).
Got to the servo and with the hose attached (found the pressures) but when I put the first squirt of air into the valve dust blew out from all around the rim where the tyre bead had seated. An obvious indicator of what the cause was. Dust gets in around the bead.
So what happens is that as the tyre flexes (bumps right) all that dust (thrown up by the front wheel) bathes the rear wheel in a perpetual dust cloud. Then the flexing of the tyre allows dust to get snuggled into the crack between the tyre and the rim. Slowly but surely this pushes down into the crack like a wedge and allows a tiny amount more dust in behind it (rinse and repeat with every tyre revolution).
Note this segment from the above pano (which I took out on the road that day).
See how much dustier the back is from the front?
So I nipped into town on the motorcycle (doing you know, like normal highways speeds such as 100kmh, so its hard to get wet about 40kmh that scooters do) where I got some slime to put into the tyres.
I pulled out the valve stems (there's a tool included in the cap of the bottle) and put in what I determined was about the right amount (scaling my wheel for volume on their charts) added about 4oz to each wheel. I did this with the scooter lying on its side to maximise the chances of it getting "up" into the bead area. It takes a few goes of spinning the wheels to make sure it spreads around and then I flipped it over onto the other side.
Yesterday I did about 80km with about 1/3 of that on dirt farm roads (like above) and its still doing ok.
So yeah, while the better suspension and pneumatic tyres allows me to take this scooter places I couldn't take the Widewheel it also comes at a greater cost. I was fortunate to be observant enough to notice this before going out on a ride (and also living near a servo) so that I could essentially "nip this in the bud". It could however have been a lot worse including a deflation and damage to the rim (and also me). Yet in the (almost) year that I've owned the Widewheel I've had (of course) no such problems.
In contrast to this, in the time that I've had the Widewheel:
I haven't had to do a bloody thing to the tyres, no perssure checks, nothing.
I've hit some pretty good obstacles on the Widewheel, ones which would have caused a flat on a tubed tyre. So I've not had to do any work on that area, and having changed tubes and tyres on bicycles I can assure you that I'm not looking forward to doing that on a tiny 10" rim (because that makes it so much harder).
I've pulled nails out of my Widewheel rear wheel and just kept going ... a tubeless or tubed tyre would be toast, probably even with slime.
That single aspect (the foam cored tyres and not having pneumatic tyres) has probably saved me many hours (not including the walk home or the taxi ride to work) right there.
When you add to this that both my Widewheels are light enough that you can easily put it in the car, and indeed have been used extensively to chuck into the car and go somewhere to be used as "last mile" (or last 10 miles) it makes the Widewheel not only a fun scooter to ride, but bloody practical. Indeed the uses its had are (but not limited to):
commuting to and from work from my accomodation in the city
being able to park outside controlled parking space and get to and from places without paying for parking
stuff into the car to take it to get something done at the workshop (where I can then scoot back home or to work while that's being done), then scoot back again.
just nip up the shops to get something
visit friends that are just a bit far to walk to, and I'm probably too lazy to use my bicycle
Most of these things can't be done by the MX60 (because its so bloody big and heavy) and indeed I've already needed other transport to get stuff to fix the tyres MX60.
So while I enjoy it, and while its interesting its not as much sheer fun to ride as the Widewheel, nor is it as fast and practical transport as my motorcycle, nor has it replaced me using the Widewheel for quick trips in town. Worse its not fun at all until you're pushing it at speeds which are still laughably slow by motorcycle standards and far riskier than a motorcycle if you have a fall; whyich is more likely on the scooter.
Meaning that its really mainly a play thing or something someone who's too lazy to get a motorcycle licence (or perhaps any drivers licence). If you lived in the city in an apartment (a good case situation for owning one instead of a motorcycle or car) then its still probably too big for daily use and too big to wander into the supermaket with (and parking it at shops? hello?) Putting it in the uncomfortable category of being a wankers toy.
I'm comfortable with that, but then I live my life being honest with myself.
I have not yet bitched about the electronic fault that occurred with the speedo ... perhaps another day.
While its a holiday I'll take it out for a ride soon.
PS: it was flat again this morning (of fucking course it was) and so I went down to the local car workshop (I get my 4WD serviced there) and used their compressor and work space to:
pull out the valve stem to let the air out
push the tyre off the bead (back down into the wheel)
generously paste slime around the bead on both sides of the wheel, where it will seat
bring the tyre up to 40 PSI to make sure it seated on the rim nice and straight
put the valve back in the stem
reinflate
spin up the tyre
clean up the crap flung everywhere
holding pressure well at the moment ... lets see what tomorrow brings
PS-2: ... pressure down 10PSI overnight
PS-3: seems to be fixed. My view is that it went like this:
deflation #1 was caused by dust between rim and tyre
subsequent to addition of slim seem to have been down to a faulty valve (perhaps it got slime on it? Because:
replaced valve with new valve and no deflations since
While I was waiting for the Widewheel to charge (and since the MX60 had just charged) I thought why not take it around the same trip I was thinking of taking the Widewheel (while musing along in that video), but the other way round.
I reasoned that if the Widewheel could do that trip at 25kmh that the MX60 could do it too at about the same speed.
So off I went on this trip:
which yielded this data:
and while average speed movings aren't ball tearingly faster than the Widwheel, the spike of the steep down hill is worth a closer look.
So, yep, that was fun!
Scoot handled it just fine.
While on the trip I stopped for a few pictures.
and
when I got home I checked the ODO and found that compared to the GPS there is still some discrepancy:
so it thinks I did 25.7 and the GPS thinks I did 27.8 ... if I could be fucked I'd probably tune that in more.
But who could be fucked making the ODO show you've done more km? #hurtsResaleValue
Lastly the energy consumption on this trip was 781Wh which for 27.8km is 2.8kWh/100km,which is a little better than I've had on other occasions but then this time I didn't speed ;-)
Although when I got it I naturally went over all the bolts (and found the rear-suspension ones needing a tweak), I thought this rainy weekend provided a good opportunity for a pull down.
So, I put this video together of what I did and some observations about the scoot during it.
I made mention of some points on the suspension which need an occasional eye too.
I started talking about the battery, and later decided I'd do a pull down of that too to see what was inside the battery box and if I could see anything to help me with why it has two connectors. Sadly I'm still a bit mystified.
So with the screws off I could lift the case lid (body aluminium ends plastic) and see what was in there.
I was both surprised and in some ways pleased to see that it contained a regular battery pack of the type that I can easily buy on AliExpress.
although I'm left a little mystified as to the charging arrangements. Essentially there are the following wires going in/out of the pack:
power wires coming out leading to the XT-90 connector to the motor systems (the thickest ones)
two pairs of wires (one pair each from the pair of charging ports)
one very small pair of wires for the voltage / SoC indicator on the battery
So in essence this does not answer my primary questoin, but at least I know that if I need a new battery it's a simple matter to slide a new one in there and wire it. Nice.
The MX60 then continues to show its well thought out build quality and ease of maintenance ... I mean anyone who's pulled apart (tried to pull apart?) one of the other high power scooters (Zero 10x and clones ...) knows how bloody hard it can be to get at the battery pack (let alone service anything else).
So from an ownership / service perspective the MX-60 is even easier to work on than the Widewheel (well except for its heavy to haul around).
Yesterday afternoon I decided to do a side by side video race of my Widewheel vs my MX60 this is that:
In an totally expected outcome the MX60 won this because it has the top end legs over the Widewheel and I didn't want to unrealistically punish the battery on the Widewheel by flogging it up that hill on unrestricted mode (nobody is going to buy me a new battery right?) and I don't normally ride it in that mode. I do however ride the MX60 as presented.
There's not much else to say here except that that to me the differences in times are significant in a race, but not in travelling to visit my mate who lives there, like what's an extra 15 seconds shorter travel time? The MX60 is more plush but somehow less fun (for me). The Widewheel gives me the feeling that "I'm pushing it" without being at speeds which may see me in the spinal unit were I to fall off.
Out of the box the MX60 needed (and to my mind still needs) some tweaks (many of which were settings, see here) but it still needs some physcial tweaks to be able to have the required room and foot support to ride it properly, not just be like some dope who stands like a statue (like this dope who isn't even using the rear kick nor any sort of posture for riding):
so if you're like him you'll just love the MX60 and its stupid deck design will make you feel its a lot faster than you can cope with. Probably you'll be bending the steering stem within a year ... but hey you can afford to sell it then right?
I've been of the view that off the line the MX60 is no faster (indeed feels a little less snappy) than the Widewheel. I've put this down to the larger diameter wheels (just over 11" vs just under 8") it has the same diameter armature and magnet rotor, which will essentially gear it higher (because leverage right). This will assist its top speed which is unquestioned (because bigger battery Voltage and higher diameter wheels).
I did some quick runs first and found that the speed limiter kicked in on the Wide Wheel earlier than the end of the run (which was about 100 meters) confusing the issues, so I turned off speed restrictions on the Widewheel for this test.
So first some data from my GPS app:
The dip in the middle is a turn around point, which my App didn't log neatly, so lets just work with take off. To me it looks like the initial hit of the Widewheel is a little steeper. Overlaying them we can see it is perhaps a little, but its close.
But this app isn't ideal for such comparisons, so I thought (in case) I'd video it and compare side by side. This is that:
This seems to show that the Wide wheel does get that initial kick going and leads by a nose for a short time, until the MX60 starts hauling it in. Which translates to "it feels stronger" off the mark. This is not unexpected when you consider the way electric motors deliver power and the effect of the effective lower gearing of the Widewheel (discussed above).
As you can see from this figure above the motive force of the motor is strongest when its stopped and gets to a point where it starts falling off in torque soon after take off. Of course since torque is the strength to do work and power is how quickly that work can be done, the more the RPM increases the more that power increases even though torque falls away.
Eventually however the electric motor spins fast enough that back EMF overpowers the foward voltage provided by the battery and you end up with nothing.
Conclusion
So as I've been saying in my ride dialog / blabbering, the MX60 is really a great "cross town" blaster, especially if you've got a number of nice long "bicycle paths" to reduce the stop starting. In theory you should not be riding at over 25kmh anyway, and so the Widewheel will keep up with all but the most serious Lycra Cyclists.
For those not restricted by (or not interested in obeying) such laws then the MX60 will outpace everything else around you except cars.
As I found on my recent video comparison between my Widewheel and MX60 the MX60 uses more juice than the Widewheel on the same trip as a percentage of the battery. Given how much more power that is in Watts it translates to much longer charging times and or much more powerful chargers.
I've got a 4Amp charger for the Widewheel, which nicely charges it (s 13Ah) battery up from 50% in less than 2 hours. To do the same on the 20Ah battery on the MX60 you'd need more than 6A and to be comfortable with such a flow you'd really need to be confident that the charging wires are up to task.
I personally thermally checked my Widewheel for signs of problems when I first bought that 4A charger. I'd need to do the same with the MX60.
As always more power comes with more costs (both time and money).
One of the nice places in my region is Carrs lookout, and its a place I like to take the motorbike up to now and then (especially in summer when its bloody hot). I wanted to see if the new scooter would make it there and back, so this morning with a full battery I headed up to find out.
Its pretty steep mountain road and a more or less continuous climb there and a more or less continuous down hill back home. GPS on the phone reports the return trip is about 38km
So basically because there is some up and down the total climb up that the scooter had to do is 1,317 meters (or 4,317 feet for those people still using feet, inches, fingers and when insufficient toes too).
The basic data shows that for a good portion of the time the scooter was doing just over 24kmh, but because of some long downhills gravity assist brought the average speeds up :-)
Its interesting to note also that the cruising speed (gear mode 2) changed from 27 on the way out (with a fresh battery) to noticeably slower on the way back (on basically flat ground with no significant winds).
Which is in keeping with the knowledge that power is Volts x Amps and as Volts sag you loose power or you have to pump in more amps (which I'm willing to bet the cruise contrller does not do) which will flatten the battery even faster. Recall the discharge curve at constant amps:
In the graph above I've chosen to compare an LG S3 2.2Ah cell with what I believe are the batteries in my Widewheel (and thus likely too those in the MX60) which shows that at first the cells in my MX60 give me over 3.8V per cell but at 3.5V you're getting steady loss of power that then falls off a cliff at either 3.3 or 3.1V
Because the MX60 is an 16S configuration thats 62.4V, 56V and 52.8V respectively
My MX60 left the building with 67.2V showing on the battery and 57V (or about 3.5V per cell) while on the road still under power in Gear Mode 2. Combined with the battery reporting a State of Charge of 43 ~ 42% with a short rest.
So assuming those curves are what indeed my battery was following (which seems a reasonable first order approximation) I would expect it didn't have many more kilometers up its sleeve. Perhaps 9 or 10km more on a flat less if there were hills. 38 + 10 = 48 which means that I'd feel comfortable doing 50km on this using gear mode 2 most of the time in "typical gentle urban terrain" without significant apprehension that you'd be doing the "Dead Battery Walking" routine...
For the interested, here's some video notes from the trip.
The ride up an down the mountain is something I do with my scoots not just because its a lovely ride but because its a repeatable and testing route, a combination of urban, roads, hills and mountain roads.
I basically had two reasons to go up there:
I wanted to see how well this new scoot (with great suspension and chassis) performed
I wanted to get an understanding of its power uses
So since that road is good for both purposes (see this blog post) I went there.
Summary for the TLDR crowd
scoot handles fantastic at speed
the design of the cockpit (platform and stem) is annoying on flats, an obstacle on climbs but good on down hills
uses more power per 100km
with greater power comes greater demands on energy, greater costs (battery as well as motors) and increased charging times
physics is a harsh mistress
Doin it
Basically I'm a pragmatic guy but one who likes to have fun, but be around to have fun tomorrow (unlike some of my dead or badly injured mates of yore). So lets get into some of the pragmatic first. This is the results of my run on the MX60:
Which is very interesting to contrast with the previous run I did back on boxing day on the Widewheel:
So lets just look at the figures:
Time to complete the run:43min vs just over an hour;
Speed: max speed on the downhill 64kmh vs 44 on the widewheel;
Average speed moving: 32kmh vs 24 on the widewheel
Looking closely the MX60 kept a slightly higher speed on the way to, and the crawl up the mountain while the Widewheel dropped down on each successively steeper hill in much clearer ways. The MX60 also maintained a much better downhill speed, and I can say felt more sure footed on the way down. However me myself I have no intention of making this sort of thing a habit, becuse (to be totally frank) my motocycle is far more fun, feels far more shore footed even at the same speeds and I can go faster legally too.
If I was in a rush to get somewhere then the MX60 would be the race winner. If I'm after an afternoon of some enjoyable riding then what difference does it make that one gets me back home faster?
So in some ways I sort of shake my head at wanting to buy a scooter for high speed blasts. Still I guess its like most modern cars, they'll do 160kmh but its illegal and most people aren't ever going to do that anyway.
Power needs
To get and safely use more power one needs bigger motors, bigger batteries, stronger chassis, better suspension and better brakes. All this comes at costs; not just monetary ones either.
Bigger batteries require longer charging OR higher Volt and Amp outputs, the standard MX60 charger takes 13 hours to fully charge the battery, while standard one for the Widewheel takes 6 hours.
Of course you can upgrade the chargers (if you know what you're doing, if you don't then think explosive fire potentials) and for about US$40 I upgraded the charger on my Widewheel and got a really significant and practical charge time without pushing the limits (see here). Typically I can come home and charge for an hour and its nearly 100% again (say from down to 60%). The battery on the Widewheel is 13.2Ah, so 4A is pretty decent and only double the Amp rating of the original.
For the MX60 however that's 20Ah and so to approach that (which is 0.3C) I'd need a 6A charger. This now starts to step into serious realms because the MX60 is a 60V system while the Widewheel is a 48V system. A MX60 60V 6A charger means its supplying 360Watt/hours to the battery (which is no small amount of energy as there are common bathroom bar heaters which are 500W) while the charging of the Widewheel (4x48) is only 192Wh and that's just two old light bulbs.
So we need more than double to go from a 1000W dual motor scooter to go to a 1600W scooter ... which is only a bit faster in practice. Recall that average speed moving (which is a reflection of trip time) went from 32kmh to 24kmh ... not double is it.
Meaning I have pay double to get 33% more overall speed.
If you're commuting, it just may be that I catch you (on the MX60) at the next intersection (on my Widewheel).
A last point (which probably doesnt' matter to most) is how much power I needed for my trip. The MX60 needed 708Wh put into it when I got home, while the Widewheel 410Wh. Meaning that my kwh/100km is worse at
3.2kwh/100km for the MX60
1.9kwh/100km
A Nissan leaf (with a few people and groceries) will use about 10kwh/100kmh cruising at about 90kmh. Meaning the MX60 is not as sustainable there too. I mean if one of your arguments is sustainable transport I mean.
Comparing decks
One thing which really immediately becomes obvious when you hit the power on the MX60 is that you've got nowhere to step back to and brace for that power (but hey, just yank on the bars like a bob weight right? The stem is infinitely strong isn't it?)
Firstly lets look at the length differences:
So the Widewheel (which has a bit less power at take off) has much more board length (700mm), and its got a kickup at the right where its useful. Meanwhile the MX60, because of the stem angle you just really can't get to use that little bit more deck at the front of the MX60, except on down hills. But you'd better hope your feet aren't in any way damp ... because that rubber is friction-less with rubber soled shoes, but the grip is fantastic on the grip-tape covered surface Widewheel. If your front foot slipped off on the MX on a down hill you'd be smashing your nuts into the post then going down like a sack of broken bones. I'll be thinking about adding something to prevent that.
Its like whoever thought of the Widewheel was a agressive rider and whoever thought of the MX60 was a couch potato in need of a transport scooter over rough roads.
Speaking or rough roads, keep an eye on those bolts on the swingarm sides on the MX60, they undo. I put permatex on mine and I'll be adding this to my "keep an eye on it" list.
Lastly I'll finish off with a quick video of some of the other parts of my ride where I reflected on a number of points (not just the down hill-madness-run)
If you are one to need a safe space, don't watch that, it contains "toxic masculinity" type language and you may feel afraid.
I did a ride this morning around my usual "gorge run" and got this:
which apart from a few quick "see what it'll do" squirts was not significantly different to the Widewheel either:
Which brings me to my last point, which is:
Safety
There is no doubt in my mind that the MX60 is very stable around corners and can be ridden with little skill around the same corner at the same speed more safely than the Widewheel.
The brakes are very nice (some might whinge about them not being hydraulic) but them being dual moving piston (not single sided) makes them feel fantastic. That you're forced back, by that stem, you don't have to shift your weight back with footwork, just lean back into braking and you're 90% in the right position for braking (well because you're pretty much stuck there anyway). Basically for anyone (I feel thats most people actually) who has poor riding technique that the engineering of the MX60 makes up for so much.
I feel that I won't be parting with my Widewheel any time soon, however I'm not so confident about the MX60 being with me for long.
So that about rounds it up, hope this helps someone.
The MX60 has a bunch of (in my view pretty obscure) but important P Settings which really do need to be customised to:
get it out of pussy mode
make the speedo even faintly accurate
enable cruise control (up to you)
remove kick 2 go (which I fully understand why its needed for dickheads)
This post is by no means a comprehensive look at the settings (and I've uncovered a few things I just plain don't understand). So the control input looks like this:
To get into the user P settings you first press long the power button (e) to turn it on, then press power and mode together until ---- shows on the display. You then need to enter the code (tedious) of 6666 and then long press (e) and you'll see it showing P01 ... so you're in. This is the default codes:
I've put red around the ones I changed (shown is defaults), and below is a list of my changes
P01 = 2
P05 = 001
P06 = 10.6 - this will effect the speedo
P08 = 090 - changing this made the difference (I don't understand 090)
P09 = 000 - I don't want kick to go, so its off
P16 = 41km - I didn't change this but it is the odo reading
P17 = 001 - because I want it on
P18 = 100 - simply a multiplier of P06
So after these changes my speedo reports the same speed as my GPS and my GPS tracking log shows speeds like this:
After the brief run at 47 I decided to select a lower "gear" and see what it would "cruise on"
is basically nanny speed, or suitable for a pensioner with a seat using it in the supermarket
nicely complies with Australian regulations and sits comfortably on 25kmh, which is nice when cruising and you want to just sight see and have a relaxed ride with the cruise control active
gets up to mid 30's
gets to 48kmh
I can't see a difference so this "zone" must work if I was to raise the speed more (which doesn't interest me)
So there it is ... those settings worked for me, I'll be interested to hear from others if they do or don't
