After more than two months of daily use, minus those rainy days, I could sum up the troubles I am having with my E-GO Cruiser. Temporary Shut Down or Loss of Remote Control - At first this happened two times when I rode pass the backyard of a house near my apartment. When power loss begins, the board starts slowing down no matter what I do with my remote control. After a second or two without the board coming to a complete stop, the board will beep for a second or so. After that, control or power resumes. I thought it had something to do with that house but I was wrong. Power failed at other locations too as I later found. Might be it's my smart phone doing some Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection thing? After re-positioning my phone pouch to the other side, and thereby eliminating the chance of the E-GO remote control touching my phone, temporary shut down no longer happened! And then I was shocked, kind of... It shocked me, kind of, when the power went out while I was riding down a bridge with the brake slightly applied. Would the power needed for braking resume soon enough or should I try stopping immediately before the speed picked up and became insurmountable? I never learned how to brake a skateboard with my foot! Sliding, even if I knew how to, was not possible on such a narrow sidewalk. Before I made up my mind, power and control regained. Up until now in August, losing power while going downhill has happened several times. I must learn to foot brake just in case a power loss is not temporary. (Note: you may want to look at "Hackers Can Seize Control of Electric Skateboards" here: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/hackers-can-seize-control-of-electric-skateboards-and-toss-riders-boosted-revo/. It mentioned that Bluetooth noise was the likely culprit.) Pushing without Power - Can one push the board without power? According to E-GO's FAQ section, "Yes, you can use it without power, the motor does provide a little drag but it's hardly noticeable." In reality however, pushing the E-GO Cruiser is less easy. Comparing to a regular longboard, the drag of the drive belt is VERY noticeable. And with 90mm wheels, the deck is high and it takes a lot more energy to push than a normal longboard with a lower deck. 25 Percent Power Warning - My estimation is that when the remote control starts warning me of power running out and switches me to the slower ECO Mode, there is only 15% power remaining, not 25%. My experience is that the battery could last roughly two hours on the kind of sidewalks and bicycle paths that I use with a certain amount of carving. (I am quite satisfied with the long range that this Cruiser is capable of.) After a warning, I found that I could ride another 20 minutes or so, not 30 minutes. This was so even if I avoided going up bridges and stopped carving after the warning. Flashlight on the Remote - Now you may want to forget that. The battery level LED flashes a lot brighter than the flashlight on the remote. Simply useless. Now this becomes obvious - bring some coins for taking a bus or some cash for taking a taxi should the battery completely run out or stop for whatever reason. And may be I should learn pumping too in additional to foot braking?
1 Comment
9/19/2017 12:29:00 pm
Personally I think overjoyed I discovered the blogs.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
DarrylTaking up longboarding... Archives
November 2018
Categories
All
|