marka-ee
Regular
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2020
- Messages
- 257
Time for me to get a slightly faster electric scooter. I've been through quite a few of them. I've been using electric scooters for 20 years now, since the old Go motorboard was available, if any of you remember that.
Anyhow, I've been looking at these cheap Chinese ones, such as the Kurakin G2 Master for instance, which is a dual motor one, but honestly, there is almost no information about how these are built.These Chinese ones have evolved a bit so they're not quite as rough-looking as the earlier ones But still I think they're built on a principle of "It should look like a good scooter.". Doing a little digging However, and I could see that the main pivot points on suspension are el-cheapo press-in steel? bushings , Total crap. Try to get information on what battery cells they use: forget about it. So it seems that they're still basically at the point of just gathering random parts like a controller battery pack BMS and slapping it all together in an aluminum box bolting some swing arms to it and Howdy-Duty we're done! Looking at Reddit and the electric scooter forum isn't much use either. In fact, none of those people even seem to ask about what battery cells are in something, or anything deeper than looking at the outside of the scooter.-sigh-
I've been pretty happy with the Segway Ninebot Max G and G2 that I've had. They never required any maintenance and the gel that they put in the tires really does work as far as flats. I've had 4,000 kilometers of zero flats on one of them. That's pretty impressive.The Segway company looks like they actually employ some real engineers that try to engineer things a little bit better. For example, the BMS allows you to read out individual cell voltages and also lets you set the max charge percentage so you don't have to charge to the ridiculous 4.2 volts that everybody else does, which doesn't help battery life whatsoever.No respectable EV builder in the world charges their lithium ion batteries to 4.2 volts. Ideally, I would probably want to get the Segway GT3 Pro, which is a good balance of quality and speed and not too heavy. Teardown of the GT2 show that they used ball bearings or sealed bearings for the pivot points... plus one point for that.hydraulic dampers on the double wishbone front suspension plus another point for that.but it's a bit pricey so I don't think I can afford that particular unit for right now. I've been looking at the Apollo City Pro, which is a Canadian-based company, but I'm afraid of them going out of business because they're small and don't sell that many of them. Also, I saw on Reddit pictures of some person who managed to break the steering stem, probably because of a bad weld but it doesn't seem like they want to admit that they perhaps abused the scooter.
Enough ranting, but if any of you guys know of one of these low to mid-price Chinese units that actually seems to care about their product, please recommend something. I want something that doesn't look too fancy and not too big because the local authorities in my third world European country that I live in would pay attention too much if I get something fancy. Although it seems that a lot of kids here have these cheap Chinese scooters and they're racing around all over the place. At least they wear helmets it seems.
Anyhow, I've been looking at these cheap Chinese ones, such as the Kurakin G2 Master for instance, which is a dual motor one, but honestly, there is almost no information about how these are built.These Chinese ones have evolved a bit so they're not quite as rough-looking as the earlier ones But still I think they're built on a principle of "It should look like a good scooter.". Doing a little digging However, and I could see that the main pivot points on suspension are el-cheapo press-in steel? bushings , Total crap. Try to get information on what battery cells they use: forget about it. So it seems that they're still basically at the point of just gathering random parts like a controller battery pack BMS and slapping it all together in an aluminum box bolting some swing arms to it and Howdy-Duty we're done! Looking at Reddit and the electric scooter forum isn't much use either. In fact, none of those people even seem to ask about what battery cells are in something, or anything deeper than looking at the outside of the scooter.-sigh-
I've been pretty happy with the Segway Ninebot Max G and G2 that I've had. They never required any maintenance and the gel that they put in the tires really does work as far as flats. I've had 4,000 kilometers of zero flats on one of them. That's pretty impressive.The Segway company looks like they actually employ some real engineers that try to engineer things a little bit better. For example, the BMS allows you to read out individual cell voltages and also lets you set the max charge percentage so you don't have to charge to the ridiculous 4.2 volts that everybody else does, which doesn't help battery life whatsoever.No respectable EV builder in the world charges their lithium ion batteries to 4.2 volts. Ideally, I would probably want to get the Segway GT3 Pro, which is a good balance of quality and speed and not too heavy. Teardown of the GT2 show that they used ball bearings or sealed bearings for the pivot points... plus one point for that.hydraulic dampers on the double wishbone front suspension plus another point for that.but it's a bit pricey so I don't think I can afford that particular unit for right now. I've been looking at the Apollo City Pro, which is a Canadian-based company, but I'm afraid of them going out of business because they're small and don't sell that many of them. Also, I saw on Reddit pictures of some person who managed to break the steering stem, probably because of a bad weld but it doesn't seem like they want to admit that they perhaps abused the scooter.
Enough ranting, but if any of you guys know of one of these low to mid-price Chinese units that actually seems to care about their product, please recommend something. I want something that doesn't look too fancy and not too big because the local authorities in my third world European country that I live in would pay attention too much if I get something fancy. Although it seems that a lot of kids here have these cheap Chinese scooters and they're racing around all over the place. At least they wear helmets it seems.
