Yep, that is a longboard wheel. For some reason it was the first thing that caught my camera’s attention when I arrived at Gotway manufactory.
And, as you have probably guessed by now, a couple of weeks ago I got a chance to visit this wonderful place. And I am pleased to present you my report on this trip.
There is no way that Gotway will ever calm down. In addition to the unicycles with great persistence they try to invent a new bicycle. They’ve already did their turn on longboards but – as we all know – that one didn’t do well. So then they’ve decided to repeat their success. But I have to admit that this one looks much more prettier and a lot more confident.
I hope that it won’t be on Ecodrift because there is absolutely no way I’ll ever be interested in reviewing this thing.
In addition to that, Gotway continues to work on a new and powerful electric scooter with one motor. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to ride it since the scooter was completely disassembled.
And then comes the most interesting part. Manager of Gotway showed me their newest Monster v3. According to Gotway, this is the third generation of this model.
New Monster has lost its color.
And got a translucent side cover.
Through which you can see the lettering – ‘Monster’.
And this is not a sticker. It is a glowing lettering – like the Tesla one – located right on the place of the second speaker.
The body is in this black carbon-like plastic with a nifty lettering added on top:
This lettering looks like the one you can see on a car – very nice touch to the wheel.
There is a line with five LEDs in the back:
Another novelty here – the button under the handle:
Personally, I find it easier to roll Monster than even trying to pick it up. But why not? Let it be.
And now the differences between the body covers (new – black one on the left and old – red one on the right):
The sleeves with internal thread were pressed into the body like in all modern unicycles:
There is an increased amount of stands for these sleeves and they are located more evenly including the lower edge of the joint.
Stiffeners were added on the inside of the covers. According to Gotway engineers, such body construction is significantly safer and handles falls a lot better.
But since we are at the manufactory we can take a look on how the new Monster’s glowing lettering works. This flat white unit is responsible for the backlight:
It is powered by a DC-converter which is located directly on the wires:
This luminous unit is covered with a plastic plate with the cut out lettering:
Any owner of Gotway Montser v3 is able to easily make different lettering to their taste and replace the factory plate. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capture all the Monster v3 novelties. As well as Nikola, this unicycle has its own speakers added. Also it has additional holes for cooling the headlight as Monster v3 uses a more powerful LED and the headlight shines much brighter.
Monster v3 management and navigation is completely analogous to the previous modification.
And now – Nikola Plus:
I could not find the way keep it standing so I had to lay the wheel on the Gotway employee’s car.
Luckily the new lightbox at Gotway made it possible to take great photos of Nikola Plus:
Externally Nikola Plus can be distinguished from old Nikola by the black colour of the body.
Like in Monster v3 the body here is made out of carbon-like plastic:
On the right side of the wheel we can see the lettering ‘Gotway Nikola’:
Here is the changed front cover design for better headlight cooling:
These small holes around the headlight are needed to cool the LED.
Here we can see the main difference of Nikola Plus:
Rearrangement of the insides. Now the controller is located below the battery as the ones in MSuperX and Monster:
This shift was made in sake of emptying the upper compartment so that they could add a very large battery (you can see it upside down in the picture):
There was no need in disassembling the wheel – the new controller of Nikola Plus 100V was peacefully lying on the shelf next to it:
Field-effect transistors in a new large casing. This should improve the situation with their overheating and breaking down under heavy loads.
The motherboard is thoroughly varnished with the label affixed in the corner confirming that it is a Nikla 100V controller:
Another exciting detail inside the wheel body:
This is a blower. Some kind of a fan just like in laptops (but bigger). It creates a more directional air pressure.
The blower is connected by a two-pin wire and powered by 12V.
I took the new uninstalled blower from the shelf:
They’ve added a small 12V DC-converter to provide power to the controller:
It is a pity that Gotway did not tumble to put a three-pin wire in the blower with PWM-controller so that the fan could have a very wide range of turns to reduce unnecessary noise.
Even on the new Gotway Monster and Nikola unicycles there will be new big pedals but instead of the rubber coating they will have their classic sandpaper. It’s known that this rubber coating has caused a lot of complaints in the past. Although I personally do not understand why people didn’t guess to put thorns into the pedals as our users did.
New Gotways will soon be available in Russia. But you can always place a pre-order in advance with the help of our managers in order to get a novelty at a bargain price and earlier than others.
Telegram
