Моноколеса, Техноблог

Rockwheel GT16 Review (english version)

Part 1

LONG-AWAITED EUC IN BRIGHT DESIGN (ROCKWHEEL GT16)

The first pieces of the Rockwheel GT16 arrived in Russia. We’ve all waited for them from the beginning of last spring. Even then, the manufacturer announced the launch of a new model and offered to make an advance payment. We’ve watched the constant shifts of the launch date of the electric unicycle into the series production for almost a year. In China, it was possible to test the novelty directly at the plant. But the terms were constantly postponed. Many were already disappointed and decided that Rockwheel would never release a new model.

It’s time to get acquainted. The box:

Let’s look inside:

And take out the kit:

We find the charger in the small box:

84V with a current of 3A. Not bad. EUC Gotway 2400Wh have chargers at half the power.

From the end you can see the fan (running ahead, I will say that it does not make much noise):

Charger plug has 3 pins. You can mix chargers, if you have several electric unicycles at home. Gotway’s charger of 84V is equipped with a plug with 4 pins.

Charger wire is not removable and has a Chinese plug. Unpleasant moment. You’ll need an adapter.

The spare wing pushes the idea that the staff one will break.

 

The gloves in the kit make you think about the fact that the wing will break during the fall. Gloves should prevent damage to the palms in this fall.

We extract EUC:

Below, there are images of the device from different sides:

   

   

   

   

Power button and two duplicated bars of the charge indicator are under the handle:

 

Unexpected solution. The GT16 has charging ports both in the front and rare parts. Having bought one more charger, the EUC can be charged 2 times faster. And the headlight is a light-emitting diode and a lens. Simple and completely inefficient to illuminate your path. Counter pedestrians will be very unhappy.

 

Pads are made of a relatively soft material, but it is more like a piece of rubber than a pad. So, it’s probably not for softness and comfort, but just to keep your leg from sliding:

The wing is pushed with effort. Very uncomfortable. The shape of the wing is strange. It is rather narrow and perforated. The design causes huge doubts in its effectiveness.

 

There are rubber pads on the pedals. The material is the same as in the pad. The cover is easily removed:

   

There is a new Rockwheel logo with a light in the center on the body below the pillow. The lamp glows smoothly with all the colors of the rainbow:

Color of the body is metallic:

The tire is too open. Tire is produced by CST:

After some wow effect, the details begin to rush into the eyes. Holes. They are strange. Through them the wire is visible:

Fastening elements:

It can be seen how the wire was covered in silicone and the painting features:

The pedals rub against the body:

But even despite such small details, we believe that the company Rockwheel worked for almost a year to give its fans a festival:

 

 

PS: and there are also white ones:

   

   

 

Part 2

LABORATORY LOOK AT THE ROCKWHEEL GT16

The design of the Rockwheel GT16 unicycle is bright and unusual.

Many questions arise concerning it. We examined its appearance and configuration in detail in a part 1. In this article, we will open a new electric unicycle with a 858Wh battery and conduct a power test on a dyno stand.

But let’s start with the specifications.

  • Weight: 17.4kg
  • Rated voltage: 72V
  • Battery charger: 84V@3A
  • Battery: 20s4p, 858Wh
  • Dimensions: 481x382x168mm

We will not specify declared advertising characteristics of power, speed and mileage. Power will be measured at the stand. The mileage is determined by the battery capacity and riding style, and the speed of Rockwheel is regulated through the application in a free range and not controlled by the manufacturer. The creators of the unicycle do not care about the safety of the user.

In the application, we set the lifting of the pedals at 60 km/h and nothing can stop us. Spinning at idle showed 56 km/h. This is quite a lot, but not much. Gotway accelerates faster at idle.

The default is hard mode of pedals. We stand on the EUC and check the hardness with the pendulum. It’s impressive. The hardness is very good. Rockwheel confidently bypasses Gotway. Though, as we already know from experience, it is the softness of the pedals, with which the manufacturers try to avoid the problem of burnout of controllers at near-zero speeds. The reliability of the implementation of the Rockwheel controller is, alas, unknown yet. In general, the hard pedals give the electric unicycle an increased dynamics in acceleration and braking.

But as soon as we get up on the unicycle, we immediately pay attention to the complete lack of ergonomics. It’s terribly unpleasant to stand on it. «Pads» of the EUC are not only coarse, but also terribly short. With a normal vertical setting of the legs, the shin rests only on the edge of the pad. And the «knuckles» are unpleasantly pressed with the plastic body from below. With the surface of the pedals, everything is clear, too. Absolutely flat «rubber» guarantees sliding in wet weather. Through the holes in the body, the wires are visible. Gaps are everywhere. We strongly doubt that this unicycle is provided with waterproofing.

To get to the insides, you must first remove the pedals.

In the center of the rack is visible a small hex-screw. It holds the axis. We saw a similar solution in the EUC of the Inmotion company. Before knocking out the axle, it is necessary to loosen this screw. There are traces of friction of pedals on the body, it’s an obvious miscount of designers.

On the pedals are also clearly visible traces of contact with the body. On the surface of the pedal, you can see a cavity. It is clearly made for sand paper. But for some reason it was not glued there. Although, most likely, it is simply impossible to glue it to a soft coating.

We unscrew the two screws from above and two from the bottom. The lid can be removed by deflecting the pad.

To disassemble it further, it is necessary to unstick the pad. But it will not work. It is glued tightly. The pad will break, but it will not peel off. Therefore, we cut it off from the surface with a knife. In the process, the overlay, which acts as a button, falls off unexpectedly. It turns out that it is glued with hot-melt glue in two points, and it can be easily removed. There is a firm waterproofing from the Rockwheel «plant» under the button:

Yes, it’s just a scotch tape. The golden rule of Rockwheel: that’ll do. The top cover is held by snaps. They are located along the perimeter of the lid: 2pcs on each side. For reliability, it is firmly glued to the pads.

Remove the cover from the controller:

The cover is one-piece, if you take into account the tape under the button. And, although there is no waterproofing or gaskets, as expected, the downpour from above will not get so easily to the controller. But nothing will save you from moisture in case of high humidity or condensation.

We look sideways under the cover.

The cases of FETs look huge. This fact inspires optimism. Probably, the power and stability reserve of such transistors is much higher. All connectors are reliably greased, so that they do not come out due to the shaking. There is another stub, pasted with paper, in the sidewall. Under it, hide the wires to the battery, as well as the connectors of the charging ports and navigation lights.

Everything looks neat, but we could not figure out how to quickly disconnect the battery assembly during our express examination. All power wire connections are one-piece. More photos of the controller closer:

 

The capacity and parameters of the second capacitor remained unknown.

Small capacitors are solid-state, immediately resemble a board from Kingsong. But, despite the wires abundantly filled with compound, no traces of varnish on the board were found. All markings are read perfectly, contacts are bare. This is bad. Given the gaps with which the body is assembled and the absence of any seals, the controller needs to be handled as it is made in Kingsong (they a lacquer both sides of the controller) or at least as the Gotway. Alas.

Rockwheel has sent the unicycle controller separately. We add photos here. Again, there is no lacquer.

   

 

Inside the battery packs are the usual Panasonic NCR18650PF. The rated current is 10A.

It turns out that there are 4 packs of 20 cells in each in the EUC.

We decided no to disassemble the EUC any further. In general, everything is clear. The most important thing remains: checking on the dyno stand.

The most important thing here is to securely fasten the unicycle to the frame, assembled specifically for testing EUCs. After assembly and verification, we can start. The video shows the complete process of measuring this unicycle.

The power was not enough to accelerate to redline. After 30 km/h on the stand, the power drops sharply, the voltage returns to a near-to-normal value and the power is not enough to get to the redline. Therefore, we brake the shaft by the EUC. The Inmotion EUC was also the same. Usually, at the peak of power, there is a strong voltage drop and redline is triggered. The motor stops abruptly.

And now, the graphs:

Rockwheel GT16 is a very powerful electric unicycle. For now, it is the leader of our tests among EUCs with a diameter of 16 inches. But it could not reach the Gotway MSuper V3s + and Monster 22″. At the same time, the Rockwheel’s battery charge was full, and the Monster’s was only 58%. As a comparison, among the 16″ unicycles are presented custom solutions based on Gotway ACM and Inmotion V8, which were about one third more powerful than their regular versions. And nevertheless, GT16 confidently bypassed them in power, leaving them far behind.

As for the safe speed, based on the received data, it can be said that most likely a rider weighing up to 80 kg will be able to accelerate up to 45 km/h and even higher. But it will be very dangerous, as the torque of the GT16 is noticeably lost with the increase in speed. It will be relatively safe to set a limit of 40km/h with a weight of 90-100kg and a battery charge of more than 40%. When the battery gets lower, it is necessary to limit the speed by another 1/5, i.e. up to 32 km/h.

Conclusions

EUC is very questionable and controversial. Such a unicycle is 100% contraindicated for the beginners. There are no factory user restrictions. This will all lead to a fall. Therefore, it is necessary to use good protection. If you plan to go above 35 km/h, then you need enhanced protection, like a motorcyclist. And necessarily — a good helmet. It is desirable that it was a full-face.

As for the design of the EUC, we were convinced that everything was done only for a beautiful picture. One should not wais for the practicality and benefits from such a solution.

Buy this device only if you understand 100% what you need it for, and where and how you will use it.

Это личное мнение автора статьи. Оно может не соответствовать действительности. Самую актуальную информацию вы всегда можете получить у менеджеров или у завода-изготовителя.

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