Segway SE issue

[Earmic]

My 2014 SE has recently been having a problem, when traveling on flat ground, at speeds of around 10 mph, occasionally the triangular warning indicator will come on, an the seg will push back on the stick to slow me to about 5-6 mph, when it will resume normal operation. The face goes from happy to flat mouth when this happens, with no other indications, such as the foot sensors or stick shake. The 5 green LEDs continue to rotate. This is intermittent, but today I took it out for a ride and it was noticible. I have checked my foot positions, okay. Battery levels are good. Outside temp is 70's. About 750 miles on this. Any ideas? Any way to get some kind of code for this?

[Tritium]

I would love to help, but I've been having the same issue.


I hope someone can chime in with an answer.


-Tritium

[dgbint]

Does this happen during the first minute ( or thereabouts ) of gliding ?
Or is it during a longer glide ?

Michael

[Earmic]

up until recently,(yesterday) it has happened only rarely, and I attributed it to bad balance, (I'm 60), or other gremlins. This may go away today, I'm going to try it after work. All of my rides are of gliding nature, I live in a small sub with about 100 houses, with flat tar roads. My tours are as much as 2+ miles one way when I go to the shopping center nearby or as little as 1 mile when I stay local. I usually travel around 10 mph. This does not happen at lower speeds (less than about 8 mph, as of yet). It started with in a minute of beginning my ride, and continued, on and off until I was done about 20 min later. After making corners at different speeds, it had no effect, It has not happened on a corner yet. Since this is a recent development, I can't tell if it goes away on a longer ride, 20+ min or 5 miles, but I plan on taking it on a longer ride today, and see.

[fathertime]

This can happen if you are going too fast and the machine senses that you are exceeding the safety envelope. The stick will push back to slow you down. So if you had a burst of speed that exceeded the parameters this may have been the cause.

[dgbint]

Originally Posted by Earmic

It started with in a minute of beginning my ride, and continued, on and off until I was done about 20 min later.

Finding faults can be a process of eliminating possibilities.

My reason for asking about 'when' was that when batteries are cool ( just turned on ) they are capable of poorer performance than when warmed up.
This is especially true of batteries that are nearing end of their life.

Your description suggests to me that your batteries are OK.
That is 'good news'.

The fault is likely to be something else.
It will need an expert ( Segway dealer ) to actually take a look at it to be sure.

I have a few hints that I cannot post publicly.
Send me a Private Message if you want further info.

Michael

[Earmic]

Update on my last post, after work today, I went for a ride and the problem persisted but at much less frequency. The ride was about 2 miles, and I maintained 10 mph as much as possible with occasional slowdowns. at times I could go quite a ways before it would act up. Terrain, such as curves, bumps, do not trigger it, what I did notice, is that I could feel the seg go into "slowdown mode" a split second before the icon would show up on the info key. I think it's just the update time for the key. Also I noticed the battery level of the info key was low, I changed it but no change in performance. I will PM you dgbint.

[therealzam]

Is it hot where you are? Humid? These can sometimes cause problems. Is it clean? What's your tire pressure?

The first thing you might want to do is lower the top speed for the key, at least temporarily You won't be able to go as fast, but it may happen less often. There are instructions in these forums.

2nd, you may be pushing the control rod forward with too much force.

I have an SE based model with substantial reconfiguration of the control rod systems (so. I can kind of sit.)

One battery just failed on me (1mo after the warranty expired). It could be resisting because it's not getting enough juice to get going. Do you use the timer that Seg shipped out to make sure you don't overcharge? There is a problem with the device related to this. My final battery suggestion would be to swap the batteries. The Seg is harder on the rear battery so it may have warn faster.

Your last option would be to take it to the dealer for a firmware upgrade.

[Earmic]

I have a few possible causes, but most likely it's a bad/intermittent connection inside the unit. Since this is out if warranty, I have nothing to loose buy looking inside to check. I'll let everyone know.

[ions82]

Hmmm. Are the SEs having any more reliability issues than the i2/x2? I wasn't even aware that new machines are shipping with a timer for charging. Almost seems like any problems would've been solved with changes to the online BMS. "Over-charging" shouldn't be an issue. I'm very surprised to see that SEs are having batteries die. It leaves me wondering if the quality of cells have been downgraded over the years. I just "revived" a set of 2008 batteries that seem to be good for 20 miles. I've been leaving the machine plugged in when not in use. Perhaps I'll start unplugging it once it's fully charged.

Does anyone know if Segway is still continuing to work on improvements to design and reliability? I am still a new Segway owner, but I have every intention of using these things for the rest of my life. Amazing machines. I plan to buy another i2 and an x2 in the not-so-distant future. Did a certain revision (AF, AH, etc..) of batteries start using different types of cells? I've been wondering if batteries from a particular year are supposed to be better than others.