King Song 16X - mods thread

I think it's time for a own thread about all mods to make the 16X even more better. 

I will start with a picture dokumentation. 

 

1. Dust and dirt inside housing. 

After 25km offroad from new

 

I cleaned the wheel and do the job with the metal sheet below the pedal hanger and protect the speaker grill with fabric (see below). Additionally I even sealed the complete housing from front to back with tape. (gap between inner and outer housing) and today after 45 km (30 km extreme offroad / 15km pavement) I have so much sand in the inner housing that I thought the lower LEDs are defective on a length of about 15 cm. But they weren't, the sand covered them completely.

The hole under the pedal holder was probably not overlooked, but is there to let the sand out again. 

I opened the 16X again...now you can see that most of the dirt enters between the mud flap and the housing. 

 

Front rubber - biggest gap between housing and rubber

I have dismounted the rubber part, cleaned all with alcohol.....

...and used super glue on the red marked place (off course the inner side )

 

Mud flap - big gap between the flap and the housing 

 

I drilled in steps from 1 - 1.5 - 2.0

and used a 3 x 12 mm screw with a washer (this time no super glue, because glue doesn't holds very well after a crash on the mud flap

The rubber presses itself too much into the plastic holder and loses its tension. 

 

Just one screw with 3mm machine thread.

The sheet metal on the pedal holder shouldn't be longer than here, otherwise the outer housing will hit it. 

 

 

The passive Subwoofer membrane was nearly complete loose. 

I removed the old white sealant (wrong glue for this kind of rubber) from the housing...

..., the membrane was already clean like new. 

 

 

2. Tire sit not properly on the rim

I found out that the old tire and the new tire are not sitting properly on the rim and have a 2-3 mm radial and lateral runout exactly at the valve position. The reason for this is that the valve hole is drilled too far outside and the tyre cannot slide into the rim bed. Pressing, squeezing and pulling everything did not help, not even with lubricant.The old tire already has also a pressure point at the valve position.

I had to mill the valve hole 3mm to the inside (hole is now oval), so that the tire had enough space to slide on the rim bed.

Here are some pictures of the original condition.

...and here after the fix. Now the tyre sits properly without any lateral or radial runout.  

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by buell47

Here a short result after another 200 km mainly offroad, 40 km on wet forest roads and 1 km very slowly in rain. 

The second modifications to the mud flap, the rubber buffer at the front and sealing the passage at the pedal holder were a great success. 

I can see some dirt at the bottom of the case, but that's only a fraction of what was in after 20 km. Otherwise I don't see any dirt in front of the LED strip like before. 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by buell47

Nice mods 

But boy, I'm exhausted after just reading about all that you did. People complain about having to fix Gotway inadequacies, but the 16X takes it to a whole new level. A+ for superior KingSong quality 

If I ever get a 16X I'll reference this page. Not sure I'll have the energy to do all of this, but maybe a few items.

Thanks.

Excellent job on the mods and documentation. I hate seeing all of these voids that allowed the dust to enter. 

I am working on a simpler method to keep the interior clean. 

 

28 minutes ago, Rehab1 said:

Excellent job on the mods and documentation. I hate seeing all of these voids that allowed the dust to enter. 

I am working on a simpler method to keep the interior clean. 

 

You're the master at repurposing photographs 

This is the first major modification to my KS16X (aside from the KISS mask).

The impetus behind the mod began yesterday when I was out riding with my wife. I saw this huge hill at a park with a warning sign ‘Caution Steep Hill’. No way was I going to pass up this opportunity. 

Now my wife is new to taking footage so unfortunately she missed the whole event of me ascending and descending the hill. I am going back again today to conquer it again. This time I will record it.

In the meantime I realized just how much my legs were slipping on the thin, non friction side pads. @Marty Backe stated the same difficulties during his recent video.

I decided to custom fabricate some new side pads using a grippy rubber material I had laying around my facility (not even sure where it came from). I then glued the material over a tapered wedge I fabricated out of 1/2” low density crepe foam.

After the 2 pieces of material were dry I then secured them to the original side pads using the same glueing process. 

 

 

 

They feel awesome riding on level surfaces. I’ll test them tonight on the park’s  hill. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Rehab1

Here is the non slip material I used for the outer layer of the pad which by itself has adequate grip. 

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/99?loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fp%2F1948423053%3Fiid%3D251452617990

Tire Pressure Monitoring for the 16X

After suffering an inconvenient blowout on my Inmotion V8, I thought it might be valuable to have a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) on my new 16X. Perhaps, if I could detect a slow leak I could head off a more disastrous situation down the road. That, and it’s fun to have new toys. So I researched a few inexpensive options and settled on the CAREUD M3 Motorcycle TPMS. It includes two valve-cap pressure monitors and a small, pocket sized USB-rechargeable display unit. It rings up at about $50 US from the usual on-line sources. And you can get it cheaper if you’re willing to wait on slow-boat, international shipping.

Truth be told, I wasn't 100% sure the bulbous valve-cap sending unit would actually fit the 16x without dragging against the wheel well, but I figured it was worth a shot. If worse came to worse, I could put it on my Ducati. The initial test fitting was promising, but not perfect. On my 16X, the valve stem naturally flared out from the plane of the rim by about 30 degrees. This was just enough to cause the TPMS valve cap to rub against the wheel’s inner shell in several spots. Not good, but after some experimentation with duct tape and a valve extension tube, I determined that there was reasonable clearance if I could just coax the valve stem to lay somewhat flatter.

So I set out to find a reliable method to retain the stem against the rim. My first attempt was to try hot-melt glue judiciously applied in the wheel rim groove to anchor a twist-tie beneath the stem. This was a fast failure. Hot melt just wouldn't hold. I briefly considered an epoxy and zip-tie arrangement, but dismissed it as too permanent and messy. Ultimately, I decided to rig up a 3D-printed anchor that could be retained by an adjacent hub-motor mounting screw. This has the advantage of being easily removable for tube changes/maintenance and it's pretty robust. I got to work with Fusion 360 and my trusty 3D printer. Dozens of iterations later, I produced a part that nicely nestles within the contours of the rim-groove beneath the stem and provides a solid anchor point for a nylon zip-tie. By cinching down the tie, the sending-unit is held well out of harm's way, and the wheel rotates freely in both directions with clearance to spare. So far, this solution has performed flawlessly for me.

As for the CAREUD TPMS itself, I have a bit of a mixed review. The user interface/setup process is cumbersome at best, but once configured it seems to work pretty well. The backlit display is clear and readable. The build quality is good for the price. The pressure reading seems to be reasonably accurate (maybe within a PSI or two), but the temperature reads consistently high by at least 5 degrees F. As far as I can tell, there's no way to re-calibrate the sensors. 

There's also no documented way to disable the second tire monitoring channel. If you don't have a choice of compatible wheels to monitor (not a problem for some of you, @Marty Backe), you'll have to put up with constant low-pressure alerting on the unused channel. The best workaround I discovered is to pair the second sending unit while attached to an inflated wheel, and then remove its battery once the display unit is powered-off. When later powered on, the display will continue to indicate the last-reported data. Then, after not receiving telemetry for several hours, the display unit will replace the last-reported values with blanks and continue to function properly on the active, primary channel. Yay!

Now that I know this can work, I think it would be great to integrate a TPMS function into WheelLog @palachzzz @Seba. Although I doubt this particular unit can be integrated via Bluetooth, other vendors peddle Bluetooth, phone-based TPMSs. Imagine tire pressure and temperature data and alerts along with the usual wheel metrics right on your phone or wrist!

 

Other caveats, tips, tricks, notes:

• You'll need a 4mm ball-end hex key to remove/replace the hub-motor screw without removing the shell. Ideally, you'll remove the shell to get proper purchase on the cap screw, but in a pinch the ball-end tool works Ok.

• Be sure to clean and reapply proper thread locking compound to the cap screw threads when you mount your anchor. The last thing you need is to have the screw work loose.

• If you 3D print your anchor with PLA, you'll want to inspect it during you're pre-ride checklist. PLA is not the most durable of materials for exterior use. It might be a good idea to replace it periodically to avoid potential failures.

• You may want to consider counterbalancing your rim to account for the additional weight of the anchor and sending unit. Although I haven't done so, and can't detect any vibration, I may end up adding a counterweight for peace of mind.

• Use common sense if you attempts this mod. If you frequently ride in gravely, off-road conditions, this may not be the best idea. Regardless of how well you anchor the valve stem, this does reduce the clearance between the rim and the shell. If debris gets lodged between the rim and the inner shell, the wheel may lurch unpredictably as it tries to overcome the friction. And you certainly don't want to sever the valve cap while riding at speed...

• While I have no data to back this, I assume you should avoid anti-puncture products like Tire Slime when using a TPMS valve cap. I would think the goop would tend to gum up the works.

• Let me know if you are interested in the CAD file for my stem-anchor. I'll try to figure out a way to send it to you. (You just have to promise not to be too critical of my amateurish CAD work.) Please note, I have no idea if my design will work as-is on other 16Xs. The dimension between the mounting screw and the valve-stem base is critical. If KingSong isn't using a manufacturing process that ensures dimensional consistency between the valve stem bore and the hub-motor mounting screws, the design will have to be tweaked accordingly.

 

Roll Safe!