10 June 2020

Melted XT60 in iWatRoad electric scooter

An dead-in-action electric scooter has been brought to my attention. It is an iWatRoad R9 eXtreme. After reaching a full stop, it shut down and did not move, nor power up again. Nice problem indeed!

Initially I suspected a failure in the one-and-only user interface control: a cheap push button. Too easy, wasn't that.

So I moved to the battery compartment under the footboard. Down there, waiting for me was the battery connector. An XT60 couple mated forever through overcurrent meltdown. Look at the picture! The red pole was moving towards the black one, leading to a big short and probably a fire.

Melted XT60 connector
Melted XT60!

The XT60 couple is not interrupted, but possibly the red wire was disconnected since I pulled it away with no force.

There is one interesting finding. The outer label says the battery is 42V 10.4Ah while the battery itself states 36V 7.8Ah. This means that one charge will last less km. Moreover, if both the scooter producer and the battery producer lied about the capacity, the real capacity might be even lower than 7.8Ah. Note that this iWatRoad R9 was bought in May 2019. Currently, June 2020, their website states the battery is 7.0Ah with 25 km.

External and battery labels don't match.
External label and battery label don't match.

Wait, now that I look closely at the outer label I see that the whole product is something else! It says "E Kick Scooter Model:9X" produced in 2018, distributor Floatup S.L. .What the ...?