How To Remove Speed Limiter On Bird Scooter
This article chronicles my adventures in hacking a upkeep-priced due east-scooter to brand it fifty-fifty more fun and practical. Note: this post is for educational and informational purposes only. Proceed at your ain chance! You may wreck a perfectly fine e-scooter if yous are not careful.
I am a fan and possessor of both e-bikes and e-scooters. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. East-scooters, in detail, are very handy when traveling on public send, in my case, on a train as they fold down nice and compact. E-bikes are slap-up for longer distances and getting moderate exercise.
And no, this article isn't about stealing a Lime, Spin, or Bird e-scooter (or any other ridesharing service e-scooter for that affair), or for getting free rides. This is about hacking an eastward-scooter that I already own and how you lot can practice information technology too 🙂
Video form of this guide:
What the heck is a Doc Green EWA 6000 E-Scooter?
I purchased an east-scooter some time ago from Lidl. The eastward-scooter model is the "Doc Green EWA 6000", and information technology cost €290 ($350) delivered, due to a express-fourth dimension bargain. This was even cheaper than the similar Xiaomi M365 (the most pop eastward-scooter perhaps ever) which retails for about €350-400 at the time of writing. Check the Lidl product page hither (page in German).
From what I tin assemble, this e-scooter is steeped in irony. It appears to be a High german clone of a Chinese product. Yes, let that sink in for a moment. If you can think of another contempo High german product that is a clone of a Chinese product, I'm all ears.
Why on earth would "Doc Light-green" (a brand owned by a German language manufacturer called KSR Group GmbH) make a re-create of the highly-popular Xiaomi M365?
I can think of 2 reasons: the German regulations not allowing standard M365s on the street, and Lidl offer them volume sales to make a street-legal re-create of a pop e-scooter. In order to make a street-legal e-scooter, information technology must incorporate certain features which the M365 doesn't. Lidl is a discounter supermarket with enormous buying power that operates at a massive scale.
Related Article
Medico Light-green EWA-6000- E-Scooter Review
Limited Speed, Limited Functionality
Limited Peak Speed
After my initial excitement of zipping effectually on the new toy wore off, I noticed some frustrations with my new buy. The 20 km/h (about 12.iv mph) speed limit, imposed electronically from the manufactory, is only not fast enough to be applied. This is due to the fact that in Deutschland the police states that e-scooters must be limited to twenty km/h or less in order to be certified for public roads. Cyclists going at a moderate stride are comfortably faster than this. When traveling on the flat or downhill, in particular, the 20 km/h limit feels like moving through treacle. Something had to be washed.
Express Range
Some other frustration that chop-chop became evident is the limited range. The manufacturer claims an estimated range of 22km (near 13.vii miles), simply in common cold conditions that gets cut dramatically.
No Bluetooth Connectivity
Additionally, this particular e-scooter model did not accept any Bluetooth connectivity from the factory, so it could not connect with a smartphone app [link to apps]. If you lot google 'eastward-scooter hacking', there are a lot of mentions of using smartphone apps to re-configure settings on popular e-scooters like the Xiaomi M365 or M365 Pro, which offer Bluetooth connectivity as standard. It'south quite amazing what these apps can do- apart from the obvious similar display the current speed and charge level they tin do things similar setting cruise control (useful for sparing your thumb on the uncomfortable throttle lever), change the beginning behavior from 'kick start' to start from zero, display the motor and controller temperatures, show distance traveled, and even log routes via GPS. Very bully indeed!
How can yous hack an e-scooter?
In this instance, I took my e-scooter and pulled out some standard-issued components, namely the controller and the digital display, and replaced them with upgraded versions that are compatible with the due east-scooter. I am not too experienced with hardware hacking, so figuring some things out on the fly was necessary. All credit for these instructions must go to user 'Tobias' from the eScooter Treff forum (link in German, paste the URL into google interpret to read it in English language) who originally figured out how to supplant the parts and posted instructions and photos. The forum also contains links to the replacement parts needed.
The e-scooter controller and the default display needed to exist removed. The new controller removed the 20 km/h speed limit, and the new brandish unit added Bluetooth functionality, like to the M365. This means many Android apps and some iOS apps now tin can connect to the e-scooter.
Replacing the Speed Controller
The trickiest office of the process was figuring out how to get the former controller out and inserting the new 1. The infinite was extremely tight and the new controller was too broad. Luckily, at that place was an additional front metal plate on the new controller, held in place with two pocket-sized screws. Off information technology came, and it fits into the slot from the old controller – merely barely! In the photos below yous can see the new controller slotted into a plastic box, which was the position of the erstwhile controller.
The production gallery below chronicles the procedure. Excuse the vertical photos – their purpose was to document the society of what connects to what, in case of problems when reassembling everything.
Replacing the Display
The digital display was thankfully more straightforward to supervene upon. To remove the existing display, I simply popped off the plastic cover, unscrewed the former display, and disconnected the cables.
And then I needed to cut the cable on the old display to reuse a plastic plug that runs down the handlebar vertical tube to the new speed controller, and solder those wires to the equivalent wires on the new controller. At that place were some additional wires running to the front and rear lights (these are some additions which the M365 don't take), luckily these wires did not need to be cut, they worked despite me not changing the plug.
The new brandish is, unfortunately, a bit smaller than the quondam one. So I hacked together a 'mount' (I hesitate to call information technology that) from stiff paper-thin wrapped in electrical tape, and put that around the new display to fill out the infinite around the new brandish and to stop it wiggling effectually.
I screwed everything dorsum together, I held my breath, and pushed the on button.
It worked first time!
After some quick road tests- on private country of course- I confirmed that the east-scooter tin indeed hit 28-30 km/h, and that the Bluetooth function works marvelously. The cool thing is that the e-scooter looks identical to the stock due east-scooter which was a goal from the showtime.
Time to come Developments
Of course, hardware tinkering is never washed.
Fitting an extra battery, perhaps an upcycled battery from some other device would exist very handy for cold weather.
Also on the wishlist is to integrate the e-scooter into Home Banana to exist able to read stats in real-time: https://github.com/AntonHakansson/m365py
Further reading:
- East-Mode Eastward-Scooter Speed Hack
- Due east-Bike vs E-Scooter for Commuting – Which is Meliorate?
- E-bikes vs other commuting options
Decision
Hardware hacking is enormously satisfying, every bit you tin see your results in the real world. It's a scrap scary to pull apart a new toy that is working fine and tune it with unknown parts recommended by an unknown person online, but if you take your time, document each step advisedly with photos, and follow the instructions to the letter of the alphabet, you can figure information technology out too – even if you are a noob similar me.
Discuss on /r/ElectricScooters
Talk over on Hacker News
Source: https://ampedcycling.com/e-scooter-hacks-remove-the-speed-limiter/
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