Wow, I posted a photo of my DIY battery above, and thought it`s quite well. But I must admit it is by far not at this level…And to tell you the truth I will adopt some of their design ideas, because I think the case and sealing is done really good…allthough others are telling different… they are by far better, than what else I´ve seen so far…I see a lot are still sealing their box with sikaflex…and that only works temporarily…but not for some years…
So how do your battery packs look like? Maybe we all can learn of it…
That is what people has been saying! Waydoo pack at best is a good DIY battery pack but not a safe professionally manufactured consumer level product. Congrats you finally were be able to comprehend the argument here.
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Hi
I received my Waydoo flyer one in October.
So far, I was able to use it twice.
First time, remote control stoped to connect to the board after using it for 10 minutes.
They sent me another remote.
Used the board 2 days in a row after the replacement remote arrived.
Then went out and used my board another time and the same issue happened. After 10 minutes using it the remote control just lost connection with the board. I sent back the remote and now they are checking if the problem is the remote or the blue tooth unit at the mast.
A real disappointment so far.
I bought the Waydoo flyer one at McKite and they are good, always answer the phone and promptly respond to emails.
But, so far, Waydoo has been a huge disappointment.
I took my Flyer One out today for the very first time and had a lovely time for 45+ minutes until the controller suddenly lost contact with the board while going around 13/24 speed. I stayed on as long as I could but eventually bailed and lost control of the board.
The board continued running at the same speed and began going in circles around me. This was a dangerous situation as I was practicing in a relatively small bay full of moorings and usually snorkelers (thankfully none at this time). I was certain the board was eventually going to hit a boat so I swam to the perimeter of its circle and, at great personal risk, caught it and wrangled myself onto it. I manually held down both buttons on the battery box and this seemed to shut it off.
This was a harrowing experience and it’s unfortunate to learn that others have had similar issues and that there are broader safety concerns with the battery. I’ve sent an email to Waydoo regarding my experience, but I’m not sure I can trust the board going forward. If I had been going full speed or further away from shore it would have been a seriously life threatening situation.
That sounds pretty scary. Was the board planing or on foil when it was doing circles around you?
What are you going to do now that you can’t trust it?
The board was on its side with one fin of the foil somewhat out of the water (motor about at water level) but not planing at all fortunately.
This seems to me like a software issue wherein the board should stop within seconds if it loses contact with the controller – it is inexcusable that it runs away without control. I took it out today again on slow speed to test a couple things – I noticed that if I keep my finger on the throttle and then submerge my hand and release the trigger, the board usually does not stop until I lift my hand above the water, presumably because the board does not receive the signal that the trigger is no longer being depressed while the controller is underwater.
Granted, my situation occurred when the controller was above water, so I’m still worried there’s some underlying malfunction that could re-appear at any moment.
Waydoo has asked for my serial numbers, etc, but given the board runs properly, I really don’t see how common sense software for the mast/motor (no controller contact = turn off motor within 2 seconds) wouldn’t address this run away issue…
That is a horrifying experience. I have seen their controller board and I am using the same nrf52 radio module for my remote and receiver. I can imagine what condition and lack of basic firmware development safety principles could lead to these kind of situations. That aligns with the waydoo’s associate only comment above about safety and regulatory compliances which it is clear they are some amateurs with not enough experience and greedy enough to hire talents! They could have spent very small portion of 2.5M raised from crowdfunding to get good consultants to review their work.
There are many reports of completely out of control boards. Waydoo is really going to seriously injure or kill someone before anything is done. Owners should be contacting their country’s consumer protection agency ASAP and reporting all of these problems.
This is just one example with a bunch of comments saying they’ve had the same thing happen. Sometimes it’s caused by the electronics failing, other times it’s caused by the trigger on the remote getting stuck:
I tested it a couple of times now at a local dealer and this seems not normal behaviour it always turned of instantly if it lost contact… I shut of remote by purpose at 50% power and it instantly stopped es soon remote was off… However I recognized that it has quite strong signal as I was able to control it, even with remote about 20cm under water… My Maytech remote looses signal instantly if below water… so I´m shure they are not using ppm…
Could it be that trigger was stucked somehow and therefore it did continue to power? I had the impression it takes only little force to move the trigger?
Did you inform waydootech already about it? I´m shure they would like to get back the controller to check it…
The trigger was not stuck — that was my first instinct when I was dealing with the issue on the water but there was no issue with the trigger.
Even if the trigger were stuck, the motor did not respond to commands to lower the speed. A stuck trigger would be easy to deal with at 1kph.
I’ve been in touch with Waydoo support but haven’t had any progress yet — they’ve asked for serial numbers.
Thanks for the info on the other instances where this occurred — crazy that this is such a common occurrence that a basic software fix should be able to solve.
If you’re in the United States it’s important that you report this to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, they can force Waydoo to fix the problem and do a recall. This is an extremely dangerous design flaw that could seriously injure a nearby swimmer. You can report the incident here: Public Incident Reporting - SaferProducts
Waydoo is required to report all of these incidents but it’s unlikely they’re following those regulations since they’re in China.
Ok, in my opinion they should get the controller from you and test it. I think standard behaviour is that it shuts down if it looses signal… So there must be something wrong on yours…
After reading all these stories, it sounds like a receiver or ESC problem to me, not a remote issue.
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2 possible scenario I am thinking:
1- connection is lost but receiver keeps feeding esc with last throttle means fw is lacking basic safety measures
2- connection is there and water leaked in to remote circuits and analog inputs reads wrong values from hal sensor input due to conductivity of salt water which in this case turning off the remote should stop the board. Again firmware
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I saw at least one story where the user turned off the remote when the board ran away and it kept going. This rules out a salt water shorted hall effect sensor input doesn’t it?
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Yes it absolutely does. It sounds like the ESC or receiver firmware is the problem. Could be as simple as no failsafe enabled. Scary.
Basically, you should not foil where you swim or dive!
I totally agree. As a remote controlle developer this is my biggest concern. I did weekly long test runs with my 2 way communication protocol. So far no probelm and I doubt they will be any. This serious as we operate a 5kw blender. My reciver automatically turns off after 100ms timeout. This works flawlessly. Even if the controller could have any porblem the reciver always turns off. This simply is not responsible from waydoos side! Stay safe
Br
FeRo
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Without having much technical understanding the simple premise of lack of any fail safe architecture seems to be the underlying issue.
Very concerning and ultimately means I can never go above a speed I feel comfortable “catching” it in the water should it malfunction and lose control again. Never mind needing to stay away from boats and people at all times. They should recall the product.
Well I’ve learned my lesson — I am sad to say that I took the board out again today and it lost contact with the controller 2 times. I was able to re-pair it while at speed using the power and negative button command and was able to regain control. Sadly, I lost control of the board again and was unable to get it to pair again. It continued out of control into a large bay until it eventually flipped over and I desperately tried to hang onto it. I was left 500 yards away from shore with the wind against me and had to be rescued by a dinghy and taken ashore.
This board is DANGEROUS. No recall will give me faith in this brand again. Given I will not use it again, I’m personally going to attempt to request a refund or dispute the Kickstarter charge if they don’t grant it.
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