hey everybody its Adam from tested you guys know how much I love the one wheel
I've been obsessed with it for years I've logged hundreds and hundreds of
miles on various one wheels that I own I had the first model I had the second
model and they just come out with a new long-range model the XR that gets up to
17 miles on a charge oh I can't wait now one of the other things I love about
this company is that it was conceived of and designed in Santa Cruz and they are
hand assembled in San Jose California I love me some local manufacturing tested
is about to go down to their factory where apparently they may let me build
my own XR here we go hey one disclaimer before I head in there and put the
one-wheel XR together this may end up feeling a little like a commercial but
it ain't the fact is I'm not getting paid to do this they are giving me a one
wheel that's true but my love for this company is based on the love for an
excellently made product and we're shooting the sequence because we want to
celebrate local manufacturing California manufacturing of a great product so
let's go
hey Kyle hey good to see you man good to see you too so I can't believe in all of
our history of my love of one wheels that I haven't been to the mothership
yet this is where they get built where they're all born who builds a factory in
California I love that we do you know it's been important for us from the
beginning to build our product here in California it's such a Californian
product and us manufacturing is super important to us okay can can can you
walk me through how this process goes like what what I'm dying to see how
these are born there's a lot of steps that go into building a one wheel you
build each individual module the controller the battery then you put the
tire on the wheel put that all together into the frame along the way there's a
lot of testing making sure everything's just right you put the foot pads on put
the blocks on and then you go test ride it and make sure you did it all right
it's just that easy it's like making chocolate chip cookies
absolutely so I got word that there's a possibility that I could participate in
putting one together you can do all the work if you really mm-hmm
oh I guess I've been bleep that part that's me being excited let's do it
where do we start let's start at the beginning okay so this I I've always
wanted to see this these are all the components of the one wheel laid out in
an exploded view absolutely okay walk me through the basic components that's the
battery exactly this is the XR battery so it's got more range than any one
wheel we've made ever before Oh does ex-parte stand for extreme range extra
radical Thanks can't copy that this is the controller yeah that's the brain
motion sensors microprocessor all that kind of good stuff the part that
everybody associates with the one wheel the motor with a big rubber tire around
it and I'm the racing go-kart and these things all around here these are this is
the motor without the tire exactly exactly and if you're strong enough you
can try to put the tire on later I don't think I will be strong enough so you
guys are making your motors that right yeah so we actually make our motors we
develop something called hyper core technology so that axle you think you're
holding on to its like it's much bigger than the axel in
most motors and that's cuz we're actually sucking the heat out through
this aluminum axle and that's why we can run a higher power go faster farther
bigger Hill actually becomes a heatsink exactly get actually the ability to use
more electrons without overheating exactly unbelievable
I mean I found that the difference between the the one wheel and the one
wheel plus in terms of the motor feel at first it was subtle and then it became
super obvious and when I get on the old one it feels like I'm driving a
horse-drawn carriage exactly so we're always improving things you know we're
we're riders so we're always out riding and saying oh this could be better this
could be better and whether it's hardware or firmware we're just always
tweaking on stuff trying to make the ultimate ride and then this is the new
this is the soul of the XR this is a battery that goes farther exactly so we
redesigned it around a different kind of batteries different battery chemistry a
new battery management system and keep it all safe and to enable it to run at a
higher power as well and yeah that's the soul of a new Macs are so now you're
talking 15 18 Mile range there's the headlights and tail lights in there you
know how they switch direction and then this is the sure Santa foot pads which
you can add on your plus yeah and so these are actually also machined CNC
machine out of some wood laminated really beautifully laser etched and this
has the you know that we've been tailed yeah
and then it has the two zone foot pad in this one right so you just got to be on
that with your foot and that's how the board knows it should ride and the frame
rails don't get talked about too much I love them they're blue my favorite color
I love this color and I thought without seeing them from the inside that these
were just long extrusions but you see and see this entirely out of a billet
exactly and part of that's because when I was building the first one wheels in
my garage that's how we built those or the how I built those and that kind of
stuck with us I wanted to make it super strong make sure that people get ride
crazy tricks and do whatever they want and the board's gonna hold up I have I'm
proud to say I've abused the crap out of all of my one wheels and they have
withstood pretty much everything I've thrown at them and thrown them out we
say they're built like a tank and you know I think I riders agree with
it must be really satisfying to send these aluminum colored out to the
anodized and get them back this color they are very pretty
yeah love when they come back like that okay so where do we to begin and putting
these together yes so we're gonna start actually taking a peek at how we put the
modules together okay twist are we going up like the actual battery itself and
the actual controller circuit board itself and then we're gonna get those
buttoned up and then we'll see how we put it all together into what becomes
the one-wheel fabulous cool let's do it
all right so this is the group of cells that will get me all the way across San
Francisco and back home again absolutely had to tell me how this goes together
yeah so this is the battery module of ammonia plus XR to go the cells here
like you're mentioning new kinds of cells that we're using very high power
and very high capacity we're gonna put in the battery management system that's
a circuit board that we designed that keeps the pack really safe
so it's monitoring each individual cell all the time making sure that they're
all happy balancing the actual voltages between the cells and you know
protecting the whole system and that's that this that's this exactly that's I
just like to touch it no that's a brain make sure that the battery runs okay
exactly the battery management system oh and I can feel that it's waterproof it
is is actually coated with a special coating that protects the electronics so
that if there is any moisture humidity gets in there it'll be totally protected
that it's riding in the rain is one of my favorite things yeah except with with
the cover on because about to cover my leg defender yeah under weather I think
that one thing people don't realize about large battery output is that you
need big fat wires to move all those electrons I mean this is a stiff a stiff
trunk of delivery here yeah you absolutely do and we use these
automotive connectors and we actually use multiple pins in parallel to carry
the big power for the main current that's again you're moving shit-tons
that's the technical term right you're moving shit tons of electrons electrons
are heavy yeah a big copper to do it all right and so what is this thing here so
throughout the assembly process we have all kinds of testers that we use to
verify that things work the way that we hope they will okay and so you actually
put this board into the tester lower this down and it runs an automated test
and we'll see that a few other times we test our battery management system we
test our controller and all of these tests are to just make sure that
everything's working within spec so that you get out there riding everything
works perfect it's funny I've said this in the shop when I'm doing electronics I
each time I go through an operation I go back
I test the original thing you guys are doing QC doing the same exact thing you
have these boards made by somebody and you kept them and bring them in here but
they all are tested before they go into the mission exactly so we make these
circuit boards here in the Bay Area they have the same machine over there they
test it but we test it again here because really in a manufacturing
environment it's all about quality and so you need to test and test and test
test the component test the system and then test the final product and speaking
of high-end California products this is the nicest grounding strap I have ever
seen the the twist of flex grounding strap and that is some serious stuff
going on wear it to a club awesome okay so what's next so we're gonna go down
here and finish actually assembling the battery module and then we can build it
into a board
all right the control board exactly so this is a
controller this is the brain it's got an ARM processor on there and it's got
these are the power electronics that actually drive the motor it's got these
fancy waterproof automotive connectors to connect to the battery which we put
together and then also to the motor of course and the foot pad everywhere else
so testing is super important and I've got a test fixture over here this is
another QC device exactly okay so it's got these pins called a bed of nails
that drop down make contact on all these little test points oh wow connecting to
a computer the computer runs special code that actually measures a lot of
voltages and currents throughout the board make sure that everything works
great it looks so I love that clear acrylic so that everything's really
understandable what's going on here and there's like only one of these so
actually there's a few of these so we have wanted our supplier one here and a
spare just in case you know cuz it ice breaks we can't have the line go down so
really designing a test fixture like this is like designing a product and so
it's spinning a wheel right there this is actually running through its
procedure if all goes well that motor spins up there okay but this is
measuring all the voltages internally the bus voltage the regulated voltages
and it tells you a lot about whether the circuit board was put together right
whether it programmed properly with firmware and whether it's ready to get
built into one wheel all right so presuming that this circuit is good look
let's move on to putting into an enclosure let's go alright
there we go you're hired haha oh look at that it's like a candy
can I pull this off go for it oh so satisfying so this is a racing go-karts
hire that makes one wheel what it is it's completely virginal and very sticky
sound so right so this goes on it on the motor and that's basically how you do it
so this is actually a go-kart tire installation okay but it doesn't make it
as easy as you might want you can try to put that on so yeah I don't I don't got
to come over from this side got to push it at just the right angle really so you
actually do hard all right hold on oh wow that is hard it's hard I want to try
this right now now it's a challenge I've given me a challenge ok so then am i
right that this comes in and helps push it you got to push the side to you on
when we'll move it forward try to see the bead and it's it's a whole process
but in the end you get this amazing ride yeah nicely done nicely that is the
person who mans this station just like absolutely they are yeah
shucking oysters exhibit powerful forum that was exhausting that we did anybody
imagine doing that all day oh man but so what we're gonna do now is you got a
seat the bead and put this special special tire sealant in there you put it
in there we put tires just in there rolling around in there exactly
awesome so we are all at the final assembly and you guys did something
really special you asked me if I had a favorite color and I said safety orange
and you powder-coated the rails in a one-off you've made powder coated orange
rails and you guys don't know this my one wheel has a name that my wife
came up with and it's sugar glider and they laser-etched
the name of my one wheel you're gonna go through all the work of building
yourself you got to go custom I am so psyched so you know what's funny is
because of the plywood pads whenever I ride the one wheel around and people
haven't seen it they think did you make that because the plywood pads make it
feel like it's homemade but now I can say kind of okay so where do we start
here so we need to put these two modules the controller and the battery that we
built up into the rails and then we're gonna screw it down
so this is what we call in the factory the blade right so it's got your your
battery and your controller module in there and then of course we've got to
put the motor in and put the end blocks on route every foot pads and connect it
all up and test ride it yeah hold this please do okay oh so that extra
quarter-inch there that's my extra eight miles exactly that's what lets us more
than double the range is just a little more space and a new battery chemistry
that was designed for the electric car industry so cool all right all right
where to next onwards can you give you some really dramatic open source music
okay alright so what this this is a special brand new prototype this is sure
stands pro so this is something new that we're we're just launching now it's
actually a concave foot pad so it's more comfortable you got even more control
you're gonna love it beautiful so we put that there and then
this is the front Deadman switch got the sensor in it yeah okay so you get a
connector plugged in we are we are almost there
and that's it this is last screw so I think this is
officially the most custom one wheel that's ever been built I love you for
saying that okay it's time for testing
all right I'm gonna put this on this is cool
the stickum on the back of the one wheel branded plate here is called VHB that
stands for very high bond and I'm here to tell you it's no lie all right here
we go
all right hmm let's ride
yeah okay here comes the skid nice dude that was so awesome this is like I am
this is a good stuff right here you're gonna have many wonderful memories
riding this thing I totally will and I can't I can't wait to test the limits of
how far it can go it is a beautiful thing thank you for
giving me this experience very welcome thank you for denting this beautiful
beautiful device you want a job down here come down anytime absolutely
alright time to write back to San Francisco this is the tire that's never
seen the street so check this out yeah that was safe to do probably