Hey team, I recently spent two weeks alternating between two Z-Mote controllers. Here are my two cents.
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I wonder if weāll see a revamped thumbwheel Z.mote anytime soon with improved ergonomics and better throttle throw range. That would be sweet.
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Got mine coming soon. Excited to try.
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Iāve also got both the thumbwheel and the dual trigger, and I donāt think Iām going back to the thumbwheel.
This is the first trigger remote I ever have and it just feel natural, funny, also yeah you can see that the design beneficiate from more experience.
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Just a reminder to make sure your remote is calibrated right BEFORE you stand on the board and touch the throttle. If its not calibrated, it will be binaryā¦meaning you have 0% and 100%ā¦no in-between. Have fun with your board shooting out from under you at lightspeed with the tiniest of throttle. Ask me how I know.
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When running input wizard calibration it was super off so, I knew something was up lol
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I am so stoked to see the Z-mote getting into more hands.
Kaman really did something great here.
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Looks like they are out of stock at Tindie
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Yeah Kamen is waiting on some parts
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May have better luck emailing him. Tindie was out of stock but he got my order going through email.
He always seems to respond quickly through the Tindie messaging system.
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Can confirm, email is an effective way to communicate with Kamen.
I just received a fully clear Torch remote with the deadman switch deleted. I friggen love this thing.
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Figured Iād do a quick update on my Zmote I was having issues with. I bought a (regular) trigger version back in March with the newer/smaller receiver. Initial setup was fine and easy, and worked fine for the first couple times I used it (short board that didnāt get much mileage).
Brought it to my brotherās house to let him check it out and board started acting funny. Throttle cutouts etc. While looking at it, the remote stopped being responsive to throttle input and kind of just stopped working. I turned it off and back on, and when I did that the board went full throttle. Luckily I was holding the board upright so it didnāt go anywhere. When I turned the remote off it stopped revving. Turn it back on, full throttle again. It did this a handful of times before it stopped doing that, and just stopped responding to anything. It still showed paired to the receiver the whole time.
Took the remote apart and everything appears totally fine. Never dropped it, hardly used it. Issues appeared only a couple weeks after getting it. I talked to Kman and he had me check and try a couple things in VESC but we were never able to fix the issue. When trying to set up input in VESC tool the throttle would bounce around 1.5ms positive and negative, showing a max of around 13-14 (way high). Moving the trigger did not register or show any changes (using deadman switch or not). I ended up selling the board with a different remote paired to it (working fine), so the Zmote sat around for some months.
Fast forward to now and I have a new mountainboard I built and wanted to use it. I was hoping the issues previously were with the esc and not the remote. Anyways, tried setting it up and got same issues as before (D100S ESC). I bought a new potentiometer in case that was the problem, but problem persisted.
I ended up buying @monsterbuilder ās old Zmote that was virtually identical to mine except it used the older style receiver. Got it today and it was able to get set up without issue. Works great. No idea what is going on with my other one. Unfortunately Kman said if I wanted to ship it back to him he could try and fix it, but international shipping costs are sort of prohibitive so Iāll probably just end up keeping it for spare parts. Bummer.
TL;DR: Old Zmote I had sort of went haywire and broke, couldnāt fix it or figure it out, replaced with another that works as intended
What itās doing in VESC tool (older remote):
When it went nutso on the board. Recorded this after it did it the first time.
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Did you try using the new zmote with the old receiver? It would be interesting to know if it is the receiver or the remote that went haywire.
In any case, as the owner of a zmote, this is unsettling.
Edit - looking at your videos it appears to be a bad remote, not a bad receiver. The pwm is mostly negative 100% in your first video, which lines up with the wheels spinning backward in the second video. Iām assuming youāre running current control?
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Thatās a spooky failure mode. Too bad about the ship costs, any chance Kamen would meet you halfway or something? Considering itās a DOA product basically
Itās not my story to divulge fully, but this happened to another rider a while back. Like @Shadowfax , I own four of these and Iām a little worried now as well.
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How much is the shipping cost?
Iād be more than happy to cover it if it means that there is a chance for this issue to be debugged properly.
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Iāll chip in. Vested interest situation.
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