MAINTENANCE

BATTERY ISSUE INFORMATION

We were on the Marsh Bend ride today and this was the first Club ride for David S since he put new batteries in his machine.  He got a "triangle" sign in his controller key when he got up to about 8 mph and his machine would not go any faster.  We called Tech Dave at Segway of Central Florida to see if he could shed any light on the issue.  He talked us through making sure the key was set for 8 mph in the SPD 1 setting and 12.5 mph in the SPD 2 setting and that was not the issue.  So, we rode on for another mile or two and the "triangle" disappeared from the controller key and David was able to ride at normal full speed.

I had forgotten about this issue but experienced it when I took the machine Ken T returned to the Club for a test ride and Segway Dave has also had this happen to him.  Below is a follow-up response from Tech Dave:

If the batteries are the newer Lithium above 6 Ah, the unit doesn't know what to do with the regenerative voltage when the batteries are fully charged. The unit will act similar to what David saw for about a mile, until there is some room in the battery. Not all units will do this, the non SE units appear to experience this more than the SE units. It's just a tolerance stack up on these units, nothing you can do.

Also, as you may know, the batteries get hot during charging. If you pull the cord and attempt to immediately ride, the unit will not operate correctly, pushing back until the battery cools"

Thanks to Tech Dave for a quick response.  Another bit of info to store in your brain about Segway operation.  It probably makes sense to unplug your machine the night before a ride to avoid the hot battery issue described above and to help use a bit of the power to have the machine behave normally the next day.