If you are having problems with your board pushing the nose up even if you have a battery that’s above 50%. This phenomenon is in the boarding community called Captain Morgan, it usually happens when the board is close to empty.
If the board pushes up the nose with a battery that’s not empty then it’s most likely a cell in the battery pack that’s weak.
A weak cell often discharges itself during storage, this results in the board working fine if it’s ridden and charged daily but after a couple of weeks of storage, the cell will lose capacity and drop in Voltage. The Onewheel is programmed to stop the board when the weakest cell reaches 3V, independently of the total voltage of the pack.
How to test the battery and cells of the Onewheel
To test the battery you will need the unofficial application Onewheel Community Edition (OWCE). It can be found in the Test Flight app for Apple devices or on Android https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.owcommunity.owce
- Start with Charging the board for 24 hours. Use OWCE to check cell voltages and if they differ by more than 0.02V keep the board on the charger for at least 72 hours.
- Now it’s time to ride it until the board pushes the nose up, doing the “Captain Morgan”.
This should happen on a good board with around 1% left of the battery. - Check cell voltages with the OWCE application, as before they should still not differ more than 0.02 V.
- Recharge the board and disconnect it from the charger when finished. Don’t ride it for at least three days and recheck the cell voltages. As before the cells shouldn’t differ more than 0.02 V.
- If the board fails any of these tests you most likely have at least one bad cell. Sometimes battery cells get imbalanced and a 72-hour charge is enough to resolve it, at least for a while.
- If your board is still on the warranty for the battery contact Future Moation Inc.
- Otherwise, try and live with it and do the recommendation below or you might need to consider a new battery.
How to live with a weak battery cell.
Sometimes battery cells get imbalanced and a 72-hour charge is enough to resolve it, at least for a while. The key is not letting the cell discharge before riding the board. Therefore don’t let it go more than a few days between charging the board.
The only fix is to get a new battery, there are off-market options from JW batteries and ChiBatterySystems.
It’s important to check what hardware version you have to see what battery options are available to you.
Why it is called Captain Morgan
Riding nose up, or Captain Morgan comes from the Rom bottle Captain Morgan. There you can see the Captain having his foot standing on the barrel to mimic the riding position the board gives you when it pushes the nose up.
Next time drinking the Rom, check the bottle!
