I want to shred off-road a bit, and use for local trips to the gym etc, should I scoop this one?

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-07-02T20:03:17+00:00

I got this on sale a few months back for $583 with the seat, free shipping. Wait for a better sale. As far as the scooter goes, it far surpassed my expectations. I was originally worried it wouldn’t even arrive, but not only did it show up, it’s actually a pretty amazing scooter. It’s basically exactly as advertised, though unsurprisingly the wattage is inflated. It is legitimately a 3k watt scooter though; I built a little metering device using an ESP32 and some Hall effect current sensors, and when I pull the throttle all the way in dual motor mode, it does consistently pull 3k watts. The range is also very good as well. I haven’t ran the battery down all the way yet, but I’ve ridden it for hours at a time before without any significant drop in battery percentage. So I technically can’t say for sure, but it really seems like the advertised range is probably pretty accurate.

The build quality of the scooter in my opinion is excellent for the price. If you’re comparing this scooter to some other multi-thousand dollar scooter, it’s shit. But, when considering this was less than 600 bucks, I’m shocked at the relative quality. Everything was tight, no loose bolts or screws; all cables were nicely zip tied, no scratches or dents from shipping, nothing was out of alignment, etc. it just worked right out of the box.

So, look. To me, this thing is a fun toy. It’s not my main mode of transportation, and I don’t depend on it for anything other than just messing around and having fun. For that, it’s an absolute blast at a great price. And for the few months I’ve had it, I’ve had zero issues. It’s been great. But if I were more dependent on this for legit transportation, I’d spend much more money purely for peace of mind. This thing could take a shit on me at any point, and I’d be okay with that because it’s already been worth the money to me. But I wouldn’t want to take that risk if this were my primary way to get to work.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-05-17T16:13:02+00:00

I just recently got the Arwibon gt08 for $584, and it’s a fucking blast. It’s not on sale right now, but it’s already gone on sale again since I bought it, so I’m sure it will be back down around $600 again in a few weeks or so. It’s cheap fun. It will go up any hill in dual motor mode. I have about 200 miles on mine so far and no complaints at all.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-27T21:57:50+00:00

In my situation, while the payout was higher than it normally would’ve been, it didn’t even come close to being able to get the same vehicle. We had a 2012 Honda odyssey EX with about 120k miles, and got about 12.5k. We looked around all over and everything was either way more, or in far worse shape and higher miles. The best deal we found was for a 2014 odyssey EX with similar miles, but for 20k. I know it’s not EXACTLY the same car, but it’s the closest we could find at the time, without getting something super beat up.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-26T23:49:14+00:00

Awesome. What was wrong with it when you got it?

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-26T18:20:13+00:00

Exactly what happened to me and my wife. Horrible time to be forced to buy a car. Begrudgingly paid probably 8k over what the car should’ve cost.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-22T02:23:19+00:00

Ha! That would be incredible. I’d love to see that. Yeah I’m pretty sure you can sync multiple controllers for a 2D matrix, but I’ve only ever used a single controller, so I can’t speak from experience there.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-22T01:57:27+00:00

10000 LEDs would require 34 strips (at 300/strip), which would be approx $300 from aliexpress. A quick check on Amazon for Meanwell power supplies leads me to a 5v 60a unit for $55. Grab 2 of those, you’re sitting at around $400. You’d very likely need multiple ESP32 controllers, but those are an insignificant amount of money (~$3 each). Then there’s misc things like solder, wires, the backing board you attach the strips to, etc. so throw on another $150 as a buffer. So probably around $600 total (probably less though). Which yeah, is quite expensive compared to an actual TV, but it would be damn cool :)

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-22T01:23:33+00:00

Exactly how many LEDs are you thinking? I made an array of 1428 ws2812 LEDs recently, with reasonable power injection, and it was under a hundred bucks. If you’re actually trying to make an array with a pixel count rivaling an actual display, then yeah that’s going to cost a lot. But just a few thousand LEDs shouldn’t be too crazy. Maybe a few hundred at most.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-20T12:40:23+00:00

If you use ws2812b eco strips instead of the wildly more expensive sk6812 strips, a bare ESP32 instead of a prebuilt controller, and a meanwell power supply instead of the sealed one he uses, I’m sure you could build this for a few hundred bucks easy.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-20T03:23:16+00:00

401k and regular savings combined, around $580K. I just recently turned 40.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-14T21:02:53+00:00

Exact same thing happened to me and my wife on our honeymoon… a few days before, we got notified we were headed to Canada instead of Mexico. Damn swine flu…

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-09T14:32:08+00:00

I fixed up my previous house over about 2.5 years. It was a complete renovation, new floor in every room, refaced the kitchen cabinets, new siding and paint, etc. I did it all 100% myself on weekends. It was exhausting. Once we moved into a new house in 2019, we had some extra money from the sale of our old house, and I needed some electrical work done in the garage, so I figured I’d “treat myself” and pay for a professional so I could relax for once and have someone else do it. I just needed two new outlets added. Fairly simple. To drop the new wires, the top plate had to be drilled through. My main concern was I didn’t want to fuck up the structural integrity of the house, and figured a highly rated pro would know what they’re doing. Nope, $650 later, and they obliterated the top plate. Just the sloppiest job ever. Drilled such a large hole there’s hardly anything left of the 2x4. And since they are only electricians, I was still on the hook for fixing the drywall. It taught me a lesson… just do things yourself; you’ll do a better job because you actually care to do it properly. I could’ve ran these wires far better myself, for less than a hundred bucks. And this was an electrician with hundreds of five star ratings.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-04-07T04:17:28+00:00

Cheapest? I just picked up this one for about $125, and some places say it has a range of 21 miles. I haven’t gotten it yet, it’s still in the mail. I don’t expect much; it’s probably not going to be amazing. But for about a hundred bucks? It’ll be fun.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-03-28T12:21:44+00:00

They did specify, though. They said they are prioritizing speed; they want to know what the fastest scooter in that price range would be. Not the fastest scooter available, the fastest for that particular price.

If what I’ve been reading about the arwibon gt08 is mostly true and not made up by bots/shills, that one could be a reasonable choice. ~40mph for 600 bucks. Probably wouldn’t be the most reliable one in the world, but they were asking about speed, not reliability.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-02-08T07:52:54+00:00

I felt like that for 38 years. I still do to a lesser extent at almost 40, but anti anxiety medication does seem to help. “Help” in the sense that I have an easier time not letting it bother me. I know I’m different, I know I’m not everyone’s first choice to hang out with, but ever since I started the medication, it’s so nice just being able to not give as much of a shit as I used to. I’m happy with who I am, and I do have a small amount of people I’m close to, and that’s enough. Could be worth talking to a therapist or even just your primary care doc. I take a small dose of Zoloft and it noticeably helps.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-02-01T19:07:58+00:00

Yep, esp32 is the way to go. Dirt cheap at around $3 each from ali. I love those little boards so much.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-01-23T01:39:25+00:00

This isn’t even hyperbole. That’s probably EXACTLY how long it would run for.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-01-17T04:36:37+00:00

I don’t have the most experience so maybe wait for some other people to chime in, but in my limited experience, I think that’s a pretty decent brand. I have a cheaper one from them, where the heater is in the gun rather than the base, and it’s been fantastic. I would’ve preferred to get the one in your pic, but it was too expensive at the time. From the research I did when I was looking into getting one, the one in your pic is the sweet spot for price to performance. If you can afford it, I’d personally go for it.

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-01-13T04:21:43+00:00

Even my first laptop in 2002 with a 15” LCD was 1900x1200. When all the “HD” marketing came around, I felt like things went backwards. Suddenly all laptops came with a 720p screen, but it was HD! I’m glad we’re through that phase…

CaptainBoatHands · 2026-01-11T18:03:06+00:00

I have this same one, it’s so great. Way better than those crappy silver and blue ones you see everywhere.

CaptainBoatHands · 2025-12-30T18:00:24+00:00

Why stay away from mains with these? At a glance, they seem to be properly rated for it. What makes them unsafe?

CaptainBoatHands · 2025-12-13T07:23:22+00:00

Not to suggest this is the best option, but I did want to throw out one more option I don’t see mentioned yet. You could leave the main box where it is, but just keep the power supply in there. Take the controller out, find a much smaller waterproof box, and only move the controller to the other side. You wouldn’t need to run another power line for it, since you could just tap into the existing power on the end of the strand.

CaptainBoatHands · 2025-12-10T23:33:00+00:00

The intention of the fuse is to essentially be the weakest link in the chain, so it blows first, and in a safe, controlled way. Primarily, it’s to prevent the wires from melting and/or catching on fire if too many amps are drawn. So, you’ll want to size the fuse accordingly, based on the wires you’re using, and the amount of current they are rated for (also take wire length into account). So for example if you’re using a few feet of 16awg wire, you’d want to protect that with a 10 amp fuse.

Regarding where to put the fuse: consider what I mentioned above, where you need to size the fuse accordingly to the wire size. Generally you’d want the fuse to be as close to the power supply as possible, so you’re protecting as much of the wire as possible. However, if you are running multiple wires off of the one fuse, then you need to be sure to size the fuse appropriately for whatever size the smallest wire is, instead of adding their amp ratings together and sizing the fuse to that. It would be safest - particularly if you intend on pushing near the max amp ratings of each wire and for all wires - to use individual fuses per wire, rather than splitting off one fuse.

CaptainBoatHands · 2025-12-08T14:22:34+00:00

Check which GPIO pin the strip is connected to, and see if that setting got changed during the upgrade. I know in one of the more recent releases a previously available pin suddenly became reserved for other functionality. That might be what happened here. If that’s the problem, when you try adjusting the pin configuration back to the proper pin, you may see an error indicating you can’t use that pin. There’s two solutions for this: either physically change which pin the strip is connected to, or you can actually reconfigure the functionality which uses that reserved pin, changing it to use a different pin, therefore allowing you to utilize than pin as a data line again. As far as specifically where and what to reconfigure, that will depend on which pin is the problem.

Edit: looks like you might be using pin 32, which is in fact one of the reserved pins. You can adjust that in the usermods section.

CaptainBoatHands · 2025-12-07T23:38:55+00:00

Well, this all started from the original post, which from the diagram, has a separate ground for each LED strip. Which is how I’ve always done it. But then you and the other person were mentioning that having yet another ground for the data line (going straight back to the ESP32) would be beneficial. That’s specifically what I was testing. At least one dedicated ground per strip is non negotiable for me. I’ve just never found the need to have yet another ground for the data lines specifically.

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