Water or Low Battery?

[nigeld]

Tonight on my ride the heavens opened and we had an hour or so of rain. After 10 or 15 min of rain my watts went ridiculously high, often over 1000 when noodling, it displayed 3998w frequently, later on it stuck on 0w for a large part of the time, and sometimes I had a seemingly reasonable number but it wouldn't last. I figured it was water due to the timing. There has been no visible sign of water under the glass but some drops came out of the wind port. When I got home I checked the battery, 276 (now a few hours later it's at 271). I will change that. The altitude is all over too, 13000+, reset to 571, now it's down at -1472. My question is: is this likely the battery or water... or water causing a short and draining the battery? Does a low battery affect power and barometric readings the most, or does everything go? And, is there any way to edit a csv file so I can remove the power spikes so my TSS isn't ridiculous. (When I've tried to in the past with a separate app, it won't re-open in iBike post-edits.)



Well just changed the battery and the altitude and tilt are jumping all over the place, seems like water. If so, that's really disappointing.

[lungbuster]

I have just changed my battery which had just dropped down to 256. My files have been fine so far so you can probably discount battery level for the discrepency and blame the water.

[nigeld]

Thanks for the info. That's what I was afraid of.

[R Mc]

It's moisture in the wind port. Similar occurrence happened during a race on a super foggy morning in March.

When everything gets nice and dry, you'll probably want to do another cal ride, since the wind-scaling might not change.

[nigeld]

Thanks for the re-Cal tip R Mc, I will do that. Are you suggesting this is to be expected and I should get used to it? That's surprising to me, to put it mildly. I'm sure the manual says the iBike should work fine in the rain (as one would expect of a bike computer). Since we get a lot of summer showers, this problem will make a lot of my ride data useless.

[R Mc]

Actually, I'm relaying info. Hopefully Boyd will respond, since he's the one who mentioned that his wind-scaling appeared to have changed after a rainy ride. I'm not sure if it actually affected performance of the unit--just that the wind-scaling changed.

Rainy rides are not common in my area . . .

[Morocco Mole]

Nigel, what you describe is exactly the same behavior several of us have observed when riding in rain for longer periods. I expect it will take a couple of days for all the moisture to dry out, in the meantime you might find your altitude and Wind Cal fluctuates wildly, even when sitting in one spot (eg. on your desk). I have a container with small silica gel packets I have collected and leave the iBike in that to help absorb the moisture. I would also recommend checking your wind scaling as mine also dropped after this first occurred, strangely it stabilized and has not moved since even after subsequent rainy rides.

Was curious if you were riding solo or with others, I'm sure a lot of my problem was spray flicking up from the rear wheel of the rider in front of me when I was drafting. The spray seems to make a perfect path straight into the airport of the iBike, this is where a RWS can help. I have actually fabricated my own RWS and use a short 2 inch tube which pretty much eliminates water entering the air port. This way it's small enough to carry around if it looks like rain, you would need to calibrate you wind scaling again when using the RWS although I find with the short tube there is only a very slight difference.

[nigeld]

Thanks for the info Morocco Mole. If this is an inherent problem with the iBike design, it is good to know the RWS can eliminate it (though I really don't want to go that route).

Yes, I was riding with someone. I had to ride to the side of the guy in front for visibility, but no doubt the unit did catch a lot of rain and wheel spray. I would have thought the electronics could be coated/sealed to minimize exposure to water. Looking at the battery compartment though, it looks like a naked a circuit board. Looks like my unit has been opened before, it has scratches around the cover join. That bothers me. I also wonder if that could compromise the seal... but I suspect the wind port is the most likely culprit.

[nigeld]

I put in a new battery this evening, seemed better, alt and tilt were stable. I went out to do a Cal ride but got "bad tilt" every time. (I tried again when I got home in my kitchen where I normally do it, still no go.) So I could not do a cal ride. Something not right with the tilt sensor, I'm getting a (slight) negative grade in both directions in my kitchen. However the watts didn't seem too off on the ride tonight. But by the end of the evening there were a few times I was getting 0w readings, no matter what I was doing on the pedals, even going up hill in the big ring. So maybe it's more than a tilt issue. I just did a hard reset and tried a couple more tilt cals, "bad tilt". I'm out of ideas.

Update: Just checked "Analyze Power" and the slope tracks elevation until about 3/4 of the way into the ride, then it takes a dive, from the zero line to about -900 ft.

[wellmt]

I've never really had a problem with water and I live in the UK (aka rain central). Only once did the wind port stop measuring properly and that was a huge downpour. Next day the iBike was fine.

I have a lot more problems with water gettting in the Garmin GSC10 sensor.

[nigeld]

That's encouraging. Thanks.

[rruff]

I think water gets in via the battery cover, but I'm not sure. At any rate I've ridden with my Gen2 in the rain and it was only wacky when the wind port had water in it. If it stopped raining, I could blow it out and it would work fine. My Gen3 goes crazy like yours and takes days to dry out.

Seems like a slightly bigger O-ring might fix leaks via the battery cover. Has anyone had success in fixing this? I couldn't find a suitable O-ring at the hardware store.

[wellmt]

How does rain get in via the battery cover with the iBike sat on the mount? I just can't see how it happens.

[rruff]

Just guessing it does... water will get in any place where there isn't a water-tight seal. The battery cover on my Gen3 isn't nearly as tight as it is on my Gen2.

On the other hand maybe the water gets in someplace else.

[nigeld]

The wind port is the obvious candidate. I'm pretty sure that's where it got in to mine, the battery cover, battery and compartment looked totally dry. Though I guess it can't hurt to upgrade the battery compartment seal. I hate being iBikeless while it's in rehab drying out. There are solutions out there, some practical, some ... not so much:

http://gizmodo.com/339090/british-scien ... or-gadgets

http://lifehacker.com/252183/friday-fun ... seal+style

[rruff]

But why would the wind port not be sealed on the Gen3s when it was on the 2s? On the other hand I get more erratic wind readings with my Gen3 also... so maybe there is something to that.

[nigeld]

I don't know. That's a question for the engineers, if the Gen II and III have different sensitivity to the rain, maybe they changed something.

I got caught in the rain again this afternoon, was riding solo, closed out the ride file with a trip reset just in case as I had some important test data in there, and continued the ride. Rain was light and brief, no issues. But I did notice that you probably don't need to be drafting to get rain in the wind port. When I was riding tempo water was spraying off the top of my front wheel and looked like it was blowing back very close to the wind port, not as bad as spray off someone's back wheel, but a concern nevertheless. But like I said, the iBike didn't freak out and the data looks good despite the rain. Phew!

[biker2000on]

Was curious if you were riding solo or with others, I'm sure a lot of my problem was spray flicking up from the rear wheel of the rider in front of me when I was drafting. The spray seems to make a perfect path straight into the airport of the iBike, this is where a RWS can help. I have actually fabricated my own RWS and use a short 2 inch tube which pretty much eliminates water entering the air port. This way it's small enough to carry around if it looks like rain, you would need to calibrate you wind scaling again when using the RWS although I find with the short tube there is only a very slight difference.

I am very curious about your fabricated RWS. Could you post some pics of that setup. It seems like a very economical way of dealing with the water problem.