Zero Power / Bad Tilt / Bad Wind / way messed up ride!

[rstrom]

I was riding along this morning when I noticed that the iBike was reading zero watts. I knew this shouldn't have been the case so I started looking into what might be causing the issue.

I was getting a speed and cadence reading so I knew that these were not the issue. I first noticed the issue right before going down below an overpass. So on my way up the other side I was looking at the screen and saw that the iBike said that the tilt was negative as I was ascending a fairly steep hill!!

I stopped and did a tilt calibration thinking that this would fix the issue but that did not seem to help. Then I noticed that the wind speed seemed to be off so I stopped and tried to do a wind calibration. While attempting to do the wind calibration the unit read a constant wind speed of 12.6mph no matter what I did. I rode on for a bit and then stopped again and tried to do another wind calibration and saw the same 12.6mph wind no matter what I did.

For the remainder of the ride (starting at about 1:01 in the original ride file) I saw an almost constant power reading of about 100w. I tried stomping on it and had a hard time getting the power to go up (looking at about 1:20:45 in the ride file).

Toward the end of the ride I know that I was riding into a headwind and the unit was telling me that there was a 7mph tailwind.

What a messed up ride!!

One thing that I also noticed was that the battery was reading 24%; a reading that did not seem to change at all for the remainder of the ride (which was about another hour).

I also noticed when I went to download the data from the unit that, when I turned it back on, it first read 99% battery then went to 0% and then went to 19% and settled in at that.

So, is this a low battery issue?

Is 24% a low battery?

Attached are two files:

- The original downloaded iBike file
- The iBike file merged with a MyTracks GPS file (to show the real ... or close to it ... altitude). I did tell Issac to use the GPS elevation when merging

iBike is charging now ......

Robert

[TriBike]

This is an odd occurrence, which I have not yet experienced. It is possible that the voltage dropped below a critical level. Please try a Hard Reset of the Newton, then, Fully Charge the unit. If there is no change in performance, please contact me directly at: tgore@velocomp.com Thanks.

[cjonbike]

I think you meant tgore@velocomp.com

[GWPOS]

I had this happen once on my new Newton. Support had me do the hard reset and everything has been fine since. I thought my unit had died, but nope...all is fine.

[rstrom]

GWPOS - did your issue seem to have any correlation with the level of battery charge?

Thank,

Robert

[rstrom]

I did the hard reset (and another tilt calibration just to be sure), charged it, and all seems to be OK after the last two rides (Saturday and Sunday).

Any further thoughts on the battery level and the behavior?

Thanks,

Robert

[Velocomp]

When your battery gets below 30% then strange things might happen. There is an internal circuit in the battery that shuts it down if charge becomes too low.

Also, the sensors require sufficient charge for them to operate properly. This is no different from prior generation iBikes.

You shouldn't need to do new calibrations (they are stored in flash memory) if the battery charge drops.

[rstrom]

Thanks for the battery clarification.

I only did a new tilt calibration because I had done one out on the road when I was having the issue.

I wanted to make sure that the tilt was calibrated correctly after it was reset and charged fully.

May not be necessary ... but ... Never hurts ....