Little or no wind readings

[mechgt]

I picked up an iBike Gen II back in mid-November (around 65°F here). Calibrated and everything seemed to be reading well (as far as I could tell). If I touched the pedals it'd register power, even on downhills.

Then along came the cold and it really hurt iBike, one ride, so I got him an external battery. Ever since, it's not been the same. Basically, wind no longer registers (or it registers very little... like at least 10mph off). Here's what's changed since Nov.:

- Cold weather (ride temps ranging from 18°F - 45°F)
- External battery added (see post containing pics)

Here's what I've done to try and resolve it:
- I've done lots of wind offsets, to no avail. Often the wind offset (prior to zeroing) is around +/-8, then I re-zero and still don't read wind. Even several times during a ride.

- Replaced internal battery... twice at least (now running a brand new energizer battery). The first new internal battery made some wind show up (it was always zero wind before) but it's still waaay off, particularly in cooler temps. Battery at start is typically 305, and after a long cold ride 275. 275 is lowest I've seen it with external installed.

- Redo calibration rides:
I was told that my profile setup looked pretty good, but the wind offset may have been a little high (it was 3.x) although it was in range. I did at least 10 coast downs, and a 4 mile out an back, in low traffic, in the same position. Result of this was that my wind scaling was out of range at 11.5, AND Crr was out of scale at -0.0048! (see attached screenshot) Temps ranged from about 54°F to 47° during entire calibration process (about 1 hour).

I've been messing with this for a month now trying to get it to work or figure out what's wrong, and it's killing me.

What's the coldest that anyone has had normal operation out of the iBike? Any ideas? I'll be happy to post rides... or calibration data.... anything. Please help!!!

[lorduintah]

Your wind scaling is extremely high. You have an impossible negative crr. Several factors are leading to all the other issues.

It looks like you have a loose mount or something else and you need to re-do your calibration.

Tom

[mechgt]

The previous screenshot (with crazy wind scaling and Crr) was from an attempt to re-do my calibration. That's the problem... I can't redo it because I'm not properly reading the wind. Because I'm not properly reading the wind, my calibration attempts are collecting bad data. That is, unless someone can point out something else I'm doing wrong.

Bad wind readings is what prompted me to try to redo it... I don't otherwise have reason to believe that my previous profile was bad. Here's my current profile (see attached image). This is the profile that is currently loaded in my iBike and this profile was operating fine before. It's based off several coast downs, and a 4 mile ride. Something has changed that is causing me not to properly register wind.

My mount has not changed or moved since November (when things were Ok), and feels very tight and solid. Here are several pictures of it if anyone's interested (from external battery mount build example.)

[jparker]

Have you tried not using the external battery to see if it works like it used to before you attahed the external set up?

[mechgt]

No I have not, but thanks, that's the next thing on my list of things to check. It's such a pain to get my battery out, so that's why I haven't gotten there yet , but I will try that. The original problem was that iBike would die without the external in the cold, so I hope I'm not at a catch-22.

[jparker]

Hey just leave the battery in the bar and clip your wires with enough wiring hanging out to splice them back.
I have a wireless setup which uses more juice than the wired to work. I live in the mountains of NC and I also got tired of going through alot batteries due to cold temps. I use rechargeable coin batteries I found on the internet. The Voltage when charged is more (3.8v) than a new 2032 coin battery(3.2v). I use it in the mount not the computer and it boost my voltage in the iBike to as much as 3.45v and have done 4hr rides in mid 30's weather with no issues. After the ride the battery in the mount is down to 2.9v but hey I just use the other one and when it gets low I charge them back up and keep going. I know this is not the best option but I've never had a problem with the voltage being too much for the iBike to handle (not that it couldn't) but it is very inexpensive and I don't have to try and rig an external batt. up to combat the cold weather issue. I don't use them in the summer and even if they only last for one winter it's way cheaper than buying the # of 2032's it would take get through the winter on 2032 batt. alone. Let me know what you think? This is the second winter I've used these batteries and it seems to be a great alternative to the external set up and has the least amount effort to combat the cold weather. Note: Not that it should make a difference but I use the wireless ipro Gen. 3.

[racerfern]

I just thought of something else. The Gen IIs had some factory calibration that if scrambled would not give wind readings. I'm dredging deep into my mind as to the exact problem, but maybe try contacting the powers that be about sending your unit back for a re-calibration. If you express mail it you could have it back in a couple of days.

I don't think the external battery has anything to do with it. In fact, it probably cuts down the wind offset variation due to battery voltage changes, leaving only the unit to blame.

[mechgt]

Here's my ride file from this past Sunday. I rode this with the external battery disconnected and iBike recording set to 5 seconds. Average temperature was around 42F. First and last ~12 miles were solo, and the middle section was with a small group. Also, when I downloaded it, it said there wasn't a profile attached; I had to attach a profile after the ride. It was definitely very low traffic, and I believe the wind was fairly calm that day.

[jparker]

Well it looks like it read your wind for the entire ride and when I went into tools and looked at the analyze wind screen it looked pretty good nothing really out of the ordinary, but when I looked at your analyze power screen I noticed you had 9 power spikes over a 1000 watts and the after data was showing a considerable difference in numbers than that of your before screen. Now I thought the after data was the corrected data but I could be wrong. I'm curious to read what others will see in your ride profile because in my wind data on a group ride or race mine looks just like that but I've never had power spikes and the data not show up in the before screen and be in the after data screen. Also were able to get the wind to zero out, I know you said this was another issue that had risen after the external battery was hooked up:?:

[coachboyd]

Here's my ride file from this past Sunday. I rode this with the external battery disconnected and iBike recording set to 5 seconds. Average temperature was around 42F. First and last ~12 miles were solo, and the middle section was with a small group. Also, when I downloaded it, it said there wasn't a profile attached; I had to attach a profile after the ride. It was definitely very low traffic, and I believe the wind was fairly calm that day.

Looking at the file, it's hard to tell exactly if you're good because of the group ride. If you do a solo ride (the whole ride solo) on a calm day, then I can assume certain things about the ride. In a group there is no way for me to tell how well you are drafting and what the actual wind speed is.

Another thing is that you had a fairly steady -.39 grade the entire ride. Your riding tilt looks good so it could be something where the tilt at the start of the ride was off. My advice is definitely for you to upgrade to Gen3, we have a pretty easy upgrade path and there are so many improvements in the Gen 3 unit that it will make all of this easier.

[mechgt]

So I was able to do calibrations yesterday in ideal conditions, and I was able to do everything as close to perfectly as possible. I've been lucky enough to be able to borrow another iBike from a friend to compare against. Calibrated both iBikes at the same time (mine and the borrowed GenII iAero), did maybe 6 coast downs and a 4 mile ride. Checked offset inbetween several of the coast downs, and again prior to 4 mile ride. Offset didn't wander off during calibration, everything worked as intended. Temperature was about 65°F.

Prior to this, I've done several attempts at calibrations, test rides, everything; all leading to immense frustration. It's been multiple times that I'd forgo riding so that I could calibrate the iBike, only to get home and find the results were bad/out-of-range. The only conclusion I can draw is that my iBike REALLY HATES the cold weather. First I got little or no wind readings... then more recently I've gotten over-stated wind readings (all using the exact same profile recorded last November). Same profile, different results. I was always doing offset resets, and when I'd check (multiple times during the ride) they were all over the map. Just yesterday I got my first good reading since December. Ever since the iBike died in the cold that day in January, it hasn't been the same. Hopefully it'll start behaving again, but it's awfully sensitive to the cold weather... like won't work sort of sensitive.

[Velocomp]

Nope, cold weather should not be the culprit.

If you'd like, please send the unit to us and we will check it out. Make sure to include a note describing its problems.