Failed to display power?

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cwwees
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:43 pm

Failed to display power?

Post by cwwees »

I have 3 rides with the Gen III unit. The first one, a hill climb last Saturday, I read the display and looked at the results in the iBike 3.0.2 software and was quite happy.

Yesterday and today, I did rides on the road in the dark before work because it's unusually warm. That happens when it rains in Tucson. I'm not riding *in* the rain, but the streets are damp and the humidity is high. Water from my front wheel yesterday would have wet the iBike. This morning, there was condensation on the leading edge of the display from the high humidity through the ride.

Yesterday's ride, I never had light to see the display during the ride. I was disappointed to have no display whatsoever for power on the PC display. I have cadence plotted, wind speed is OK, road speed is OK, and tilt and elevation look reasonable.

The ride this morning again doesn't display power on the top plot. All the other data looks OK. During the ride, I passed under a couple street lamps and there's a power reading on the screen while riding.

I expect (but haven't had a chance to test) that the .csv file is capturing the power readings. What else should I investigate for why I'm not getting a plot of power output in the PC software?

I'd put this under "tech support" but all the sub-fora there seem to be related to mounting, not PC software.

Charlie
Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7888
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by Velocomp »

There is a bug in the iB3 software. Please send us your ride file and I will be able to tell if this bug is affecting you. If it is, there is an easy way to pull out your ride file.

In the mean time, do NOT erase the original ride file on your iBike!
John Hamann
cwwees
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:43 pm

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by cwwees »

<sigh>

I already erased it from the iBike. The .csv file is filled with NaN for the power column. If it matters, the "wind speed" is plotting as 5mph wide band, though the CSV file doesn't seem to support those values.

I don't know how to save a "ride file" other than the CSV saved through the iBike software.

I'm not that concerned about the lost data. I'd like to know what I can/should do going forward so that I get around this problem. I'll be happy to send you the file from tomorrow's ride (presuming the problem continues).

Charlie
pjboyle
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:22 pm
Location: Pensacola, FL

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by pjboyle »

I have had this happen a couple of times. Each time it seemed that the iB3 software was putting the weight to zero and then Crr was infinite. As you noted, on-the-bike power readings are fine. To allow the uploaded power readings to remain, prior to uploading the data from the Gen III, go in the toolbar on iB3 and go to Edit -> Preferences and then in the dialog box, uncheck the box that says "auto fine tune ride data". This will allow your "unadjusted" power values to display just as they are uploaded from the device. Fortunately, with Gen III, these are probably within a watt of what they would be after the software tweaks it. ANY adjustment using any of the tools, even getting weather data, will have the file revert to the way you have been seeing it.

The way I have been able to break this cycle each time is to push the profile back to the Gen III unit. Don't know why this works,it is the same profile with no tweaks, but it must reset something. Like I said I have gone through two cycles of this (over two months time with daily rides) and I have not been able to discern any particular thing that "kicks it off", but the symptom is immediately apparent. I have my auto fine tune ride data turned back on now. But I know if this happens again, I can turn it off and repeat the upload of the data from the iBike and the power will be there. I know Velocomp is working on fixing this bug.

Hope this helps.

PJBoyle
cwwees
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:43 pm

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by cwwees »

Thanks! That saved the data from today's ride. I'm going to try pushing the profile (fresh) for my next outing and see if that gets around the problem.

Under "tools," you can manually apply the post-ride calibration and see the data for to all NaN. It would appear there's a divide-by-zero or equivalent somewhere in the PC-based correction algorithm.

I've taken the liberty of attaching my file that fails, as well as the associated profile(?). If you load these into the IB3 software and use the Tools > Analyze options, you'll get the result I described.

Charlie
Attachments
090116_1021_cal_ride_AB7E1004.ibcd4m
profile to support CSV file below
(996.63 KiB) Downloaded 244 times
iBike_01_24_2009_0710_70_Miles.csv
power display fails when PC calibration applied
(2.74 MiB) Downloaded 265 times
coachboyd
Posts: 527
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by coachboyd »

The bug is that weight is set to zero in the advanced profile settings. So, with a weight of zero, you can't solve for crr, and if you can't solve for crr, you can't get power.

To fix this, hit tools->switch profile after the ride and send the same profile again that you had ridden with. Or if you don't analyze the information then you will be good.

We are looking into this.
Boyd Johnson
http://www.boydcycling.com - high performance carbon wheels and accessories
cwwees
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:43 pm

Re: Failed to display power?

Post by cwwees »

Thanks for the details. I'm going to speculate on some other things that may have been *different* in my setup. One or more of these may have generated the 0 in the weight.

First, I installed the iBike 3 software on the Windows PC before I got the Gen III unit. I've got a handful of rides with the Gen II unit. The flip side of that is that I didn't install the iBike software from the CD. I looked at the version number on CD and at the version already running on my machine and chose not to install the same thing a second time.

I was very happy to have the iBike 3 software uninstall the National Instruments drivers and install new ones. The drivers were from iBike 1 - I didn't replace them when I downloaded and installed iBike 2 software on the PC.

The second thing I did which may be unusual was getting a coast-down but not a cal ride. OK, I didn't read the instructions. I took the new unit and did coast-down calibration, then rode my cal ride like I would have on the earlier units - in conventional ride memory. I didn't know there was a "cal ride" memory in the setup screens.

Friday, I did the coast-downs again, and did a cal ride properly. I set the profile Friday and it's worked on Saturday and Sunday data without having to re-send the profile.

Charlie
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