Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

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Paul Slemmings
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Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

I wonder if anyone can help. I have a Trek bike with a Bionx power assist system. The first bike was eventually replaced by Trek as the display would regularly go blank and re-boot particularly when pressing the - button to reduce assist or increase generate. The replacement bike is now doing the same thing and occasionally giving very little power even when using 200% assist. The bike is under warranty but when I sent it back to the shop last time they had never heard of this fault and neither had Trek so I'd like to hear if anyone else has had similar problems before tasking it back for the umpteenth time.

many thanks,

Paul Slemmings
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Just in case it helps anyone with a suggestion as to what is wrong - the battery mnakes a sort of ringing noise periodically. This might be normal I just don't know

tonylumps
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Battery making any kind of noise is not Normal. One thing I did learn is once you walk out the door from a Dealer your on your own.Sometime the Dealer knows less than you. Keep taking it back as long as you are under warranty. I did not have that option because I bought the kit From a dealer in NYC and I live in Phila.I have had trouble with my 2 kits. But not the same trouble as you are having. At the cost of a battery they are a little leary about getting inside of it I emailed BionX Direct and there response was great and walked me through my Problems.It may take a day or 2 but when they get back they have an answer I have 2 kits and one Battery I am the only one that rides the 2 Bikes

jatkins
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Hi Paul,

Really interested in your posting. We have had 2 Trek Ride+ bikes with Bionx for about a year. Mine has been faultless. My wife's has been a nightmare. Screen going off and on all the time. Trek also told us that they have never come across this problem - well there at least 2 of us! They have sent us 3 new bikes in total - all the same problem. I am afraid I can't help, but we are putting serious pressure on Trek directly. Have you done the same? I will be telling them about your posting if that's OK. It is a real shame because the bikes are fantastic.

Let me know if you get anywhere.

Paul Slemmings
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Hi, I did seem to get somewhere a couple of weeks ago with the display going off all of the time when the shop found the contacts to be dirty between the display and the 'cradle' it sits in on the handle bars. Is was fine for a few days then when cycling back from work in the rain on Wednesday I had a new problem when the display appeared to be working fine and all of the controls but the wheel was doing nothing, no assist and no generate. It was no better the next morning or this evening so I've taken the connectors apart and it's drying out in front of the fire as I type. This could of course be an unrelated problem caused by damp but I bought the bike to cycle to work all through the winter as well as in good weather.

Out of interest who are you in touch with at Trek? It would be good to put pressure on the same person.

Many thanks and good luck, Paul

Infaassie
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Hello Paul, strange behaviour but maybe you just need to reset the strain gaauge inside the motor.
You do this by starting the system (4 beeps) and start cycling without assistance. Build up speed and let the bike roll without pedaling for 20 to 25 meters.
During this roll out the motor will reset the torque sensor and the strain gauge. When you did this reset try what happens when you request assist, in most cases this helps.

Otherwise go back to the shop; if it "just happened" there must be found something.

Regards, Infaassie.

Infaassie
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Small extra info: when your plugs are damp you will encounter many little strange problems with the system. This might be the root cause of your problems.
To prevent this from happening you might add some silicon grease directly on the brasing from the connectors. Silicon grease is heat resistant and does not melt during warm days.

Infaassie.

jatkins
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delayed response - been away. But we have had a development.

Our dealer, (Just Bikes in Andover who have been brilliant) suggested to Trek that they take the full BionX kit off a man's bike that they know works and attach it to my wife's. The wires have not been run through the frame, but tied to the outside. They have done this and so far so good - we have done about 100 miles in the Isle of Skye and all seems fine - fingers crossed.

We have dealt with a few people at Trek, but I believe that the main contacts have been Tom and Carl. (Sorry, but I don't know their last names). I have to say that they have been really helpful and I cannot complain about their service - it has just been really frustrating that they have not been able to identify the problem. I think it has been just as frustrating to them.

For what it is worth, I think that the rain is a different issue. Both ours have got pretty wet and no problems.

Most of your experience, prior to the rain, seems to be the same as ours. Random switching off and on, with no beep. It even happened when the bike was stationary! Occassional 'telephone ring' from the battery (really wierd). When our display came back on it normally had a different distance displayed, but never reset to zero. On the first bike, there seemed to be a bit of burning on one of the connectors on the display, so we tried a new display unit and the problem still happened.

Good luck.

Jim

cybamuse
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

I had the issue where I was cycling along when my speedo abruptly went to zero km/hr and stayed there. Because the speedo said zero, I had no more power-assist.

I called my dealer who told me to bring in the bike. I got a phone call several hours later telling me the rear connector wires has been deliberately broken and it was going to cost me $180 as it was not a warranty job. To say I was underwhelmed is an understatement! I kept asking, how can I have possibly severed those wires when I was cycling?

Anyway, I was going to escalate the matter to BionX and told him to touch the bike until I came in and took photos. I went in the next day and the bike was being fixed, but the guy who yelled at me wasn't there. As it was being fixed at that moment, I went up and took the photos. I asked the tech working on the bike how these wires could have broken when I was cycling at the time? He hemmed and hawed a little and then pointed to some pretty deep scuff marks on the metal brace that the cables were mounted on (the brace between axle and bike frame). They ran the entire length of the brace where the 2 cables usually sit under their protective neoprene casing.

He then turned the pedal around and pointed out that it came very close to the frame. Maybe as I cycled, the pedal was hitting the cables and probably nudging them around, causing them to rub up against the frame and over time, the stress got too much for the wires and they broke. I just shook my head. I asked how it can be fixed? And he told me when he replaced the cables, he was going to try and mount them more under the metal brace so they have less chance to get hit by the pedal and thus shifted and have stress put back on the cables/wires again.

I said this is an installation issue and maybe it's not a warranty issue, but I didn't mount the cables in such a way that the pedal was going to hit the connectors if they shuffled around withing the neoprene cover... He didn't disagree.

So I post this to alert people to this potential issue. If you have an intermittent speedo or one that has ceased to function, and your metal brace where the cable/connectors is all scuffed at the back of the bike, then this might be the cause - and why it keeps reocurring when you think the problem has been fixed. The only solution appears to be replacing the connector with the faulty/broken wiring. And then the solution going forward is to make sure those cabled are placed where they can't be hit by the pedal! Hope this helps some people.

Torquil Macleod
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Re: Bionx system cutting out and/or giving very little power

I had the same problem and it was very difficult to resolve. Eventually with the assistance of articles on the Nyce Wheels website I was able to check out the pin out connections on the external harness as I suspected that the intermittent fault would be a broken or partially broken connection. I eventually traced the fault to a broken connection inside the cradle onto which you clip the handlebar computer. The broken wire (green)had snapped off the pcb and was laying on the board making intermittent contact. Operating the buttons on the computer often broke the connection giving rise to the familiar symptoms as described elsewhere.

I effected a temporary solder repair by unscrewing the back off the cradle (remove 5 tiny screws), however it was evident that the repair was not going to last so I replaced the cradle. This time I filled the cavity in the back of the cradle with quick setting araldite. Now there is no chance of the wires soldered to the pcb flexing and snapping off the board. The result has been a cured ebike which over the last 18 months has run faultlessly. Its first year in service was a nightmare. This reliability issue was well known by Trek who abandoned ebikes using the Bionx system which is a great pity. It has been let down by one small quality control issue.

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