Terminal Frustration with Rain/Moisture

[jim_s]

I'm reaching a point of near-terminal frustration with my iBike (wired mount w/ cadence) as regards moisture/humidity/drizzle. I understand that the iBike needs airflow in the front port to calculate power, but I've now had 3 rides in the past week that were drizzly at worst, very humid at best, with either no reading on speed, or total trash on speed (for instance, I was reportedly doing 73mph up a hill today - I wish!) I rode today with a brand new battery, thinking that perhaps that was a contributing factor, but no luck. Oddly enough, the cadence seems to work in most of these conditions (though the whole thing quit outright for a while today, with the iBike shutting itself off - apparently thinking that I'd stopped riding, despite my laboring away at the pedals). Even after the moisture had abated and the road had almost completely dried out, I was still getting either complete junk or nothing at all (and this was a good hour after things had dried out)

Is this behavior (no speed, but cadence most of the time) a 'regular' behavior, or does it sound like something is wrong w/ the unit perhaps? This is only happening in heavy moisture (I don't often ride in true rain, and don't expect the iBike to work reliably in such conditions based on what I've read). What are my options for combating this? I could honestly forgo power readouts on the occasional wet ride w/o any real problem, but the lack of speed (and consequently of mileage) renders the computer pretty useless. Heck, my $19.99 SigmaSport that I replaced w/ the iBike did better than that!

I've heard of various things like people using Vaseline or such between the computer and the mount - would that solve this issue? (Again, I'm *not* expecting power when things are truly wet, but riding in light drizzle or even just extreme humidity, I should hope to at least get the basics.)

Appreciate any help/advice!

Jim

[Site_Admin]

Uh, send me a ride file so I can see what's going on.

[jim_s]

Thanks - I'll get that to you this evening. I need to DL the file tonight (I didn't bother after yesterday's ride) and will attach it to this thread.

Appreciate you taking the time to look at it!

Jim

[jim_s]

Alright, attached (hopefully!) are 3 ride files - these are the results produced by my iBike on my Sunday ride. It was a 61mi solo through rolling terrain. The files produced were the 29, 8 and 12 mi files - in that order. The iBike shut itself down, presumably because it couldn't detect any wheel or pedal motion, on it appears at least 2 occasions. The first 20-23 mi of the 29mi file look right, but at that point, I entered some light drizzle (honest, it was just enough to make me put on my jacket, and I could hear little teeny patters against my jacket, but that was it!), and things pretty clearly go to heck from there. By the last 20+mi of the ride, the rain had completely stopped, and for the last 15+mi of the ride, the road was almost completely dry (it was just drizzling on one side of a ridge), but the iBike never quite recovered.

Several times, I removed the unit, tried to shake any water out of the port, tried blowing into the port to clear it, etc. I also checked and pretty thoroughly dried the contacts on the unit and on the mount (wired) several times in an effort to clear things up, but to no avail. The only effect of these efforts was that the iBike would momentarily start registering speed (but low single-digit speeds, and I was doing high-teens to low-20's), then would drop down to zero. I would suspect its just a contact thing (ie, the contacts in the unit or base), except that the cadence worked most of the time (except when the unit shut itself down completely)

I had to zip up the files and attach as a zip file - I couldn't get the forum server to accept any other formats (.csv, .txt, etc). If you need them sent in a different format, let me know (as well as let me know how to get them to successfully attach!

Thanks for any insight or advice - I'm really at a loss to A) determine what occurred (clearly, moisture-related...) and B) figure out how to work around the problem. The unit, while nice, isn't much use if it doesn't work in light drizzle or any time afterward on a ride.

Thanks!!

Jim

[racerfern]

Have you taken a look at the base unit itself. Could there be water getting in where the wire enters the unit? Or maybe the wire itself has rubbed and opened or broken a wire. Also, under the old topica forum there was talk about the wires pulling out of the head unit. Try pushing the wires into the unit and also possibly relieving any tension on the wire that might make them pull out as you ride.

FWIW, I've had my wireless unit in a couple of light rains with no issues and in a very heavy rain. The unit worked perfectly until the deluge became too much. At that point the wattage numbers went through the roof. As soom as the rain settled down everything went back to normal.

[jim_s]

Thanks for the ideas Fernando - I'll look at that. Its possible that water is getting into the mount. I don't think its a wiring/connection issue (ie, w/in the mount), as the whole setup works fine when its dry out - its just when its wet that it stops working, though its possible that adding water to the equation is enough to push it over the edge. I have it mounted under my aerobars, so its also possible that perhaps water is being thrown up off of the wheel, which could end up sort of 'magnifying' the actual level of moisture hitting the base.

[racerfern]

There is a tiny hole on the bottom side of the iBike presumably to allow air to travel through. That may be how wind speed is determined and of course to keep a head of dead air from building up. Obviously that needs to be clear. I assumed that when mine acted up in heavy rain it just couldn't drain water out that tiny hole fast enough.

One final note, make sure you have a solid lock down when putting the iBike on the mount. On my wireless that connection is a bit sloppy. I have two pieces of electrical tape in the center of the head unit to take up any slack because the unit would shut off at times. Since I put the tape on, there are no issues.

Please note, these are guesses and conjecture. I'm stabbing in the air and hoping that something will suddenly jump out at you.

[travispape]

Jim, Do you have more than one magnet on your wheel? It almost looks like there are places in your ride files that the speed sensor might be picking up a second magnet.

[jim_s]

No, just one magnet. But, interesting development - on my way into work this morning (humid, but dry pavement), I was getting some bad readings again - speed was out completely, then was up around 50mph (not...), then bouncing around. I jiggled various things and it settled down to real readings - it appears that jiggling the wire down where it goes into the wheel pickup was what got it straightened out. I'm now wondering if perhaps I don't have a loose connection in there and/or if maybe water is somehow getting in there. (I washed my bike last night, so maybe some water got in there?)

At any rate, I need to examine the pick-up/wire connection today and see if this was just a coincidental fix this morning, or if there's something more to it.

I had a prior (wired, speed only) magnet get hung up in the spokes previously (broke the pickup unit), so bought a wired cadence mount. I've got a good bit of money sunk in wired mounts at this point... If it turns out to be the wheel pickup, has anyone had any luck splicing a different pickup unit (I have 2-3 generic ones lying around) onto the iBike mount?

Thanks!

Jim

[Steve_Davidson]

Jim,

I have spliced several pick ups in the past with no problems. I had similar issues with damaged wires (mainly self inflicted). I bought some cheapo speedos from a supermarket and just spliced in the pick ups, kept the battery and threw away the rest.

Steve

No, just one magnet. But, interesting development - on my way into work this morning (humid, but dry pavement), I was getting some bad readings again - speed was out completely, then was up around 50mph (not...), then bouncing around. I jiggled various things and it settled down to real readings - it appears that jiggling the wire down where it goes into the wheel pickup was what got it straightened out. I'm now wondering if perhaps I don't have a loose connection in there and/or if maybe water is somehow getting in there. (I washed my bike last night, so maybe some water got in there?)

At any rate, I need to examine the pick-up/wire connection today and see if this was just a coincidental fix this morning, or if there's something more to it.

I had a prior (wired, speed only) magnet get hung up in the spokes previously (broke the pickup unit), so bought a wired cadence mount. I've got a good bit of money sunk in wired mounts at this point... If it turns out to be the wheel pickup, has anyone had any luck splicing a different pickup unit (I have 2-3 generic ones lying around) onto the iBike mount?

Thanks!

Jim

[pjboyle]

Jim, Do you have more than one magnet on your wheel? It almost looks like there are places in your ride files that the speed sensor might be picking up a second magnet.

I think this is supposed to normally be a problem only at low speeds, but the pickup can register double hits if the magnet polarity is twisted 90 degrees on the spoke so the null portion of the field passes the sensor. See the article on the Sheldon Brown site about this phenomenon, which describes it fairly clearly.

http://sheldonbrown.com/cyclecomputer-magnet.html

PJBoyle