The only thing that's Campagnolo I own are some coffee cups. Regardless of that, I'm always here to learn about what projects you're working on. Keep up the great work mate. I hope you get the time to post more videos in 2024!
Would love to see some sort of DIY power unit replacement for older EPS systems. The only thing holding me back from purchasing a used EPS group is the availability and price of the power units.
Yesterady I cracked open the V2 battery. I used a Stanley knife along the seams was easy to crack open. The battery are three cells in series. I replaced them with rechargeable lithium-ion and the system worked great. Super stoked. Granted the three batteries 3,7volts 850mah were bought a few years ago but still I had a green light when pressing the shifter mode. This morning however the new battery pack was dead. I’m not sure why. I suspect the eps system drained the new battery. My charger is also questionable. I’ve tried charging but there is no orange light registered on during charge. Not sure if the charger is kapot or perhaps the m5 cables are damaged. So not sure where to go from here. Back at square 1. Any suggestions?? The wire loom to connect the 3 cells to make up the battery is pretty. Icy the same as Shimano di2.
If you found identically sized cells they are likely old since nobody reputable has made this size in about 4 to 5 years. If you've cobbled on some random battery I'd check cell levels. You probably have a dead cell. Very common on cheap packs I've found. There are also protections in the power unit circuit board. For instance if you didn't transfer the battery protection circuit and don't have a thermistor it's likely blocking charging and operation. So if you thought you charged it in insitu you likely didn't if that's not connected. It was blocked. The other side is you could have tripped the cells overcurrent / short circuit protection. Small cells often rated for 1c. Battery protection is uses FET voltage drop. The right temp and a fully charged pack into a derailleur and bam... Disconnects battery until you charge. Bypassing is a recipe for bad things. This is precisely why I used super high current cells and designed my own battery protection with balancing that is programmable with accurate current sensing for the needs and can be set to be cautious like high discharge cut off and time programable current limits. My suggestion especially with v2 is not to do this. There is no way to safely reseal the power unit. V3 has orings on the caps that are pinch / glued in so its safer but water can cause corrosion to develop shorts on the dense capacitor banks and a compromised battery protection is recipe for disaster then.
@@kwakeham Additionally, opening the case nearly always results in unpredictable shifting. Where we see PUs that open "spontaneously" due (often) to incorrect mounting, the first indicator we have that this has happened, is shifting that doesn't stay programmed. I'm not sure why, I'd imagine it may be something to do with atmospheric moisture, based on how and when this tends to happen.
Oh I hadn't heard of this phantom shifting. The only ones I've bothered to open are V3's and again, o-rings. So could be as you said, moisture. It's also strange because V2 and V3 share almost all the same bits. If I recall it was the same PCB but maybe a minor rev to re-route the charge to interface, but really the pcb's looked identical ... but it was like 5 years ago since I worked there on this.
@@kwakeham Insofar as it was a not a common problem, what we found in our own, internal analysis at Velotech, was that if the PU was mounted behind the s/t or d/t bottle bosses and the recommended torques for the fixing bolts were exceeded (1.8nm), since the ends of the (usually riv-nuts) that comprise the bottle bosses might well be "stepped" relative to each other and it was against these that the PU tightened, the case could end up being flexed longitudinally. It was possible, if the customer was unlucky and / or the step was large, for the seams on the PU to open in these circumstances. We also saw a similar thing happen in the presence of some very strong cleaning products which attacked the bonding. Whilst steps were taken to reduce the issue (including our emphasis in the training programmes that we run for retailers) the problem was still encountered from time to time as mechanics or end-users assembling the groups either disregarded the torque recommendations for the fittings or, in assembling the bottle cage fixing nuts to attach the bottle cage to the reverse of the studs, failed to observe the recommended Loctite and torque regime for that operation (LT248 and a torque
Fascinating is all I can say. It's super strange. Very little knowledge of V2's. Here in Canada I see way fewer Campagnolo riders than in EU / UK, though even there they are smaller numbers -- even in Italy sadly. Some motivation to keep working on this for sure!
I guess it really depends. This is just how how I see it and honestly I'm wishy washy all the time. From a performance perspective wireless causes a delay of about 50 - 100ms and is easily interfered with. These are just facts and fighting them costs battery life in shifters and/or moving from electrical switches. I've also built prototypes to intentionally interfere to test. It took me 5 minutes with a dev kit with an antenna gains stage. On the other side, if you value clean cockpit and easier DIY install or your an OE, then wireless wins at ease and costs, but also has other advantages I didn't mention. Expandability. It's theoretically easy to change shifters, add remotes, add features, and more. But on the other other hand however, it also has easier engineered obsolescence. It' costs zero dollars of tooling to change code and cheap to implement to block pairing with older hardware. We saw this with first gen etap to etap AXS, though it did have hardware changes. For instance 12sp Campagnolo EPS shifters have re-engineered electronics to prevent 11sp shifters from working -- that cost them PCBs, tests, and tooling. Would cost them nothing with the new one.... Wishy washy. My protocol will be open so a hacked BLE car starter can work, and have no limits on intervals so that you could get super fast performance if you wanted to sacrifice battery.
@@kwakeham Well, yes - but bear in mind, manufacturing these days is about making new product and selling it. Like it or loathe it (and even being in the industry for my whole working life, I do a little of each), that's what pays my salary and presumably currently pays, or has, at some stage, paid yours - it's what paid for my education and it will also have paid for yours, however indirectly. There were (are) objective reasons why Campagnolo changed the protocol from a straight on / off in 11v to a resistive method of switching in 12v rather than just to (obvious) commercial benefit ... and the s/w changes to do that were actually quite small and reside in the Interface. With resistive switching, better internal diagnostics / testing protocols are available for testing the wiring loom, for instance, than are possible with a straight on / off switch. That they opted, in the end, not to implement them in v4 is by the by. There is a hack if users really want to use the "old style" levers with a 12s system, anyway. Wireless delays are so small as to be irrelevant in the context of bicycle shifting & as you say, depending on battery protocol, it is possible to all but eliminate them. Deliberate interference from outside is not really an issue in cycling, so whilst BTLE isn't the most secure protocol in the world, it's purpose in WRL is more to prevent crosstalk between units than it is to secure them from external influences. All that said, I and many others am / were perfectly happy with the original wired 12s system - but a quick look on almost any SM channel after SRAM appeared with wireless - and then with increasing frequency thereafter - will reveal an increasing clamour from customers for a wireless system. Bearing in mind that Campagnolo actually started researching electronic shifting almost in tandem with Mavic and before the competition (in fact, before SRAM was even born as a groupset-making company), it's natural that, corporately, they should want to "keep up with the Joneses".
The only thing that's Campagnolo I own are some coffee cups. Regardless of that, I'm always here to learn about what projects you're working on. Keep up the great work mate. I hope you get the time to post more videos in 2024!
Would love to see some sort of DIY power unit replacement for older EPS systems. The only thing holding me back from purchasing a used EPS group is the availability and price of the power units.
Yesterady I cracked open the V2 battery. I used a Stanley knife along the seams was easy to crack open. The battery are three cells in series. I replaced them with rechargeable lithium-ion and the system worked great. Super stoked.
Granted the three batteries 3,7volts 850mah were bought a few years ago but still I had a green light when pressing the shifter mode.
This morning however the new battery pack was dead. I’m not sure why. I suspect the eps system drained the new battery.
My charger is also questionable. I’ve tried charging but there is no orange light registered on during charge. Not sure if the charger is kapot or perhaps the m5 cables are damaged. So not sure where to go from here. Back at square 1. Any suggestions??
The wire loom to connect the 3 cells to make up the battery is pretty. Icy the same as Shimano di2.
If you found identically sized cells they are likely old since nobody reputable has made this size in about 4 to 5 years. If you've cobbled on some random battery I'd check cell levels. You probably have a dead cell. Very common on cheap packs I've found.
There are also protections in the power unit circuit board. For instance if you didn't transfer the battery protection circuit and don't have a thermistor it's likely blocking charging and operation. So if you thought you charged it in insitu you likely didn't if that's not connected. It was blocked.
The other side is you could have tripped the cells overcurrent / short circuit protection. Small cells often rated for 1c. Battery protection is uses FET voltage drop. The right temp and a fully charged pack into a derailleur and bam... Disconnects battery until you charge. Bypassing is a recipe for bad things. This is precisely why I used super high current cells and designed my own battery protection with balancing that is programmable with accurate current sensing for the needs and can be set to be cautious like high discharge cut off and time programable current limits.
My suggestion especially with v2 is not to do this. There is no way to safely reseal the power unit. V3 has orings on the caps that are pinch / glued in so its safer but water can cause corrosion to develop shorts on the dense capacitor banks and a compromised battery protection is recipe for disaster then.
@@kwakeham Additionally, opening the case nearly always results in unpredictable shifting. Where we see PUs that open "spontaneously" due (often) to incorrect mounting, the first indicator we have that this has happened, is shifting that doesn't stay programmed.
I'm not sure why, I'd imagine it may be something to do with atmospheric moisture, based on how and when this tends to happen.
Oh I hadn't heard of this phantom shifting. The only ones I've bothered to open are V3's and again, o-rings. So could be as you said, moisture. It's also strange because V2 and V3 share almost all the same bits. If I recall it was the same PCB but maybe a minor rev to re-route the charge to interface, but really the pcb's looked identical ... but it was like 5 years ago since I worked there on this.
@@kwakeham Insofar as it was a not a common problem, what we found in our own, internal analysis at Velotech, was that if the PU was mounted behind the s/t or d/t bottle bosses and the recommended torques for the fixing bolts were exceeded (1.8nm), since the ends of the (usually riv-nuts) that comprise the bottle bosses might well be "stepped" relative to each other and it was against these that the PU tightened, the case could end up being flexed longitudinally. It was possible, if the customer was unlucky and / or the step was large, for the seams on the PU to open in these circumstances.
We also saw a similar thing happen in the presence of some very strong cleaning products which attacked the bonding.
Whilst steps were taken to reduce the issue (including our emphasis in the training programmes that we run for retailers) the problem was still encountered from time to time as mechanics or end-users assembling the groups either disregarded the torque recommendations for the fittings or, in assembling the bottle cage fixing nuts to attach the bottle cage to the reverse of the studs, failed to observe the recommended Loctite and torque regime for that operation (LT248 and a torque
Fascinating is all I can say. It's super strange. Very little knowledge of V2's. Here in Canada I see way fewer Campagnolo riders than in EU / UK, though even there they are smaller numbers -- even in Italy sadly. Some motivation to keep working on this for sure!
Don't fully agree with "why wireless" - you should see my inbox ...
I guess it really depends. This is just how how I see it and honestly I'm wishy washy all the time. From a performance perspective wireless causes a delay of about 50 - 100ms and is easily interfered with. These are just facts and fighting them costs battery life in shifters and/or moving from electrical switches. I've also built prototypes to intentionally interfere to test. It took me 5 minutes with a dev kit with an antenna gains stage.
On the other side, if you value clean cockpit and easier DIY install or your an OE, then wireless wins at ease and costs, but also has other advantages I didn't mention. Expandability. It's theoretically easy to change shifters, add remotes, add features, and more.
But on the other other hand however, it also has easier engineered obsolescence. It' costs zero dollars of tooling to change code and cheap to implement to block pairing with older hardware. We saw this with first gen etap to etap AXS, though it did have hardware changes. For instance 12sp Campagnolo EPS shifters have re-engineered electronics to prevent 11sp shifters from working -- that cost them PCBs, tests, and tooling. Would cost them nothing with the new one....
Wishy washy.
My protocol will be open so a hacked BLE car starter can work, and have no limits on intervals so that you could get super fast performance if you wanted to sacrifice battery.
@@kwakeham Well, yes - but bear in mind, manufacturing these days is about making new product and selling it.
Like it or loathe it (and even being in the industry for my whole working life, I do a little of each), that's what pays my salary and presumably currently pays, or has, at some stage, paid yours - it's what paid for my education and it will also have paid for yours, however indirectly.
There were (are) objective reasons why Campagnolo changed the protocol from a straight on / off in 11v to a resistive method of switching in 12v rather than just to (obvious) commercial benefit ... and the s/w changes to do that were actually quite small and reside in the Interface. With resistive switching, better internal diagnostics / testing protocols are available for testing the wiring loom, for instance, than are possible with a straight on / off switch. That they opted, in the end, not to implement them in v4 is by the by.
There is a hack if users really want to use the "old style" levers with a 12s system, anyway.
Wireless delays are so small as to be irrelevant in the context of bicycle shifting & as you say, depending on battery protocol, it is possible to all but eliminate them.
Deliberate interference from outside is not really an issue in cycling, so whilst BTLE isn't the most secure protocol in the world, it's purpose in WRL is more to prevent crosstalk between units than it is to secure them from external influences.
All that said, I and many others am / were perfectly happy with the original wired 12s system - but a quick look on almost any SM channel after SRAM appeared with wireless - and then with increasing frequency thereafter - will reveal an increasing clamour from customers for a wireless system.
Bearing in mind that Campagnolo actually started researching electronic shifting almost in tandem with Mavic and before the competition (in fact, before SRAM was even born as a groupset-making company), it's natural that, corporately, they should want to "keep up with the Joneses".