New toy. Had it on my TT bike last week for a turbo session, and it was reading way too high, but all seemed uniformly high. Probably 200 watts high. Due to issue with the Joule then I need the beta firmware and stil waiting for Saris to get back to me on that. Anyway, swapped to the road bike at the weekend, and first ride tonight but had some very odd results. Cadence worked well, but the power was garbage. Would start off OKish (possibly low) from rest when pulling away from stop lines, but then drop down to zero as I cycled along in a slow decrease over 20 seconds or so. Hills would show 50watts max. ried the backward pedal for 4 rotations a few times and saw no change. Not sure if I should get some onscreen confirmation that the autocalibration has been initiated or not?
Ta. Isn’t that one of the ‘calibration’ factors? Ie if I retorque to 10Nm then don’t I need to sendd it back to Quarq for the recalibration (I’ve not got an iwidget to use Calvin or whatever it’s called). Could the chainrings have come loose in 30km? Never had that in all my riding on any bike.
Cheers. I did think of that, but can’t immediately think of anyone with one. Will try to retorque the rings, hope saris come back at some point with the beta firmware, and then send an email round work. First cycle club ride of the year (in NZ so clocks have just gone forward) and so I suppose there’s a slim chance that there’s a roadie with a techno fettish but I’m not holding my breath.
I noticed the cadence was on 3s smoothing and I’ve changed that to 1s. Although the cadence seemed fine, could the magnets be too close to the meter? Would that stop the power, but allow the cadence to still read accurately?
Cheers. I did think of that, but can’t immediately think of anyone with one. Will try to retorque the rings, hope saris come back at some point with the beta firmware, and then send an email round work. First cycle club ride of the year (in NZ so clocks have just gone forward) and so I suppose there’s a slim chance that there’s a roadie with a techno fettish but I’m not holding my breath.
I noticed the cadence was on 3s smoothing and I’ve changed that to 1s. Although the cadence seemed fine, could the magnets be too close to the meter? Would that stop the power, but allow the cadence to still read accurately?
Thanks for all help and suggestions.
The magnets can’t be too close, but they can be too far. But usually, that’s when cadence also is flaky.
Well I’ve been given the beta firmware now, so will try loading that tonight (sadly after my ride). Also rip off the crank and lose a magnet (I double stacked them).
I don’t need HR for the joule do I? That was the other ‘change’, I was wearing my polar watch / HRM strap. Joule is set to use ‘speed’ as the trigger for recording, so I would have expected the unit toi work fine, just with a blank HR section.
I don’t need HR for the joule do I? That was the other ‘change’, I was wearing my polar watch / HRM strap. Joule is set to use ‘speed’ as the trigger for recording, so I would have expected the unit toi work fine, just with a blank HR section.
I appreciate the help.
Do you have an ANT+ speed sensor? Not trying to be patronizing, but you wouldn’t be the first person I’ve talked to who couldn’t figure out why his/her Joule wouldn’t record Quarq data.
Ta. Isn’t that one of the ‘calibration’ factors? Ie if I retorque to 10Nm then don’t I need to sendd it back to Quarq for the recalibration (I’ve not got an iwidget to use Calvin or whatever it’s called). Could the chainrings have come loose in 30km? Never had that in all my riding on any bike.
Retorque should not require slope change if you torque to Quarq spec.
I’ve not had chainrings come loose that quickly either, but my troubleshooting rule is to list what might cause the problem and work on the easiest/cheapest to rectify first.
Yep, have 1 (actually 2, 1 per bike). Obvious is good. Especially with something new to me. Using the cyclops one, and not overly impressed. Massive, need to be mounted facing the magnet, so the look is poor as the battery compartment is visible and not the logo side. Clearly more designed for use in cadence mode. I’ve swapped the Joule to point ot the second speed sensor and that’s showing up fine on screen.
So will go through the following tonight -
update firmware to beta
Remove a cadence magnet
put back on tt bike and check results (rules out retorque without risking touching them and therfore pointlessly risking any calibration change).
The description of your problem sounds exactly like what mine was doing. LBS messed with it and couldn’t figure it out with Quarq on the phone. The unit was then sent back to Quarq and found to not have any problems. I then figured out it was the magnet location on my cervelo BBright bottom bracket – the shape of the BB allowed me to epoxy the magnet in only one of a couple areas, and those magnet areas need to be both close to the Quarq/spider thingy AND in line with the circular ring part of the Quarq. Just look at the directions and they make it very clear. Hope this is your problem.
Nailed it. It was the cadence magnets. The switch to 1s smoothing showed that the cadence was jumping around, and that was throwing the power is a function of torque (actually measured by the cranks x cadence (I think from skool). What had happened is that the outer of the stacked magnets had decided to take more of a fancy to the BB than the other magnet that was mounted in the putty. So was pretty much rubbing on the inside of the ring. Removed that second magnet and all was fine (although still reading high). Just updated the Firmware so that should help. Although I wish this was legit:-
Duration Average power Watts/kg
5 sec 1,682 15.45
30 sec 1,140 10.47
1 min 1,060 9.73
20 min 689 6.33
60 min 591 5.43
90 min 529 4.86
Beta installed (according to poweragent), but it’s still showing 14.072 on the screen and didn’t seem to autozero (still said bad data). Anyone else got the beta - does it show the new firmware version on screen?
Ok, final bit of help from Cycleops and I’ve got the Joule talking to the Quarq.
But now it’s showing -675 / -672 as calibration values which seems out of range for a new meter. Was in teh garage 1st thing at 4 degrees though, would this explain it? Worth retorquing the bolts?
Retorqued the bolts to 12Nm and it had an offset of -0030. Great. Went for a ride, and I’m hitting 2300 watts uphill and hammering out abou 560w on the flat at 40kph. Rechecked the manual calibration and it’s back to -380. And then I’m still climbing at over 1000watts for the next 10 minutes. Impressive if it were true.
Any other ideas before I wave the flag and return them for service? Only thing I’ve not done (I think) is replace the battery, worth trying?
Thanks, but bought the joule just before Garmin annouced that TSS/IF were going to be added and makes no difference at all to the operation of the Quarq which is (almost certainly) at fault here.
I’d be very surprised if this has nything to do with the Joule: it just reports values.
I have the Joule / quarq, and also had a garmin 500, and here’s what I recommend:
torque your chainring bolts (sounds lke you did this) with a torque wrench in a star pattern so one doesn’t get really tight compared to the others as you reach max torque ( ie if you reach max torque while others are loose you will end up with less uniform torque)
ride hard (do some sprints) and flex the rings to relieve any stress.
set it somewhere with a constant temp for 30 mins or so
do a manual offset test, ride it for 3-5 mins, then do another one,
repeat step 5 3-5 times. If your values are all over the map, you may have an issue and you need to contact Quarq (they are GREAT with customer service BTW)
Have you changed the rings from the ones that were calibrated at the factory?
Have you tried to adjust any parameters with your iphone?
Have you asked Quarq to tell you what range the slope should be and verified this with your iphone?
When my quarq had an issue, the power jumped around a great deal: with smoothing on the head unit you won’t see this, but with smoothing off you should be able to see a weird pattern where wattage jumps around when at a steady effort - one of the best ways to tell this is to ride a trainer at say 90-100 rpm really steady and watch you meter - if it jumps around a great deal, something’s wrong.
Thanks. 12nm is right for steel and thats whats on the S975 (confirmed with magnet).
I did the torqueing of the bolts in a circular skip pattern. So numbered in a circle the 1 3 5 2 4 - 1 3 5 2 4 with the first round to 7nm and then up to 12 in the second stage.
