Forums » Quarq Discussion » Cold Weather Problems (9 posts)

Cold Weather Problems
neilhorn
8 months, 4 weeks ago

I was riding today in cold weather (28 F). I use a Cinquo and a Garmin 705 (3.1). The units paired okay, and I could calibrate manually before the ride, but once I started riding, the power and cadence (both from Cinquo) didn't display or record. All other features of the Garmin worked fine.

After the ride I took the bike inside. The Cinquo battery was at 2.95 Volts, and the power and cadence displayed again.

Does the Cinquo have any know issues with cold weather?

tgarson
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Since the roads where I live are a sloshy mess and I'm not inclined to bring out my Tri bike and give it a field test, but while I certainly can't speak for Quarq I'd think they'd have had ample opportunity to test performance in cold weather being located in South Dakota.

All of that being said, as just another CinQo user the battery would have been my first guess as well. As you are likely aware, batteries do not perform as well in cold weather as they do in warm and it is possible that if you had a weak battery and brought it into a cold enough environment it could lack fail to power the Cinqo. Bringing the battery back inside and checking it again, the battery could read a higher voltage in the warmer interior environment. The kicker in that though is that I don't consider 28 F all that cold in terms of killing healthy batteries.

Jim@Quarq
8 months, 3 weeks ago

@neilhorn - You should change your battery and try it again. Battery voltage is affected by both temperature and load, so it may measure 2.95V inside with no load, but it may be much lower at 28F with current flowing in use. There are currently no known issues with the CinQo in cold weather, we have run them in our freezer at 0*F without trouble. So try a fresh battery and see if that works.

adamdelu
8 months, 3 weeks ago

Had same problem at 19 deg Fahrenheit. Wattage would go from reasonable vale to 0 wwatts approx every 30 sec. Once weather warme--I climbed out of a cold valley and the sun rose--it worked normally. I attributed it to poor battery performance in cold or possibly shrinkage of the magnet putty. My cadence would drop to 0 as well as wattage, so I suspected magnet detected 0 angular velocity.

Today worked great at around 0C=32F. No dropouts on 2 1/2 hour ride.

adamdelu
8 months ago

Again, rode this morning at 21F and had cadence/power dropout during the coldest part of my ride. This is after almost 3 weeks of flawless performance; however, all other rides were during warmer temperature (above 32F).

Once weather improved, as the sun came up, I got power readings again.

Have not changed the battery, which now has approx 80 hours on it since new, so I cannot report whether this is a voltage issue. I also still suspect possible shrinkage of the putty at colder temps moves the magnet away from the crankset. I will be putting the setup on a new bike and testing this theory shortly on an upcoming cold, gloomy ride.

I guess one other culprit could be Garmin 705 at low temps, but it continues to talk happily to my ANT+ HR strap while reading "0 Watts" or "- - Watts."

SickBoy
8 months ago

adamdelu, w.r.t. the putty hypothesis - have you tried the new bottom bracket shim magnet holder? That would eliminate any potential putty contraction/expansion due to temperature.

CoreyD
7 months, 4 weeks ago

Just saw this thread. I had some similar issues on a cold weather ride today.

I'm using a Garmin 705 with my quarq and about 10 min into the ride I got a "low batt" warning. Then I got some weirdly high power readings, after which my quarq just read "____" on the display.

I hadn't changed the battery since I'd bought it, so I figured replacing it would solve the issues.

With the new battery installed, the 705 now picks up the fact that there's a power meter present, but no values will display. I've tried auto zeroing as well as manually zeroing the power unit. I also checked my magnet distance based on a suggestion in this thread -- it's well within the 1/2" specs.

Any other ideas?

neilhorn
7 months, 2 weeks ago

Follow-up to my original post. I replaced the battery and have had three cold weather rides (22 to 35 .). The Cinquo has performed flawlessly with the new battery.

gregoiree
7 months ago

I have had my cinqo for about a month and just had my first malfunction. I use with a Garmin 705. Temps were at 12F at the start of the ride and warmed up to about 20F by the end of the ride. At first it seemed to take longer than normal to pair up with the Garmin but then worked fine for about the first hour. During the second hour the power and cadence readings would cut in and out (read 0's), and for the third hour the power and cadence were completely gone (again reading 0's). The speed, distance and HR on the Garmin worked fine. I use the BBmount and not the puddy, so puddy shrinkage is not the issue. I had done several outside rides at around 30F before this without problems.

I have less than 20 hrs on my cinqo so I would be surprised if the battery is low already....unless the battery was old when installed?

This ride that the malfunction occurred was mostly dry but I did pick up some freezing slush that built up on my brake calipers. Maybe a layer of frozen slush built up on the sensor and/or magnet? I didn't check that before I brought my bike inside.


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