QUESTION: I’ve got a bike with ultegra di2 electronic shifting after 2 years and 10k miles With no problems. The system won’t stay charged more then 48 hrs. The Bike has spent most of the summer in the local bike store where they swapped the main cable And the battery. It still Doesn’t work. Any suggestions?
As a work around I just charge it up before every ride when charge up my lights. – Chuck M.
Jim Langley responds: The Di2 batteries are usually pretty good. Are you sure your charger is okay? It needs to put out enough juice to fully charge the battery, which is supposed to take about 1.5 to 3 hours for a full charge depending on which battery type you have.
Do you know if the bike shop used the Shimano E-tube diagnostics to “look under the hood” to find the issue? You can learn more about that and how to do it here: https://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/about/
It seems to me that it has to be a bad battery, a bad charger or that your system is using too much power for some reason. Maybe there’s a draw on the system when you’re not riding, like from a short in a wire? Usually all or some of the wires run through the frame. It would be pretty easy for some sharp edge inside to cut through the wire insulation, for example. It might even happen where it exits the holes in the bars and frame.
I have never used the diagnostic tool, but I believe it would be able to pinpoint what’s going on so you can find it and fix it.
I would have expected a Shimano authorized dealer to be able to diagnose and fix the problem. Since the shop you tried didn’t, maybe you should contact Shimano and have them recommend another shop who can help?
I hope something here helps you fix the issue and get your Di2 working properly again.
I’ve read that if the RD high limit screw is not set correctly the RD will keep trying compensate and quickly drain the battery. Worth a look.
Pretty bad system design by Shimano if that is the case. If there is trouble it should try for some short time and then flash an error rather than continue to drain its own battery. These things have microcontrollers in them; it’s not hard to add some code to prevent a small error from becoming a complete failure.
Kenneth is in the right track
It was my front DR that was constantly trying to trim
Corrosion was the problem
I’m a Di-2 newbie and have another suggestion based on my early experience. Newer Di-2 batteries connect to both ANT+ and Bluetooth devices. Re: the BT, if you happen to leave BT turned on on your phone and are near your bike all day, the battery will churn away trying to connect. It’s happened to me more than once.
Just remember to turn off your BT on your phone. Even better, using the eTube Project software (on a computer), you can turn off BT so it will only use ANT+ to connect to devices.
It’s been part of the learning curve for me in adapting to Di-2.
Yes this does happen too, great catch! The Etube app can be a royal pain to understand. I don’t know why the big S has not addressed this.The recent update is nice, but could be better. And the lack of a Mac program to diagnose and set Di2 functions. I mean com’on all these young guys riding mostly use MacBooks.
I’ll second the suggestion to look at the charger. In a completely unrelated matter, I was having trouble with a modem/router. Replaced it, but was too lazy to change the power cord because I’d have to move a desk. Still had trouble. Long story short, it was the power cord, not the modem/router itself. Point is, power cords can go bad if they have some sort of voltage transformer on them.
Similar thing just happened to a friend of mine. Hers would only last 7-10 miles. She had to replace her battery. It’s about the same age as yours. Probably worth getting your LBS to run the diagnostic, since it sounds like there can be multiple causes of the problem.
I have had the di2 on two bikes for 5-6 years and have no problems. The di2 is also synced with my GarmIn headlight plus the Varia Radar system. I have found that if one of the bikes sits unused for several weeks the battery does lose its charge
I’ve found that after the charging light goes off, disconnecting and reconnecting the power source results in at least another hour of charging. I usually get up to 900 miles before needing to recharge which I do when the green led light starts blinking.
I also have my di2 synced with my Garmin 1030 and the Garmin show me how much battery life i have remaining and it is amazingly accurate
Thank God for cable actuation…..KISS.
Yes, exactly. From an engineering perspective, not only are you adding failure modes, the analysis and repair of those failures are vastly more difficult, time consuming and expensive.
Or go with SRAM. The original batteries for my Red eTap drivetrain don’t seem to have lost a smidgen of capacity in their first 26,000 miles, and counting. No broken cables either 😉
Hey Ed, good to hear from you!
BTW, I have never broken a cable. I don’t know how that is possible, esp using name brand stuff.
I guess some one has done it though.
I had a similar problem. Turns out the shifter had gotten corroded with salt/sweat and was shorting out. The LBS took it apart and cleaned it and now it works fine.
I had a similar problem and the diagnostics didn’t pick it up. I was able to isolate the part by unplugging all the derailleurs and shifters and plugging one in at time and recording the battery drain. Turns out the shifter had gotten corroded with salt/sweat and was shorting out. The LBS took it apart and cleaned it and now it works fine.
It looks like you’ve got a newer system so this might not apply but I’ll also chip in by saying that some Battery holders from 6770 series seem to discharge the battery. So much so that I now unplug the battery (when I remember) after every ride. Diagnostics are not picking anything up either and changing the cradle fixed the problem for me.
On a DI2 system, if you hit the shift buttons, front or rear, and the crank does not move to actually shift, the servo motor on the derailleur continues to draw power. This can happen after you get off of the bike, hit one of the shift levers and don’t move the chain to complete the shift. It will kill the battery very quickly and can burnout the servo motor.