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Poor data

Murray0710
over 4 years ago
Got a replacement set of Vectors running v3.6. Used them 4 or 5 times last week in Spain on Bike A and no issues, l/r balance around 50'ish/50'ish which is same as my 2 pairs of Vector 2s. Was using an Edge 1000 head unit.

Back on Monday, fitted them to Bike B, Edge 1030 head unit. L/R balance was 56/44! Avg and np power looked too high

Today, fitted to Bike C, Edge 1030 head unit. L/R balance was 45/55! Also had a power spike of 2440w for ~3seconds. Avg and np power looked too high. Got a 300 tss for a < 3 hour ride!

All bikes running 172.5 cranks and I do a calibration before each ride.

No consistency or accuracy at all.



  • 0 over 4 years ago
    Some installations require more 'ride-in' time than others, to achieve consistent zero offset (and consequently, balance and PCO) values. This can be caused by the crank faces not being exactly flat or square to the threads, or due to debris being caught between the pedal flange and the crank face. The pedals generally settle in more quickly if they are torqued tightly (> 20 foot-pounds) at installation, and it helps to do some hard efforts and then re-do the zero calibration.

    If you have data that particularly concerns you then we can look at it if you post it here, or send it to [email][email protected][/email]
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    If the l/r balance is out. Y so much does that mean power being recorded is wrong? I’ve not been torquing up these pedals too tightly as I thought we were over all that now. I knew it was a pre-requisite for v1 and v2 which I’ve basically treated as unmovable I.e once on a bike they stay. I thought the v3s were easi,y movable between bikes and should be fitted same as normal pedals. Are you saying they require a bedding in process when fitted? And until that happens you run the risk of bad data? Sort of defeats the purpose of using a powermeter that is sold as being easily moved between bikes. Never had issues like this with P1s although (ended up with other issues though).
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I also used a single washer on both sides on the last two installs as I thought this would give a ‘squarer’ fitting.
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I’ve not been torquing up these pedals too tightly as I thought we were over all that now. I knew it was a pre-requisite for v1 and v2 which I’ve basically treated as unmovable I.e once on a bike they stay.

    Vector 3 is a lot less sensitive to installation torque than Vector 1/2. However, that does not mean that they will report good data if the spindles are not installed securely.


    I thought the v3s were easily movable between bikes and should be fitted same as normal pedals.

    This is correct. The recommended torque for pedal spindles (as recommended by Shimano, Look, Crank Bros. and most other pedal and crank makers) is in the range of 25-30 foot-pounds (34-40 N-m). This is required to prevent the force that you apply to the pedals from eventually wearing out the threads and mounting flange in the crank. There are some extremely lightweight cranks (THM, for example) that have a spindle torque limit of something like 20 foot-pounds, and if you have those you should not exceed their torque limits, but the practice of hand tightening the spindles and then given them just a little tweak with a wrench, will not give good power data from Vector pedals.


    Are you saying they require a bedding in process when fitted? And until that happens you run the risk of bad data? Sort of defeats the purpose of using a powermeter that is sold as being easily moved between bikes. Never had issues like this with P1s although (ended up with other issues though).

    You should be able to get repeatable data quickly, by tightening the pedals to between 20 to 30 foot pounds, going for a quick spin where you do some hard accelerations, and then setting the zero calibration. Because the P1's have their sensor electronics in the pedal body they are less sensitive to what you do with the spindle.
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I’ve just checked the pedals this morning and they were tight enough. After Monday’s ride and getting wrong incorrect l/r balance data I put them on another bike but much tighter. What I didn't do before calibrating and using yesterday was do some hard accelerations first. However I’ve got the automatic calibration set on so would expect data from second half of ride to be correct as I’d stopped for 45 minutes and an automatic zero calibration should have been done. Are you able to access my garmin connect data to check this ([email protected])?

    I’ve now fitted the pedals to another bike this morning and made sure pedals were tight and checked with torque beam. I will try doing some hard accelerations before calibrating.

    As an aside, i didn’t have these issues with my first set of v3s I got in January and they were fitted exactly the same.
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I don't have direct access to your data.

    One thing that can affect zero calibrations is whether or not the pedal is at a temperature equilibrium when you do the zero calibration. It generally takes about 15 minutes for the pedals to acclimatize to the ambient conditions, and if a zero calibration is done while this acclimatization is going on, then that can cause a residual zero offset once the pedals do achieve temperature equilibrium. You would be better off doing a zero calibration indoors, then riding the bike outside where the temperature might be 10 or 20 degrees different, than doing a zero offset 5 minutes after taking the bike from one temperature environment to another.

    Also - the automatic zero process will not save large offset changes (such as might occur immediately after re-installation). This is to prevent a bogus zero offset (for instance, when the bike is parked with a pedal leaning on something) from messing up the existing zero calibration.
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    I don’t think the temperature differential would have been large enough to have an effect as bike is stored in inheared garage. Also would the possible incorrect calibration affect the l/r balance? I’d have thought it would have affected both pedals the same. From past experience with v1 and v2 a large l/r imbalance pointed to an install issue, normally one of the pedals not being torqued up quite enough. I will try what you have suggested over the weekend and se what happens.
  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I also have problems with L/R balance, and for me the issue is consistent between bikes. My most recent ride (176km) shows 57-43 L/R balance, which I believe is too much to be correct. The same happened on the other bike I had the pedals on, with ranges from 60-40 to 56-44 on long rides.

    This is my second pair of Vector 3 pedals. With the fist one I had something like 52-48, which is more likely. Also if you look at the L/R balance chart, there are multiple readings when the right pedal just does not transmit data (L/R balance of 100-0).

    Could anyone from Garmin take a look at the ride and help me diagnose this issue?

    connect.garmin.com/.../3663214139

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Murray0710

    Data looks a lot better now that I've calibrated after riding it for a bit and not directly after fitting the pedals. Got long dropout, ~1 minute, 2 minutes into first ride after calibrating pedals but nothing since. Getting a lot of right pedal missing messages that  I wasn't getting before.  Still on first set of batteries so hopefully I won't have the same issues I had with my last set of pedals when I replaced the batteries for the first time.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to branix

    I get this exact thing. Right pedal seems to drop through the ride and left shows 100% then left/right data gets messed up because of it.