# Orbea Gain M30 Torque sensor problem ?



## arao99 (17 Sep 2019)

Hi I have been riding my Gain for the last two weeks on holiday in France on their wonderful bike paths . I have not had to use power most of the time but turned it on yesterday to level 1 for some 10% climbs through the forests , the power came in after one revolution straight to full assistance and would stay on full just by turning the pedals in a very low gear and without any effort on my part flew up the hills . the app. did not show any percentage power at all . I tried in level two and three and I seemed to have more power. the power comes in and out very quickly , it was like having a throttle . Has anyone else experienced this problem. It was great fun but used the battery quickly.


----------



## Widge (17 Sep 2019)

My experience so far is that the application of the motors 'torque' power does not always kick in and out quite as you might expect sometimes. There is a sort of 'sweet-spot' - especially riding a steep section in 'turbo' mode IME. If your speed/cadence drop dramatically then the motor struggles to supply enough torque to carry you through as much as you might hope or imagine. It is 'only' a 40nm hub assist after all-and it WILL labour and run out of grunt if you can't actually get quite enough leg-power oomph to help it maintain its optimum sweet spot?
Maybe it's the nature of the beast?

HTH

Widge


----------



## arao99 (18 Sep 2019)

Widge said:


> My experience so far is that the application of the motors 'torque' power does not always kick in and out quite as you might expect sometimes. There is a sort of 'sweet-spot' - especially riding a steep section in 'turbo' mode IME. If your speed/cadence drop dramatically then the motor struggles to supply enough torque to carry you through as much as you might hope or imagine. It is 'only' a 40nm hub assist after all-and it WILL labour and run out of grunt if you can't actually get quite enough leg-power oomph to help it maintain its optimum sweet spot?
> Maybe it's the nature of the beast?
> 
> HTH
> ...


 There is nothing wrong with the amount of power and I know its only 40nm hub ,as soon as I turned the cranks I had full power and the bike climbed 10% hill as if it was not there and I did not have to put in any amount of power myself the bike just took off.


----------



## Widge (18 Sep 2019)

Ok...I think I must have misunderstood the point you were making. Sorry!


----------



## youngoldbloke (19 Sep 2019)

arao99 said:


> Hi I have been riding my Gain for the last two weeks on holiday in France on their wonderful bike paths . I have not had to use power most of the time but turned it on yesterday to level 1 for some 10% climbs through the forests , the power came in after one revolution straight to full assistance and would stay on full just by turning the pedals in a very low gear and without any effort on my part flew up the hills . *the app. did not show any percentage power at all* . I tried in level two and three and I seemed to have more power. the power comes in and out very quickly , it was like having a throttle . Has anyone else experienced this problem. It was great fun but used the battery quickly.


Had you asked the app to monitor the bike?


----------



## arao99 (19 Sep 2019)

youngoldbloke said:


> Had you asked the app to monitor the bike?


Yes I put the app on to try and see what was going on ,it showed 90%
battery but 0 power on the gauge . today I turned the power down on level 1 to less than 40% but it had no effect on the power that was put out by the motor , I used 8% in about 2.5 miles. the bike was flying against the wind with little or no effort from me.


----------



## arao99 (10 Oct 2019)

arao99 said:


> Yes I put the app on to try and see what was going on ,it showed 90%
> battery but 0 power on the gauge . today I turned the power down on level 1 to less than 40% but it had no effect on the power that was put out by the motor , I used 8% in about 2.5 miles. the bike was flying against the wind with little or no effort from me.


My bike is just back from the shop and they say I had it set to high they set it at 20% level 1 34% level 2 and 75% level 3.


----------



## NickWi (10 Oct 2019)

arao99 said:


> My bike is just back from the shop and they say I had it set to high they set it at 20% level 1 34% level 2 and 75% level 3.


What a load of old coblers. I suggest you find a better dealer, and soon! The default levels are all 100% and whilst I don't know what the exact power outputs are, I think level 1 is 100w, level 2 about 175w and with level 3 you get the full 250w. When you adjust the power percentage you adjust the power of that level only. If you set level 1 at 20% the motor is only going to give you 20w of assistance. That would be bearly noticable, but you say you can still feel it kicking in.

From what you've described previously I think your controller is stuck in level 3 and whilst the lights on the display may be changing, the electronic brain isn't taking any notice. If it were me, I'd be finding a dealer who knows what he's talking about and get it sorted under warranty. 

My Gain is now 18months old and I've been following forums about these ebikes for as long and whilst it won't be any consolation to you, but this is the first time I've heard of a genuine 'fault' rather than a bit of whinging & bitching.


----------



## Scaleyback (11 Oct 2019)

I have to agree with everything NickWi says. What is your dealer talking about ? 😳


----------



## arao99 (11 Oct 2019)

Thanks for your replies Nick and Scaleyback. Orbea told the dealer they had not had any problems with this bike before. The dealer was given access to software from Orbea which showed exactly what the system /motor was doing in modes 1,2 and 3 while talking to Orbea on the phone at the same time, Orbea say was completely correct. I was getting emails from Orbea telling me someone was connecting to my bike and giving me exact location details, which I did no know would happen and the dealer also did not know would happen . To be fair with dealer a (national dealership) they had never had any problems with Orbea Gain bikes before. While they were waiting for software from Orbea three of them tried my bike and did not feel that anything was wrong with it.(They had three other Orbea Gain bikes in the shop to compare) Even when I thought there was a problem with bike it did give more power in mode 2 and 3. I have not had any chance to try the bike properly yet only on the carpark outside the shop ,so look forward to a proper test when the weather is better. The dealer said they were not happy that a owner had access to an app that could change the power settings, I pointed out to him that the bike arrived mail order from one of there own dealers in another town with power settings 1-100% 2-100% and 3 -100% he though that would not have the factory settings . I lowered setting 1 to 70% because i did not need that much power.


----------



## ambax62 (7 Dec 2019)

Hi All, I bought a D50 in September. When the motor works well ..it is good. In terms of using power meter i have found there is a noticeable difference in the power options when in the high (red) level this does tend to 'drive' you along. As others have mentioned the power ratio can be varied via the ebikemotion app. 

On a different note i would welcome if anyone has experienced the same problem i have had in recent weeks. I have encountered a few occasions where the motor has suddenly stopped functioning whilst riding uphill most recently when about 2/3 the way up up Box hill Surrey , when the motor stopped and it was as though a weight had suddenly be added to the bike, difficult to pedal. I attempted to select all power options without any positive effect. Having reached the peak under my own pedal power I checked the battery power level that was still in excess of 70%. This incident occurred about 17 miles into the ride. I stopped for about 30 mins and then continued to ride. All was well for about 15 mins when the fault arose again and where the motor would be intermittent when on upslopes. When trying to any power options above eco (green) the bike would default back to eco. At no stage did i see any pink light that would indicate a clear fault. I have taken the cycle back to dealer for investigation, though they are unable to recreate the problem and it appears the diagnostic software provide to dealers by Orbea is quite limited. The dealer have advised they have now contacted Orbea for their review of the symptoms. I suspect there is a fault in the motor possibly a capacitor or 'dry joint' that is overheating after a period of use. Has anyone else encountered similar problems?


----------



## CXRAndy (7 Dec 2019)

I dont know the details of the motor, it could well have a thermal protection system, if motor gets too hot, power is shut down or severely restricted


----------

