Wahoo KICKR: what is wrong with my setup? ANT+ problem?

[kkibbler]

Here's the Strava from a recent trainer session. Nothing too silly. 8 min @ 155w and 2 min @ 210w for 5 repeats, bookended by short warm up and cool down @ 130w.


Here's my setup:
Original KICKR latest firmware, broadcasting speed + power over ANT+
Edge 520 latest firmware, paired with KICKR and sets target power in erg mode
Cadence from Garmin magnetless sensor
Workout created in Garmin Connect, sent to Edge 520, which runs the workout

Problems:
-Power reading drops out momentarily every few minutes, as shown by the down spikes
-There's a power drop at the end of every 210w block when target power is reduced to 155w
-Biggest problem: There's supposed to be 5x 210w blocks in the workout but the Garmin lost connection with the trainer just before the last block and couldn't set target power. This continued into the "cooldown" which was supposed to set target power to 130w. I just rode out the rest of the workout at 155w. When this happened (and it has happened repeatedly in the past) I try to reconnect to the trainer via the Garmin's menus but it will keep searching for and not find the trainer. Only after powering off/on the Garmin will it re-find the trainer.

What's going on???
-KICKR broadcasts speed over ANT+ and there are no drops. The Garmin pairs to this speed sensor (separate from the trainer sensor) with no connection drops.
-No drops in cadence as well, which is also ANT+. This seems to rule out interference, which should affect all ANT+ signals (?)
-I have an ANT+ dongle and PC that I can use to test things out, but I haven't been able to navigate my way through to a good software setup. I tried Golden Cheetah for the first time today and got lost in the app.
-Is this something wrong with my Garmin, the KICKR, or both?

Please help me out of this incredibly annoying mess.

[AlphaDogCycling]

I had similar issues a long time ago, that I tracked down to WiFI interference. The other thing I did was get get a amplified USB cable and put the ANt+ stick right under my bottom bracket. Good luck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kkibbler]

I suspected interference but wouldn't it knock out the signal from the other ANT+ sensors as well? Or is the Kickr signal especially weak?

[nobuseri]

Kickr signal was not too bad on its own. Most trainer progs (on the PC) give you some sort of radio strength meter per sensor. I still have the USB extension cable and stick the ANT+ adapter by my front wheel. It makes a diff in the signal.

[jekyll man]

Did you turn the GPS off on your Garmin?

They lose signal, and then use other resources to try and find it again.
New 820 (probably others too, but can't comment for sure) has a designated turbo mode to erradicate this.

I think if you ran Golden cheetah with an Ant+ dongle at the same time, you wouldnt see any dropouts on that.

Tip for golden cheetah (and good practice for your garmin ime), wake all your sensors before switching it on.
Also if you go into options, you can create sensor db's there, and store it under a prfile "name).
makes things easier next time

[afalts]

No matter what I did with Ant+, including put a dongle within 12 inches of my Kickr, I always had dropouts like you're experiencing. Then one day I switched to Bluetooth (on iphone and ipad), and haven't had a single dropout in a year. It even works from a different floor in my house.

I know wifi can cause ant+ interference, but turning off wifi in my house is not a 'reasonable' solution unless everyone is asleep.

[kkibbler]

Thanks for the tips @jekyll man, shall put them to good use. GPS is off.

Made a workout in GC3 and completed it without disconnecting (yay), but ran into other, different complications.
-Occasional power spikes
-25~45 second lag between when target power is supposed to change and when it actually changes, e.g. supposed to go 155 -> 210w at minute 18, GC3 shows 210w at minute 18, but trainer resistance only changes 25~45 seconds later.

I'll keep trying with GC3 with/without BT, with/without ANT+ cadence, longer USB extension cable, etc.

@afalts: What iOS or PC app do you recommend that can control trainers over Bluetooth? I'm willing to try.

[sun]

As someone mentioned earlier, it is likely wifi interference. I switched my wifi network to 5.4ghz on everything I could and stopped having dropouts.

[kkibbler]

Update-

Used a USB extension cable to bring the ANT+ stick closer to the KICKR, now about 2m apart. No improvement. Still getting power spikes and laggy target power changes.

Other things left to try:
-Even longer USB cable to bring the ANT+ stick directly under the KICKR
-Turn off Garmin Edge (I like having it show my numbers like I'm riding outdoors but maybe it is causing interference)
-My trainer sits between a Sonos soundbar and wireless sub that works over wifi or something? Not sure which channel it uses but this could be a source of interference as well.
-Setting wifi to 5Ghz, tho I hate messing with the router

When using the Wahoo app over BLE target power is set right away and power doesn't spike, so this is hopefully an ANT+ or GC3 problem, not a trainer problem.

[kkibbler]

Solved!

Chart goes speed / power / cadence

-Longer USB cable made no difference
-Turning off Garmin Edge made no difference

After searching through the GoldenCheetah Google Group I found mention of only pairing an FE-C trainer by itself. So I paired only the trainer (FE-C) and trainer power sensor (ANT+), and it was perfect. No power spikes in GoldenCheetah, no lag in setting target power. Bonus: I didn't need to mess with the wifi or my Sonos stuff.

Since I didn't pair anything else to the PC, I captured the ride on my Edge 520 and ultimately uploaded that to Strava, and you can see signal drops like literal clockwork. Every 2 minutes something in or near my living room pings like a mofo and causes a signal drop, but strangely this only affected the power data. /shrug

Conclusion:
-Improper pairings in GC3 caused power spikes and laggy target power. Re-pairing in a specific way solved these problems. In my defense, GC3 is not very user-friendly.
-ANT+ connection between trainer and Garmin is weak and experiences regular signal drops, almost certainly caused by wireless interference.

[11.4]

A couple of our riders had this problem and finally had Wahoo send them replacement wireless cards for the Kickr. That solved it. They did seem to have a problem for a while with those cards and we could sometimes improve it a bit but never really fix it.

[kkibbler]

Interesting. Which problems did they have exactly? Dropped ANT+ signals and connections or poor power readings and target power changes with other training apps? I had hoped there's nothing wrong with the trainer itself since it is a right heavy and bulky bastard to handle, but it's consoling that Wahoo is willing to send replacement parts. Is the wireless card something that can be DIY replaced?

That said I do have a KICKR2 on the way so maybe this is moot, but if there's potentially something wrong with the unit I'd like to patch it up before selling it off.

[kkibbler]

Update for anyone who cares

Ride data from TrainerRoad > Strava, chart goes speed / power / HR / cadence

I spoke too soon about GoldenCheetah. I simply could not set it up correctly to read those 4 sensors and still reliably control the trainer. No idea how "allow multiple devices in train view" and "selected by default power/speed/cadence/HR" settings are supposed to work, and documentation is non-existent. It can read HR and not read power, or read power and HR but not set target power, among other combinations of "not working."

$10/month later and TrainerRoad is working omg so much better. Setting up the sensors was as easy clicking big fat buttons that went from grey to green once successfully paired. Tried a 20min FTP test that I had to cut short, during which it (TR) read all my sensors correctly, set target power correctly in erg mode, switched between erg and slope modes correctly, basically flawless. No drops, no spikes.

I like free as much as the next guy but this is one expense I should have made long ago.

[afalts]

@afalts: What iOS or PC app do you recommend that can control trainers over Bluetooth? I'm willing to try.

I used TrainerRoad on my iPhone or iPad with Bluetooth. It's the most fuss-free program I've tried, and well worth the $10/month to use my trainer without any hiccups.

Sounds like you've discovered that now though

[gplama]

Thought I'd update this thread after coming across some interesting information deep down in the depths of GitHub. I've experienced this issue with drops every 100 seconds on my Garmin head units I use to collect data and could never get it sorted... Zwift itself seems to skim over these drops.. possibly holding last value... I don't know.

In summary:

Interference about every 200s:
This is a 4Hz FE-C profile colliding with a ~4.004Hz power profile about every 204 seconds.

Interference about every 100s:
This is a 4Hz FE-C profile colliding with a ~8.008Hz power profile about every 102 seconds.

More in depth details here: https://github.com/mhanney/zwiftalizer/issues/10