Campagnolo EPS V2/3 Battery charger problem.

[SolongSid]

Anyone else had a problem with bent pins on Campag EPS battery charger?
Need to work out how to re-straighten the pins on male end of charger lead as a replacement is expensive.

[Bourquek]

I was always afraid of something like that. Just curious how did it happen?


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[audiophilitis]

A friend of mine had the same issue -- he ended up getting a new charger. Those pins are delicate -- make sure both ends are aligned properly before pushing them in.

[graeme_f_k]

I was always afraid of something like that. Just curious how did it happen?


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There's only one way it can happen - trying to force the plug together when the male & female sides are misaligned.

If you are very careful and very lucky, you can straighten the pins out with a fine pair of surgical tweezers but we'd still recommend replacing the charger because bending the pins back and forth will weaken them - and you really don't want one to break off in the plug, as that'll cost you a PU.

When mating the male to the female, offer them up, face to face, put a tiny amount of inward pressure on the two halves and slowly and gently rotate them relative to one another - when they fit together correctly, it's very easy and immediately obvious - they'll slip together straight away so long as the pins have not been previously distorted. There is a marker moulded onto the plug that tells you where the locating spline inside is.

[SolongSid]

I was always afraid of something like that. Just curious how did it happen?

Bike was stored on wall hanger and I attempted charging from underneath without removing it. Due to an injury my bike has been unused since Sept last year and had forgotten just how much care was required when inserting male end of charger into controller. So, partly my fault but have to say I've always thought the lead design is fundamentally flawed/not fit for purpose and should never have passed Campagnolo R&D. The amount of people on the internet who have had similar problems would seem to supports this.

[Butcher]

This by far is the worst thing with the EPS system. What were they thinking. With my eyesight it's hard to make certain it aligned in the right rotation before I push in.

I would be nice if it was like a mini USB or something similar, hard to screw up that one.

[SolongSid]

This by far is the worst thing with the EPS system. What were they thinking. With my eyesight it's hard to make certain it aligned in the right rotation before I push in.

I would be nice if it was like a mini USB or something similar, hard to screw up that one.

I agree, surely it wouldn't have been difficult to use a universally accepted connector. Why in heavens name did Campag choose such a fragile design?
This problem has totally prejudiced me against using their stuff in the future.

[SolongSid]

I was always afraid of something like that. Just curious how did it happen?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There's only one way it can happen - trying to force the plug together when the male & female sides are misaligned.

If you are very careful and very lucky, you can straighten the pins out with a fine pair of surgical tweezers but we'd still recommend replacing the charger because bending the pins back and forth will weaken them - and you really don't want one to break off in the plug, as that'll cost you a PU.

When mating the male to the female, offer them up, face to face, put a tiny amount of inward pressure on the two halves and slowly and gently rotate them relative to one another - when they fit together correctly, it's very easy and immediately obvious - they'll slip together straight away so long as the pins have not been previously distorted. There is a marker moulded onto the plug that tells you where the locating spline inside is.

Thanks for your input graeme.
Would you mind enlightening I and fellow EPS users as to the thinking behind the design of the male charging lead and why the sturdier and more common USB wasn't used?

[graeme_f_k]

Sorry to be a while coming back - I didn't see this notification.

My understanding is (and bear in mind, there are all sorts of commercial and IP issues here in what we can and can't say and indeed in the info that we ourselves see) that USB was not a possibility.

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that this is because of the voltages required - the original USB spec allows a max of 5.25v / 500mA whereas it's true, some more recent iterations allow up to 2.1A. Campagnolo use a battery that requires a higher voltage / current than USB in the original spec can provide for charging - that in itself is dictated by the whole architecture of EPS so you can't change one thing without changing many other aspects. Mini and micro USB may have a lower max current handling capacity, making voltage transformation up to the 11.1v / 500mA used in PU charging problematic - TBH I haven't checked on the mini and micro USB specs. I only know the standard USB specs because many moons ago I was involved in computer hardware design.

Males on the charging lead are a better bet than males on the PU (as we had in v1). Damage to a male (more likely) on the charger side is less costly than it would be, were the male side on the PU.

[corky]

My biggest gripe is that the cable from the charging box to the connector is so short, you either dangle the whole unit from the connector or find something for it to rest on, why not supply a couple more feet of lead and let the box sit on the floor?

Ha'porth of tar 'n all that.....

[jbentley]

If you put a cable tie through the hole in the charger, you can make a loop to hang it on the end of your bars to support the weight. I guess this would only work for EPS V3 though with the charging port on the junction box

[evilashphalt]

As I am now on my third EPS charger can I bother this forum again to ask the best possible way to engage the charger
Life long Campy man ........... but a fourth is just plain getting out of hand ... and seriously thinking etap out of complete frustration

[Mockenrue]

What exactly is the problem? I've been using EPS since early 2015 (V2 and V3) without difficulty on the original charger. There's a notch in the charger plug which corresponds with a slot in the interface port, thus ensuring correct orientation of the connector. As long as care is taken to align this when plugging it in I can't envisage any problems as it is the only correct way to do so.

[Ebruner]

Three bikes with EPS. 28,000 combines miles. Zero charger plug problems.

[graeme_f_k]

As I am now on my third EPS charger can I bother this forum again to ask the best possible way to engage the charger
Life long Campy man ........... but a fourth is just plain getting out of hand ... and seriously thinking etap out of complete frustration

There is a factory video on both the Campagnolo website and an earlier one I made a while ago on the Velotech YouTube Channel.

If you have managed to mangle three chargers, the only way that can happen is if you force the male and female halves of the plug together.

I've done this connection quite literally hundreds of times - I look after a fleet of EPS-equipped demo bikes, I have two of my own with upwards of 20,000 km on both, I look after team bikes and regularly plug chargers into PUs for test as well as to recharge PUs that we hold in stock and I have never had a problem. Every PU that comes into our workshop gets a full battery charge before we do anything to it or the bike it's fitted into, so that we can straight away discount battery charge issues from anything that we are looking at ... so I think it's fair to say that the problem occurs because too much force is being used - that is all.