Garmin Vector 3s number "issues"

[pafori]

Batteries once a month?!

Roughly once per month, maybe less often. In March, I rode 1K miles (almost 500K feet of climbing ), so usage is a factor. I buy the Energizer LR44 1.5V Button Cell Battery 20 Pack on Amazon for $7-8, which, now that the Vectors are working consistently, I expect will last me for about 1 year.

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[RTW]

I’ve used mine for about 300km since changing the batteries.

[pafori]

Batteries once a month?!

Roughly once per month, maybe less often. In March, I rode 1K miles (almost 500K feet of climbing ), so usage is a factor. I buy the Energizer LR44 1.5V Button Cell Battery 20 Pack on Amazon for $7-8, which, now that the Vectors are working consistently, I expect will last me for about 1 year.

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Sorry wrote this early AM ... I did 50K ft of climbing in March. Not sure, but battery life might depend on usage factors like miles, altitude, heat or even power.

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[TobinHatesYou]

Altitude and power don’t matter in isolation. Temperature matters as with any battery...extreme cold is worse than heat. Climbing does matter because the PM can’t go to sleep as much, but 50000ft in a month of riding is not extraordinary. Try CR1/3N batteries and not bulk LR44s (even if they are labeled Energizer.) Those bulk batteries never seen to last.

[pafori]

Altitude and power don’t matter in isolation. Temperature matters as with any battery...extreme cold is worse than heat. Climbing does matter because the PM can’t go to sleep as much, but 50000ft in a month of riding is not extraordinary. Try CR1/3N batteries and not bulk LR44s (even if they are labeled Energizer.) Those bulk batteries never seen to last.

Thanks for the insight. I'm fine spending $7-8 per year on batteries.

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[TobinHatesYou]

Looks like those 20pc bulk packs on Amazon are hit/miss and possibly counterfeits. Pretty risky affair...they could vent, catch fire, bulge and get stuck, fry your $1000 pedals, etc. They certainly aren’t lasting long. I’ll just keep spending ~$22 for 6 CR1/3Ns and piece of mind.

[cyclespeed]

My Vectors failed after 6 months.

An error message popped up and they wouldn't give proper power readings. Sending them back and getting them fixed was a lengthy affair, and when they came back I sold them and called it a day.
I always found their readings, even at the start to be quite erratic, and I was more interested in the cadence than the power to be honest.
And I didn't like using Keo cleats, and am happier now back on Dura Ace.

[IvanZg]

When I did a swap from old to new frame nothing should have been affected as it was complete crankset swap so did not do anything about the pedals...

Anyhow I did manual calibration on wahoo. Went for a ride today but haven't done that climb from last week as I did not feel good enough to do 20km up the hill so instead went for a shorter 3,3km climb that is at 4%avg. Did 2 attempts and avg power was differing some 7 watts, end times were also just few seconds different. Also I've checked how I did before and power vs time reflects the same trend like many other attempts I did this and last year on that climb. Hopefully those numbers that gave me issues from last week are some sort of an exception. I've compared them to some 20 attempts before and they all show the same trend when it comes to avg power to end time.

[RTW]

Rode mine today. Power spikes and drops. Ordered new batteries, but I’m also close to giving up. All this crap on the bike has to work perfectly, or it just distracts and spoils the whole experience.

[IvanZg]

So I did that same climb today and while I was going through rush hour traffic in the city I realized that problematic segment was done with a guy sitting on my wheel for 8km or so after which he overtook me and my speed was reduced drastically as legs were not able to provide any more power. So today I did a steady pace of approximately 210W with having 5s, 30s and lap power on my Wahoo for easier pacing. Also had some cross and headwind but overall time was 50ish seconds faster with lower average power. When I came home I went on Strava to compare two efforts. Last time I started with much higher power then today and managed to keep some 30W more for first 8km compared to today. Last 2km where sub 180W. So "mystery" sorted. Actually I feel a bit embarrassed that I did not realize that my power dropped significantly at last section of it and that arithmetic average was not representative to this case as function of drag is not linear.

[Alexandrumarian]

Rode mine today. Power spikes and drops. Ordered new batteries, but I’m also close to giving up. All this crap on the bike has to work perfectly, or it just distracts and spoils the whole experience.

Its frustrating af, been there - mine started to act during a vacation in the hills of a foreign country. Anyway, do you still have the old style door? If so, have it changed asap. I have about 2000Km on mine and it is definitly an improvement over the old one. Only had a couple spikes during a ride which meant I needed new batteries.

[RTW]

I will get new batteries. Or at least they are on their way. This isn’t what I expect from a consumer product, but perhaps I am so used to iPhones and the like.

[Alexandrumarian]

Garmin have a talent for messing with their buyers but lets not digress. I will stress it again, ask for the new battery holders from Garmin if you still have the original ones. I still saw ppl complaining even with them but for my two pairs of 3S (about 2k on each) they did the trick (unlike the cork trick which did not help, probably because I did not forced a big chunk in there, feared I will break the tab). As for batts, my fav are Varta.

[spdntrxi]

Although mine have been good (replaced by garmin early on).. I am wondering if the 1 large battery would work better instead of 2 smaller ones.

CR1/3N 3V is the larger size

[RTW]

I have new battery holders, and now gone to the single large battery. To me, this is a better solution, that potentially having 'gaps' between the cells / cells shaking around.