Speedict Power/bike computer

[Deleted member 4366]

It's arrived now so I can give some preliminary comments.

First of all, no wiring instructions. I think that's poor as all it needs is an A4 photocopy of a sketch.
I've been on their website and downloaded the user guide, but none of them tell you which side to connect the battery as far as I can see. Also the temperature sensor has three wires and is symmetrical, but it doesn't mention which way round it should go.

Curiosity got the better of me so I took a wild guess which side to connect the battery. I chose the one marked "+" and "-", whereupon a red and a green LED started flashing, so I guess that's correct. I managed to pair it with my Samsung Galaxy S2 and then opened up the client software that I had previously installed. With the galaxy, it doesn't work anything like what's mentioned in the user guide. The guide says push buttons to do things but there are no buttons on the galaxy. After a bit of experimentation, I think found most of the relevant things, but i can't get anything other than zeros in the various display parameters. Something's obviously wrong, but I don't know what. I guess I'll have to wait 'til after Chinese New Year to find out.

Impressions so far: A potentially good product let down by poor instructions.

 

[amigafan2003]

You can connect either side to the battery - the speedict can monitor current draw from the battery OR if you connect it to a charger current input.

If you're getting zeros then swap the battery to the other side.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Thanks for that, and I also got a quick reply from Speedict on the ES forum, where there's quite a long thread about it. There are markings on the side of the device which shows input and output - not easy to notice as the writing is hardly visible. as bad luck would have it, mines the wrong way round so back to the soldering iron.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I found the problem. It's shipped with old firmware. The firmware needed to be updated before I could use it with an android phone or something. Unfortunately, I've turned all my computers over to Linux now, so normally I'd be out of the game, so i went round my mate's and he did it for me. Now everything is working and there's lots of new features like the ability to limit max speed, max amps. min discharge volts, max charge volts - all with alarms, so perfect for lipos. I'll try iy out tomorrow and report back. The only slight criticism I have now is that you can only see speed and one other parameter at the same time. Perhaps in the future you'll be able to see watts, aH and speed all on the same page.

Final moan: It would have saved a lot of hassle if there was a clear wiring instruction and a little note to say "update firmware before using with an Android phone"

 

[Scottyf]

Hello Dave,
What's the max voltage you can use this gadget with? Looks interesting.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Hello Dave,
What's the max voltage you can use this gadget with? Looks interesting.

66v max unfortunately for you.

No, only joking. Its 80v max so you should be just about ok. The Speedict guy andwers all questions immediately on the ES forum, so you can check with him if its OK.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Tested it today. Here's what i found:
Everything works as it should with one small exception. I ran it alongside my Cycle analyst and the numbers all came out about the same. The exception was the maximum current, which showed 38 even though I was limited to 20. I think it must be showing spikes because I could see it jump when I was only using small currents.

The display is very clear as you can see from the photos. Switching between the parameters is fairly straight forward. Speed always shows and you slide from screen to screen, which obviously can't be done with gloves. On the lesser android phones, you switch screens with the keypad, which might be easier, but you get a smaller display.

The menus are not very logical. Navigation through settings and back takes a bit of trial and error, but once you've got it figured out should be OK.

Installation is very straight forward: Solder two battery connectors and connect it between your battery and controller; fix the speed sensor just like any bike computer. On my bike I had to make a spacer to bring it closer to the spoke magnet.

You need to allow connection on your android phone (pairing) and then, when you open the ap, after a couple of seconds, it connects and shows results on the screen.

To make a mount, I took an old iPhone mount and cable-tied a Galaxy case to it, so that I could clip in and out my phone.

Overall conclusions. If you only have one bike, a Cycle Analyst might be more convenient: It's always there to display and record, and it's screen is back-lit so can be seen in all circumstances. Only downside to a CA is that you can't leave your bike in dodgy places. The standard mount allows easy removal (by thieves). The Speedict is cheaper and your display (phone) can be taken with you. It has very limited wiring so can easily be transfered between different bikes if you have more than one. Therefore. it's better for testing bikes. I didn't get a chance to use it in bright sunlight, but I can imagine a problem with some phones. The Speedict has the additional feature of showing maps and recording where you went if you're the type that likes to keep records.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Forgot to add photos:

 

[cwah]

super nice review Dave.

Does it also work if you don't have the phone plugged in? For example, if you ride multiples times without the phone, then plug your phone to know how many km you did in total, would that count the previous km?

What's great with the speedict is that you only need 1 device (the phone) to be used both as GPS and wattmetter. It really cleans the handlebar a lot.

For me, I have now a speedometer and a GPS holder and that makes my handlebar cluttered. The cycle analyst doesn't do GPS and I'd still need 2 device. But with the speedict I can have both in one

I'm certainly going to buy it too

 

[Deleted member 4366]

It logs data, so you can download and view it later. From memory, I think i read that it stores 24 hours of data. I guess the clock stops when you switch it off, so that would mean 12 day's worth of commuting for a journey of one hour in each direction. In my review, I forgot to mention the governor functions. you can limit speed, current, volts, temp, etc with alarms. I set my current to 20a max and that's what I got. The optional alarm goes off when you reach the max and won't go off until you reset it. I think it would be better just going for a minute with something flashing on the screen.

 

[cwah]

Thanks Dave, you're the best

Scottyf, the max voltage is 80V. Not sure it will survive 20S lipo

 

[Scottyf]

That's ok I only run in series of 6s packs!

 

[morphix]

Found this thread very interesting and great review of an interesting product. I discovered this quite by accident after seeing Dave's samsung galaxy on his Jetstream conversion photo and wondered what it was! My own bike has a fairly sophisticated kit compared to the basic LED controllers, it has LCD with a lot of info such as speed, distance and control over speed settings (but only rudimentary current draw indicators, no actual voltage reading).. I'm wondering if I should buy an ordinary motor and controller now for my next conversion and get one of these speedicts...if it lets you set the speed levels, it might just be a cheaper alternative than my LCD console kit, and that gives me more freedom over motor size and power then.. the benefit of my kit though is that it has 6 adjustable pedal-assist levels...you wouldn't be able to achieve that on the speedict would you?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

If you build/modify your own bike, a Speedict is very usefull for setting the right current for what you want. You can limit current with the Speedict, but if you want to increase the current by soldering the shunt, it'll show exactly what you've got in real-time.

Since I did my review, they've made loads of improvements and there's more to come. You can now get loads of parameters on the screen at the same time and it has ready-made legal modes.

The Speedict will work independently of any other displays you have. You just connect it in line between the battery and controller and it will give all battery info, speed/distance info and GPS info (gps comes from your phone).

You have the option of fitting your throttle and/or pedal sensor to it to send a derived throttle signal to your controller. This is necessary for power/speed limiting and softening the start with high power bikes.

There's a massive thread on ES, where many questions have been answered and you can see how rapidly they build suggested features into new versions of the software.

Speedict are soon to release an all singing all dancing controller with built in bluetooth to display all the parameters on Android and iphones. Should be quite something! Can't wait.

Endless-sphere.com • View topic - Speedict Ebike - Anybody seen/tried this?

 

[morphix]

This sounds like a major breakthrough development for the e-bike industry and what it's been needing for a long time.. I've always thought such technology was lacking in a market which is fairly primative still in terms of the controllers and switches etc.. this takes it to a whole new level and puts it firmly into the 21st century with smartphone, GPS, PC software etc

Do you need a special GPS-enabled smartphone to use the maps/journey tracking feature, or will any Android OS smart phone do?

I bought a Nokia n810 internet tablet not so long ago which has bluetooth and GPS Sat Nav I had planned to use it on my bike...I'm thinking that would only run the basic Java applet thing for speedic wouldn't it so the GPS would be useless?..The n810 has a Linux-based OS, although I've heard it can be made to run Android. I'd probably be better buying a second hand Android smartphone.

I've yet to check the prices of my existing e-bike kit with my supplier in Austria. I know he's put his prices up a fair bit since I bought mine which cost me 400 euros. I asked him for a 20" 250W wheel thinking I would just take the kit off my 26" bike and he quoted me 389 euros just for the wheel!! BMS Battery were planning to offer the same LCD consoles and controllers a year ago, but nothing came of it and there seems to be nowhere you can get these online except my contact in Austria.

 

[jerrysimon]

The speedict certainly looks interesting and I am tempted to get one and use it with my now spare GPS enabled Samsung Galaxy smart phone.

Regards

Jerry

 

[benjy_a]

Can I just ask... Do you need to have the phone on and connected for this to function or does it keep the preset parameters when the phone is not connected?

I don't really want the hassle of connecting my phone every time I want to ride the bike but I'd like to use the current and speed limiting functions. Is this possible?

Thanks

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jerrysimon]

Check the web site. I have trawled through the documentation and from what I can tell it stores 12 hours of data onto the 1MB of eternal storage. This can then be downloaded to your phone later.

You will of course need to connect with your phone when you set it up initially or if you want to change settings.

Regards

Jerry

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The speedict connects automatically to a bluetooth enabled Android phone. All settings are kept once you have chosen them. You select the parameters on your phone, which then transmits them to the Speedict, where they remain active until you change them. You don't need the phone to run the Speedict. You only need it to set it up. Thereafter the phone is passive - only used to display data in real time. The Speedict also logs data in files for each journey. It stores GPS position, speed, amps, voly
ts, temperature, etc so that you can see exactly what happened during the journey. You can view the data graphically by downloading to PC, or see key parameters - like max speed, distance, time, max amps, min volts, max temp, etc - on your phone after downloading the files.

The Speedict is compatible with any Android phone. If your Android phone has GPS, you get the GPS position logged with each data point and can use GPS speed as well as or instead of sensor speed. If your phone doesn't have GPS, Speedict still works, but GPS data won't be logged.

If you don't have an Android phone, then it's time to get one. They can be bought used for less than £50, and they have so many functions now they're more useful than a Swiss Army Knife. iphones have had their day, so time to move on if that's what you've got.

 

[jazper53]

It sounds all great, hi tech gadgetry, but not sure if its more of a distraction to keeping aware of the road, or general enjoyment of the journey