Homage E-14 Shifting Unit failure

grone

New Member
Region
Australia
The E-14 shifting unit stopped working on my Homage a number of months ago now, just a couple of months out of warranty, which is a nuisance because the bike shop wanted nothing to do with me, and the Rohloff distributor would only look at the unit if I paid money.

It did not fail when I was riding - it failed some time between being connected to the Bosch DC-DC travel charger (that I plug in to a solar battery), and when I next went to use the bike. Turning it on when I went to use it, and the gear shifting no longer functioned.

Recently I decided to open up the E-14 shifting unit myself. It was plain as day that two MOSFETs on the circuit board had overheated and failed. Thankfully they're still available to order (although are now a discontinued product), so I bought a few, and today I've replaced them. I connected the E-14 shifting unit back on to the bike, but without the shift cog so that it was isolated from the internal gears. When the bike is turned on, the Nyon display shows ERROR 595. When left for a moment longer, the E-14 motor begins to rotate and does not stop until the bike is manually turned off.

I am *assuming* that the bike had the same error when it was charging, and that because the shifting motor was connected to the internal gears, once it started spinning and reached the end of the gear range, it was no longer able to turn and burnt out the MOSFETs.

Unfortunately this means I'm still, all these months later, unable to ride the bike.

I did contact Bosch regarding compatibility with the travel charger, and they've since said that it's *possibly* no longer compatible due to software updates. It still charges, but it possibly damages hardware?
 
Sorry to read this. If you look around (Reddit, FB groups, EU forums), you'll see that the shifter is a constant source of problems. I went thru 2 myself.

The shifter is now in v2, assuming you have v1, which is now all over as it appears overstock went to the usual suspects. Unfortunately, the cheapest I could find is $299 on eBay. You can look for the ones that accept bids, but I'd also be inclined to go to manual shifting , although I don't think that will spare you error messages every time you start up.

I'm starting to see posts on issues with the new trigger shifter as well, which is a real shame.
 
Probably not what you want to hear... But I'd replace it with the manual shifter, they work flawlessly.
That's precisely what I want to do. That and swapping the belt over to chain drive - the belt and the associated components are just too expensive and hard to find for the amount of distance you get out of them.
 
Sorry to read this. If you look around (Reddit, FB groups, EU forums), you'll see that the shifter is a constant source of problems. I went thru 2 myself.

The shifter is now in v2, assuming you have v1, which is now all over as it appears overstock went to the usual suspects. Unfortunately, the cheapest I could find is $299 on eBay. You can look for the ones that accept bids, but I'd also be inclined to go to manual shifting , although I don't think that will spare you error messages every time you start up.

I'm starting to see posts on issues with the new trigger shifter as well, which is a real shame.
Not long ago I saw that Rohloff released the E-14 Solo for non-electric bikes, and my first thought was 'why?'. I'm sorry for whoever has one of these things bolted on to their hub.
 
I'm using a KMC e8 chain and so far I have 8000mi on It and it still hasn't reached 0.75 stretch. This on a heavy SUV style bike and a 1000w mid drive. The Rohloff manual shift does pair nicely with the motor.
Honesty I may consider the E-14 Solo for myself if I ever get bored as the motor integration seems to be the weak link. I'm surprised they didn't start off with that version as it's far less complicated.
But I'll let others Beta test 🙃
 
That is true - my concern seems to be the integration with Bosch. It would be a lot easier to troubleshoot as a stand-alone unit.
 
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