Known Issues & Problems with Bosch Products + Help, Solutions & Fixes

[William - Bosch Team]

William, this is great info. I found similar charging instructions within the excellent Bosch manual “The ebike Battery Guide. https://www.bosch-ebike.com/fileadm...ike-Battery_Guide_MY21_US_CA.pdf?_=1608539234

However, this statement from within said document requests interpretation: “Fully charged batteries should be disconnected from the power supply.” Can we assume this applies to long-term storage? Or does it interpret as “Disconnect power once charged to avoid restart of the charging program?” Over charging in this manner was once noted as a possible way to shorten the life of the battery.
Please confirm the appropriate interpretation of this publication statement.

FYI, having a 1,000 Watts powering the Speed motor is really cool! 40 mile loop today and still had many Turbo-level miles left!

Great question!

Disconnect as soon as reasonably possible. If you charge overnight, disconnect the next morning when you wake up and notice it's full. If you forget about it until later in the day, that's OK too. The system will eventually trickle-charge to top it off if it gets low enough, but this is fairly unlikely to happen given the low self-discharge rate of lithium cells- it might take days or weeks to start this? I'm not sure on the trickle. It won't restart a charging cycle and damage anything.

One of the selling points of the Bosch System is the ease of use and ease of charging. Like your cellphone or laptop, you can plug it in to charge and not worry about it. It will cut itself off when full.

Best practices dictate keeping a constant watch over a charging battery, and disconnecting as soon as it is full, but that's not really realistic for many users.

 

[fooferdoggie]

I just have my charger on a s mart plug that turns off after 4 hours. it turns on at 8pm then turns off after 4 hours. makes life easy.

 

[webcurl]

One of the selling points of the Bosch System is the ease of use and ease of charging.

Or going slightly the other way let's say hypothetically: The 3-way switch on the charger allows you to charge your battery(s) to either 80, 90 or 100%, charge to 80% for absolute maximum life from your batteries, etc.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Or going slightly the other way let's say hypothetically: The 3-way switch on the charger allows you to charge your battery(s) to either 80, 90 or 100%, charge to 80% for absolute maximum life from your batteries, etc.

This would be awesome! I personally always charge to 100% so that I don't have to think about it, but I definitely see the demand for this kind of feature. I'm not sure what the future holds in terms of Bosch battery charging, but I'll cross my fingers.

 

[Sparky731]

Thank you again. Good info re:Bosch’s charging process. I will continue to use my smart outlet as a way to turn off the power should I forget. I am finding that the 4amp charger takes upwards of 10+ hours to charge 2 500w batteries if I start charging with 1 bar showing.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Thank you again. Good info re:Bosch’s charging process. I will continue to use my smart outlet as a way to turn off the power should I forget. I am finding that the 4amp charger takes upwards of 10+ hours to charge 2 500w batteries if I start charging with 1 bar showing.

man thats a lot of extra time over charging them one at a time.

 

[Sparky731]

man thats a lot of extra time over charging them one at a time.

The 2 batteries — one a 500w PowerTube, and the other, a 500w Range Boost — charge simultaneously.
I will soon replace the 500w PowerTube with a 625w PowerTube as soon as all parts come in.
While my range will be further extended, so will my charging time.

 

[fooferdoggie]

The 2 batteries — one a 500w PowerTube, and the other, a 500w Range Boost — charge simultaneously.
I will soon replace the 500w PowerTube with a 625w PowerTube as soon as all parts come in.
While my range will be further extended, so will my charging time.

yes but it only takes at most 3.5 hours to charge a fully drained 500

 

[webcurl]

The 2 batteries — one a 500w PowerTube, and the other, a 500w Range Boost — charge simultaneously.

If your Range Boost is connected in-bike with the Bosch Y cable which i'm 95% confident it is then the following applies during charging:
Bat1 charges to approx 80%, then Bat2 to approx 80% (or vice versa) (CC stage - Constant Current), then both batteries are simultaneously topped off (CV stage - Constant Voltage) to 100%.

 

[webcurl]

yes but it only takes at most 3.5 hours to charge a fully drained 500

https://www.bosch-ebike.com/au/products/charger - scroll down to "The details at a glance".
If the site asks you for a location and you enter U.S. you will not see details for all chargers, keep it on Australia or any other country that uses 230/240VAC as mains power - just with the Metric system, most countries use 230/240VAC

 

[Andrew Edwards]

Morning.
I have posted befor, but things have developed a little.
I have a BMW Pedelec with Bosch Intuvia System.
It was put in to storage for a time (Not by Me), but when it was taken out and charged, it would power up, but No speed shown on Displey and when taken out on a ride, it would go in to Drive intermittently for about 30 seconds.

I am a experianced cyclist, but my background is Auto Electrics and IT.
So my initial thought where that their was a Bad Connection some where.
Checked Display/Head Unit and battery, all ok (Battery takes and Holds a Charge).
Crank Arms where stuck on Solid and had to be Cut off, but no damage to Spline.
All plugs and socket to Motor Drive unit are ok, so had a think and dredging my way through Web Sites I came across Resetting the Battery.

With Battery and Display on the bike, I Pressed and Held the Battery Button for 15 second and when I release the Button the Display comes on with the Speed Display, but only for a short time.

Managed a acquire another Display and tried that on it, but the same happens.

I have took the bike to a number of Bosch Agents, but as it is out of Warenty, no one wants to know any thing about it.
I even tried Contacting BMW, but they just direct me to Bosch Dealerships.

Any Ideas?

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Morning.
I have posted befor, but things have developed a little.
I have a BMW Pedelec with Bosch Intuvia System.
It was put in to storage for a time (Not by Me), but when it was taken out and charged, it would power up, but No speed shown on Displey and when taken out on a ride, it would go in to Drive intermittently for about 30 seconds.

I am a experianced cyclist, but my background is Auto Electrics and IT.
So my initial thought where that their was a Bad Connection some where.
Checked Display/Head Unit and battery, all ok (Battery takes and Holds a Charge).
Crank Arms where stuck on Solid and had to be Cut off, but no damage to Spline.
All plugs and socket to Motor Drive unit are ok, so had a think and dredging my way through Web Sites I came across Resetting the Battery.

With Battery and Display on the bike, I Pressed and Held the Battery Button for 15 second and when I release the Button the Display comes on with the Speed Display, but only for a short time.

Managed a acquire another Display and tried that on it, but the same happens.

I have took the bike to a number of Bosch Agents, but as it is out of Warenty, no one wants to know any thing about it.
I even tried Contacting BMW, but they just direct me to Bosch Dealerships.

Any Ideas?

I'm not positive, but I think the BMW-branded Bosch-equipped eBikes were a model year 2016 product? If it has not had a software update since new, it could experience issues like you are describing.

On the mechanical side, this sounds like it could be a faulty battery cable. Sometimes batt cables are defective from the factory, sometimes they are "good," but damaged during initial assembly, and sometimes they have a defect that allows functionality when new, but gradually becomes an issue over time.

You'll more than likely be charged by a dealer for the service, but a Certified Bosch dealer should be equipped to help you troubleshoot the issue. You will need them for the software update as well. Warranty aside, most shops will likely not turn down the opportunity to sell you good service, as they are in the business of fixing bicycles. That being said, it may take a few phone calls to find a dealer that wants to do the work.

Unfortunately, the issue you are experiencing will be very difficult to resolve with DIY methods.

I hope this helps!

 

[amayers]

I've now had my bike not charge properly twice. In both cases I had run the bike down to ~6% on each of the two batteries (2021 R&M Superdelite HS Rohloff). This was on a morning ride. When I got home, I plugged the bike in to the charger port on the bike (not individual batteries), and left it plugged in all day, and overnight. The next morning when I went to ride the bike I found the Nyon was powered off, instead of showing 100% charged like normal. When I powered the Nyon on, I found that one battery was still at ~6%, while the other was at 85%. It seems like when the battery gets 85% charged, the bike tries to switch to charging the other battery up to 85%, and then it would try to top off both. When it tries to switch I'm guessing, something crashes, and it stops charging. Both of these times, the next charge works just fine. These two instances were separated by a couple of months, and different Nyon software versions. This is a pretty big issue, in that I can't trust that my bike will have enough range to do a ride, unless I check it out far enough before the ride, that I could hope to restart it and charge it. Kinda defeats the car replacement aspect.

Drive unit sw: v1.1.5.0
Nyon sw: v2.0.3.0
Battery 1 sw: v1.10.8.0
Battery 2 sw: v1.10.8.0

Has anybody else had this happen? Are there known software updates that might fix this?

 

[Andrew Edwards]

I'm not positive, but I think the BMW-branded Bosch-equipped eBikes were a model year 2016 product? If it has not had a software update since new, it could experience issues like you are describing.

On the mechanical side, this sounds like it could be a faulty battery cable. Sometimes batt cables are defective from the factory, sometimes they are "good," but damaged during initial assembly, and sometimes they have a defect that allows functionality when new, but gradually becomes an issue over time.

You'll more than likely be charged by a dealer for the service, but a Certified Bosch dealer should be equipped to help you troubleshoot the issue. You will need them for the software update as well. Warranty aside, most shops will likely not turn down the opportunity to sell you good service, as they are in the business of fixing bicycles. That being said, it may take a few phone calls to find a dealer that wants to do the work.

Unfortunately, the issue you are experiencing will be very difficult to resolve with DIY methods.

I hope this helps!

Turned out that all my problems where Software related.
Got a Inderpendant Giy to put it on to his Diagnostic.
He updated the Firmware and got every thing talking to each other.
Bike workes perfect now.
Sorry to say this but my Instinct was right! NEVER trust a Main Dealer.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Turned out that all my problems where Software related.
Got a Inderpendant Giy to put it on to his Diagnostic.
He updated the Firmware and got every thing talking to each other.
Bike workes perfect now.
Sorry to say this but my Instinct was right! NEVER trust a Main Dealer.

Glad to hear you got everything worked out!

 

[webcurl]

I've now had my bike not charge properly twice. In both cases I had run the bike down to ~6% on each of the two batteries (2021 R&M Superdelite HS Rohloff). This was on a morning ride. When I got home, I plugged the bike in to the charger port on the bike (not individual batteries), and left it plugged in all day, and overnight. The next morning when I went to ride the bike I found the Nyon was powered off, instead of showing 100% charged like normal. When I powered the Nyon on, I found that one battery was still at ~6%, while the other was at 85%. It seems like when the battery gets 85% charged, the bike tries to switch to charging the other battery up to 85%, and then it would try to top off both. When it tries to switch I'm guessing, something crashes, and it stops charging. Both of these times, the next charge works just fine. These two instances were separated by a couple of months, and different Nyon software versions. This is a pretty big issue, in that I can't trust that my bike will have enough range to do a ride, unless I check it out far enough before the ride, that I could hope to restart it and charge it. Kinda defeats the car replacement aspect.

Drive unit sw: v1.1.5.0
Nyon sw: v2.0.3.0
Battery 1 sw: v1.10.8.0
Battery 2 sw: v1.10.8.0

Has anybody else had this happen? Are there known software updates that might fix this?

Anything changed since it was mentioned here:

Bosch error codes

I’ve had my 2021 Superdelite HS Rohloff for not quite a week now. I’ve been loving it so far, but twice already I’ve had errors displayed on the display. The first time on start up a 595 and shifting wasn’t available. A restart fixed it. The second time was while charging a 606. A restart also...

electricbikereview.com

I still think your internal Bosch Battery Y-cable may be getting pinched inside perhaps by the rear suspension?

 

[amayers]

Anything changed since it was mentioned here:

Bosch error codes

I’ve had my 2021 Superdelite HS Rohloff for not quite a week now. I’ve been loving it so far, but twice already I’ve had errors displayed on the display. The first time on start up a 595 and shifting wasn’t available. A restart fixed it. The second time was while charging a 606. A restart also...

electricbikereview.com

I still think your internal Bosch Battery Y-cable may be getting pinched inside perhaps by the rear suspension?

No, nothing has changed on the bike since then. I've not had any other errors shown in a while though.

I might do a bit of looking around under the motor cover, to make sure I don't see anything pinching.

 

[webcurl]

No, nothing has changed on the bike since then. I've not had any other errors shown in a while though.

I might do a bit of looking around under the motor cover, to make sure I don't see anything pinching.

But i have to add: I'm no ebike or Bosch technician!

 

[SteveBorough]

It seems like when the battery gets 85% charged, the bike tries to switch to charging the other battery up to 85%, and then it would try to top off both.

I have not had this happen but I dont think it goes all the way to 85% before switching to the other battery. It likely operates like discharge where it charges 5-6% per battery before switching; I may be wrong. Which of your 2 batteries didnt charge the 500W or the downtube 625W? I had a recent problem with my downtube battery and am curious.

 

[webcurl]

I have not had this happen but I dont think it goes all the way to 85% before switching to the other battery. It likely operates like discharge where it charges 5-6% per battery before switching; I may be wrong.

The current Bosch dual battery charging system charges 1 to approx 85% (CC - Constant Current phase), then charges the other to approx 85% (CC), then both simultaneously to 100% (CV - Constant Voltage phase).