Unable to set Bulls Six50 E2 Street into assist modes

[David W]

Yesterday when picking up a new Bulls Six50 E2 Street I was unable to set the bike into any assist modes, and the headlight wouldn't come on. The mechanic and I thought this was because the battery wasn't charged, so he loaned me the battery from their demo Six50 and everything worked OK during the test ride.

This morning, after a full 12 hour charge, the battery lights show full but the bike won't go into assist modes and the headlight doesn't come on. It's almost like the bike doesn't like that particular battery.

I tried calling the office in Lynwood CA (number found at https://www.whitepages.com/business/CA/Lynwood/Bulls-Bikes-Usa/b-12wi1vc) and was told Tech Support is OOO until later today. Hoping that @BULLSBarney or @Adam@BULLSeBIKES is watching threads and can help, or someone on this forum can offer a suggestion.

 

[rich c]

Does the motor work?

 

[David W]

Does the motor work?

Yes, the dealer loaned me the battery from their demo Six50 and everything worked OK during the test ride.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

Can't ride it on the first day? I would take it back immediately. Way too much money for these things to not work.

 

[David W]

Update: Emailed Barney at Bulls but didn't hear back. Got a number for another guy (Adam in Sales/Dealer Mktg) at Bulls from the bike shop owner and spoke with him. He says likely a bad battery, which will be resolved under warranty by Bosch. Then Barney calls, tries to diagnose with me, no luck, so now back to Bosch. The whole situation feels a lot like this:

 

[Chris Nolte]

Does it display 0.0 mph on your display? If not your display might not be fully seated. It sounds like that's the issue. Make sure to slide it down firmly so it's fully seated on the display doc.

If that's not the issue their are two other culprits that are a lot less common. One, the plug for the display doc is not seated in the motor fully or two the display doc is faulty.

Obviously it's difficult to diagnose these sort of things in this setting, but I hope this helps.

 

[David W]

So here's the final version of all this. Bulls told me to go back to ELV and connect the bike to the Bosch software on their diagnostic computer. By this time I had @BULLSBarney and @Adam@BULLSeBIKES on an email thread. Got to the store and worked with their IT guy to get the software running. Had to do the Cable Dance but eventually got it sorted.

Software communicated fine with the bike controller, power pack, and drive unit on ELV's demo bike. It would not communicate with the drive unit or the power pack on mine. We swapped ELV's demo bike battery into my bike and the software was then able to talk to the controller, power pack, and drive unit. Updated the firmware on both bikes. My battery in the demo bike gave same symptoms. My theory is that the Bosch power pack passes signals from the controller to the drive unit. One thing I noticed is that when there's no battery in the bike, I see the same symptoms. It would be nice if the Bosch display would show "No Power Pack Found" or some other error when it can't talk to a pack or drive unit.

I got a bit angry when Bulls said we'd need to sort out a warranty replacement through Bosch. Given the amount of money I'd spent it felt odd to be handed off. To their credit ELV gave me their demo power pack and will handle the Bosch warranty replacement on their own. As of now I'm all good.