No assist & error codes 2020 Pinot Steps

[David Hunter]

We have a 2020 Pino Steps after 6 years of having a standard Pino.  We have ridden 800 miles on it (2 batteries used alternately).  We ride conservatively for distance and so can ride 65 miles or so on 1 battery by  riding unassisted for long periods, either >15 mph or accepting only 13mph, or riding where it is comparatively flat, like the New Forest where we live.  In the Peaks we would only manage 25 miles on a battery, but with 3,500 ft of climbing.

Problem is that several times the motor, usually in eco mode, does not cut in when we slow to 15mph, but only at 11mph, then the next time 8mph and so on even when we have a relatively “full” battery.  This can be cured by stopping and “rebooting” but we often then get the W013 error several time (we are off the bike and it is on its stand with no touching of pedals), but eventually get moving.  We took it to a Shimano dealer and updated all of the software & firmware last week, including a motor firmware update.

Today we not only got the W013 code but the dreaded E010 code.  This occurred many times before we aborted the ride - so over a period of 15 minutes.  We had ridden only 15 miles, mostly without any assist and had to “full” batteries.  We also changed the battery just in case, as we think one of the 2 batteries we have is “better” than the other brand new one.  So, having aborted we rode back unassisted, until after another 15 minutes we had to consult the map and when I tried to switch the Steps on it worked!  Nonetheless we didn’t trust it and came home.

The only other observation is that when we were in the Peaks we rode up a 24% hill for 5 minutes and the motor got slower & slower before finally stopping assist.  I reckoned that it might have overheated and we stopped for 10 minutes and it worked again, but to my mind it is noisier and gives less assist on every setting since.

Our very helpful dealer is going to look at it next week, but intermittent faults are tricky, and he is in Yorkshire & we live in the New Forest so it is expensive and time consuming to visit.

Bottom line - has anyone else had these problems?

[Sue Lowe]

We have a Hase Pino Steps (picked up the week before lockdown) and live 2 miles outside the Peak District so that is where we regularly ride. We have had the same issue with the motor cutting out on steep hills. 

We have not had a problem with solo bikes running the Bosch motor, or, indeed, with our 2 recumbent trikes which also run Steps motors. 

We thought it was probably due to overheating as with 2 people on the tandem we can put in enough power to make the motor work at full power - the power meter rarely shows full power on the Steps powered trike. As you experienced, a short wait to allow the motor to cool down solved the problem but it is a concern. 

We have also had issues with brake failure coming down long steep winding sections. We have several routes within a few miles of home which drop around 1000ft in a mile with lots of sharp bends. That coupled with the weight of two people has caused the brakes to fail several times. Luckily my pilot is sufficiently on the ball to keep some front brake in reserve so when the back brake failed completely we could still stop and let them cool down. We've just replaced the original Tektro brakes with Hope and are in the process of testing them out! Fingers crossed. 

Sent from my iPad

On 29 Jul 2020, at 17:46, David Hunter <goo...@huntercooper.com> wrote:



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[Chris Rust]

I was a bit confused by Sue's message as she mentioned Bosch. As far as I'm aware the Shimano Steps system is completely different from the Bosch system.

This definitely needs to be taken up with Hase, the Steps system has been around for quite a when so it should be reliable.

We fitted one of the first Heinzmann gearless hub motors, which Hase used to supply before they switched to Shimano. It was OK but never completely reliable.

We've just replaced it with a Bafang crank motor kit and so far it has been really excellent. 

The most encouraging thing, apart from the efficiency and hill climbing power, is that there is a huge community of Bafang users, so lots of help and advice.

They are relatively easy to overhaul and replace parts yourself, you can adjust and reprogram it yourself and its much cheaper than the branded systems like Shimano. 

So you don't need a mortgage to replace the battery or motor, except that you won't need to because you can get replacement battery cells and most parts for the motor/drive.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pinotalk/4BBE8037-47E4-4D3B-96CA-8334041EEBCB%40gmail.com.

[David Hunter]

[David Hunter]

Thanks Susan,

Interesting that it's the Peaks that cause the motor to ?overheat!  I can believe that is the case after 5-10 minutes on full power output.  Still can't account for our other problem though, and nobody else seems to have had it.  Apparently Hase think it's a motor problem.

I have one other MTB with a Shimano motor which is quieter than the one in the Pino (perhaps working less hard) and has no problems.  I also have an MTB with a Bosch motor, which needed replacing in its first year, but now no problems.  These older Bosch motors were old windscreen wiper motors but the new Gen 4's, which now have a free upgrade to produce 80Nm torque, are narrower and much better I understand.  I have not had a problem of motors "cutting in" at slower & slower speeds with either system on my MTBs until  running the battery to empty.

Sounds like you need a drag brake on the ePino to deal with the descents in the Peaks.  The other option is to put the brakes on hard and let them go to cool them down i.e. braking intermittently.  

Thanks for your repsonse.

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 7:45:25 PM UTC+1, Susan Lowe wrote:

We have a Hase Pino Steps (picked up the week before lockdown) and live 2 miles outside the Peak District so that is where we regularly ride. We have had the same issue with the motor cutting out on steep hills. 

We have not had a problem with solo bikes running the Bosch motor, or, indeed, with our 2 recumbent trikes which also run Steps motors. 

We thought it was probably due to overheating as with 2 people on the tandem we can put in enough power to make the motor work at full power - the power meter rarely shows full power on the Steps powered trike. As you experienced, a short wait to allow the motor to cool down solved the problem but it is a concern. 

We have also had issues with brake failure coming down long steep winding sections. We have several routes within a few miles of home which drop around 1000ft in a mile with lots of sharp bends. That coupled with the weight of two people has caused the brakes to fail several times. Luckily my pilot is sufficiently on the ball to keep some front brake in reserve so when the back brake failed completely we could still stop and let them cool down. We've just replaced the original Tektro brakes with Hope and are in the process of testing them out! Fingers crossed. 

Sent from my iPad

On 29 Jul 2020, at 17:46, David Hunter <goo...@huntercooper.com> wrote:



We have a 2020 Pino Steps after 6 years of having a standard Pino.  We have ridden 800 miles on it (2 batteries used alternately).  We ride conservatively for distance and so can ride 65 miles or so on 1 battery by  riding unassisted for long periods, either >15 mph or accepting only 13mph, or riding where it is comparatively flat, like the New Forest where we live.  In the Peaks we would only manage 25 miles on a battery, but with 3,500 ft of climbing.

Problem is that several times the motor, usually in eco mode, does not cut in when we slow to 15mph, but only at 11mph, then the next time 8mph and so on even when we have a relatively “full” battery.  This can be cured by stopping and “rebooting” but we often then get the W013 error several time (we are off the bike and it is on its stand with no touching of pedals), but eventually get moving.  We took it to a Shimano dealer and updated all of the software & firmware last week, including a motor firmware update.

Today we not only got the W013 code but the dreaded E010 code.  This occurred many times before we aborted the ride - so over a period of 15 minutes.  We had ridden only 15 miles, mostly without any assist and had to “full” batteries.  We also changed the battery just in case, as we think one of the 2 batteries we have is “better” than the other brand new one.  So, having aborted we rode back unassisted, until after another 15 minutes we had to consult the map and when I tried to switch the Steps on it worked!  Nonetheless we didn’t trust it and came home.

The only other observation is that when we were in the Peaks we rode up a 24% hill for 5 minutes and the motor got slower & slower before finally stopping assist.  I reckoned that it might have overheated and we stopped for 10 minutes and it worked again, but to my mind it is noisier and gives less assist on every setting since.

Our very helpful dealer is going to look at it next week, but intermittent faults are tricky, and he is in Yorkshire & we live in the New Forest so it is expensive and time consuming to visit.

Bottom line - has anyone else had these problems?

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[Philip Lowe]

To follow up on Sue’s post. Yes we are having intermittent issues with the STEPS motor on the Pino for which the favoured hypothesis is overheating.

We also have two other STEPS systems, an E8000 on my ICE trike and an E6000 on a Kettwiesel (so also Hase). We’ve not had this issue with either of these. But, they don’t tend to get stressed at full power for as long as the tandem as it’s difficult to apply sufficient torque to the pedals to get the power meter to stay at 100% with only one pair of legs on a recumbent solo.

Our upright solo bicycles are Bosch powered. It’s far easier to get them to deliver 100% output, even in the lower settings, as one can stand on the pedals, and the calibration of the torque sensor is such that they deliver full power with less human pressure. Neither Bosch system has given any cause for concern. The oldest of these now has 2300 miles on it.

The STEPS on the Kettwiesel has not given any problems in just over 4200 miles. I even went out on it this morning to see if I could stress it on the same climbs that we’ve had the Pino issues. It was fine even with 15 minute climbs up >10% gradients at full boost. I did run out of battery though! Fortunately (intentionally) I was carrying the spare.

The E8000 STEPS on the ICE trike has given the battery to motor communication error code problem which was cured by adjusting the battery mount to remove the forward and back play, and cleaning and silicone greasing the contacts. I’ve also had issues with connection problems at the head unit on the handlebar. This was loose on its slots such that the connection kept breaking when I went over bumps (the trike is unsuspended). This kept rebooting the motor when I went over a series of bumps which was very annoying. I cured it by putting two strips of PVC insulation tape in the grooves of the head unit to take up the play and push the controller closer to its contacts. The STEPS on the ICE trike now has just over 2300 miles on it (just over 7000 miles for the trike).

I’ll comment on brakes in the parallel thread...

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[David Hunter]

An update.

Just been up to Gargrave and had the Pino sorted by John & Ruth - really excellent service as usual.  After discussion we agreed with John & Ruth's advice that it was probably best to change the, probably, faulty E6100 for an E8000 which has more torque and an aluminium case rather than a plastic one which also may help with heat dissipation.  There was no explanation from Hase for our other fault of the motor cutting in at slower speeds apart from the motor torque sensor being faulty i.e. a faulty unit in more than one respect.

On a test ride after the motor change it was like chalk & cheese.  The E8000 was no noisier than our, in retrospect obviously, faulty E6100, and the increase in power was noticeable, and this was with Eco in the lowest of the 3 settings, and Tour in the middle setting, Boost at maximum.  We altered this as it seemed to us that Tour medium was not much different from Boost Maximum when climbing and the step from Eco to Tour was very large - but very smoothy conducted.  So we now have Eco and Tour on the lowest setting.  Interestingly, we never managed to get the white bar on the controller to go all the way to the end showing maximum assist even up 24% slopes, but the motor never overheated or showed any sign of diminution of output up the 3km drag out of Malham nor the one out of Kirkby Markham.  Also, when we normally set out with the E6100 motor the controller says that we have about 110 miles range in Eco mode (LOL - we manage 100km at best), but with the E8000 motor the range is said to be about 44 miles with a full battery - presumably as the programmers expect this motor to be used on an MTB and therefore lots of climbing.  We will be interested to see whether the range is reduced with the increase in torque from 60 to 70nM.

We did, however, have frightening brake fade from the front Tektro on the descent into Kirkby Malham, which in my view is not particularly long nor steep, with subsequent disc discolouration and a reduction in braking power on cooling presumably due to glazing of the disc.  We went down this descent on our old non-Steps Pino when we had both Sram Code R's and later with Shimano discs and did not have the same problem.  I have now ordered a ventilated Hope disc set, but only for the front as it's about £300 for each set so will see how we go.

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 5:46:52 PM UTC+1, David Hunter wrote:

[Philip Lowe]

Sue and I’ve had similar issues.

We’ve also arranged with Ruth and John at JD Tandems to swap our E6100 for an E8000. We’ve been having what I hypothesise are overheating problems with symptoms of reduced and eventually zero assist when crawling up a series of steep ascents in the local Peak District. I’ve never had this issue with my E8000 ICE Sprint trike; I’ve even purposefully tried to make it happen by riding the same ascents repeatedly on boost with the power meter to the maximum. All it did was empty the battery in 17 miles and push my heart rate over 70% of max for just over an hour! The E8000 is much better cooled with its finned metal casing.

We’ve also had issues with the original Tektro HD-M750 brakes. In less than 3 weeks of owning the Pino the front disc was blue (Image 1) and we’d regularly experience brake failure (not fade). In other words total loss of pressure due to the brake fluid boiling such that the levers come back to the handlebar. Fortunately the back brake would normally go before the front so we could stop. After stopping the front would go as well; releasing pressure allows the fluid to vaporise. The Tektro system has now been replaced with the Hope Tech 3 V4 with 203 mm ventilated discs front and back (thanks to John and Ruth for making up a kit I could fit)(image 2). We are very pleased to report that we’ve now successfully descended several of our local hills where we’ve previously experienced failure. There are several design advantages to the Hope system - i) glycol based fluid not mineral oil therefore higher boiling point; ii) synthetic pistons not metal so less heat transfer to the fluid; iii) finned calipers; iv) ventilated discs and v) a larger rear disc. The experiment continues - the Hope system came with three sets of pads: standard, e-bike specific and sintered and John and Ruth should like to know what is best for tandems. So far we’ve just tried the e-bike specific.

I really thought the Tektro system would have been OK. It has substantial 2.3 mm thick discs rather than the more normal 1.8 mm and 4 piston calipers. Power is not an issue, just cooling. Our 35 kg Hase Kettwiesel STEPS trike, with its rather shielded (and hence not well cooled) Tektro Auriga twin rear discs descends the same hills without issues (the front disc on the Kettwiesel is not much use due to so little weight on the front wheel, it just skitters over bumps on the road and locks up). I suspect the Tektro system would be great on a solo downhill mountain bike.

Tandems really are special beasts when it comes to braking and no manufacturer supplies adequate tandem specific brakes (except perhaps Santa in California… https://santanatandem.com/brake-tech/ ). But Hope are very good and made here in the UK in Barnoldswick.

The issues with tandem brakes takes me back to my early days of motorcycling on 1950’s and 60’s machines. Braking was barely adequate on those machines and one would often experience overheating fading drums on long descents (hence much use of the engine as a drag brake). Such (lack of) performance would not be acceptable any more so we’ve got used to good brakes on our vehicles.

Happy tandeming, Phil & Sue

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[kevinb...@btinternet.com]

Hello all, I also have replaced the standard discs on my 2015 Hase Pino with Hope Tech 3 V4 brakes after experiencing serious brake fade on the original. I have also purchased these:  < https://porkchopbmx.com/evolution-v-brake-bicycle-aluminum-mounts-clamps-adapters-pair-silver/ > adapters to enable me to fit (extra) cantilever brakes to the rear wheel. Have yet to fit, the rear seat stay diameter is a fraction too large, the adapters need a slight ream out to fit. Also probably needs to find some way of attaching the adapters to the small bosses on the rear seat stay (what are they for?) to help hold them in position.

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