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e-tube software for Di2 missing cassette definitions

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e-tube software for Di2 missing cassette definitions

Old 11-15-17, 05:11 AM
  #1  
SethAZ 
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e-tube software for Di2 missing cassette definitions

BLUF: the E-Tube program doesn't list all of the cassettes Shimano actually sells, so when setting up synchro shift, if you have an unlisted cassette, you can do the math, make your own gear ratio table to identify the shift points, and then set those shift points in the program using some other cassette as a placeholder.

Question: the E-Tube program was up to date. Is there any workaround for making it list all cassette options, or else manually specifying custom cassettes via updating some settings file?

Background: I just swapped out the 11-32t cassette that came with my Lynskey for a 12-25t* cassette. I wanted to set up synchro shifting, so I got the e-tube software up and running.

While setting up synchro shift, I was given the option to set which chain rings and which cassette I was using, so that the software could show me a table with the gear ratios listed for each cog for each of the two chain rings so that I could specify the transitions that I wanted.

Here's the rub: the drop-down list that the e-Tube program shows for choosing cassettes only had like four cassette options listed, and the 12-25t wasn't there. This is an Ultegra 6800 12-25t cassette, so it's the same generation as my Di2 6870, and I can't for the life of me figure out why Shimano's own program doesn't know about it's own cassettes that they sell.

I ended up setting it to the compact chainrings up front, and I chose 12-28t for the rear cassette, which was the closest fit to what I actually have on there now. With pencil and paper I created the same table that the program shows, filling in all of the values of gear ratio for the 34t and 50t chainrings and for each cog on the cassette. They were the same all the way up to 17t. My cassette has an 18t that the 12-28t doesn't have, and everything above that is shifted by one place, so I did the math and filled that in.

After drawing the transitions that I wanted on paper using my own table, I set the transitions in the e-Tube project by cog number. It looks nonsensical since the gear ratios displayed aren't the ones that are really on the bike, but that's OK. The Di2 has no idea what the real gear ratios are, it just wants to know when it gets to such and such a cog and shifts up or down, switch change ring and automatically shift over to some other cog.

I tested it and it does seem to be shifting automatically to the cogs that I specified, so I think I'm all set. I'm just mildly surprised that I had to hand-jam this table and set up the shifts using a bogus placeholder cassette because they don't even list all the cassettes that they sell.

*where I live it's very flat, with a few hills, and I seldom do hard mountain climbs. On my old bike I had a 13-25t cassette, and the 25t was sufficient for all my usual rides. By putting a 12-25t 11-speed cassette on this new bike I get 1-tooth shifts from 12-19t and then 2-tooth shifts at 21, 23, 25. This gets me nice, tight, 1-tooth shifts for probably 95% or more of the typical riding I do. I saved the 11-32t cassette and the chain that fit it properly off to the side, and can swap it back on the next time I plan a worthy mountain ride.
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Old 04-09-20, 01:15 AM
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Lol, I just put e-tube on a new laptop, updated it, and hooked it up, because I wanted to revisit the synchro shifting settings, since I think my up-shifting is off somehow (it seems to shift up to 1 cog too low when transitioning from small ring to large ring). I noticed, to no real surprise, but some amount of disgust, that Shimano, several versions later, still has not got any more than 4 of the cassettes they actually sell listed in e-tube. I did a quick Google search on e-tube missing cassette definitions, and found a link to this post, and it was my own post from three years ago! Lol, I totally forgot I'd posted this, and in fact I'd forgotten how I worked this problem the last time, so it was good I wrote it down here.

Anyway, it's absolutely shameful that Shimano does such a piss-poor job with their software. Hard-coding casette definitions into the program, not letting people define their own cassettes, and then not even including definitions for all the cassettes they themselves actually sell is just plain lazy. If not lazy, then it's even worse: incompetent, or at least apathetic.

One more thing kind of shocked me a little. Today, for the first time in like forever, I went into adjustment mode to try to click my front derailleur over one or two notches, since I installed a new crank (Stages LR power meter built onto an R8000 crank) and it seems the chain is ever so slightly differently positioned. It didn't respond to my clicks. Now I know why: when I fired up e-Tube this evening, my left shifter wasn't detected. Ouch. It must have gone bad at some point in the last three years and I didn't notice since I use synchro shift and don't actually manually shift my front derailleur anymore. So I'm getting by, but ouch, I hate the thought of having to replace this shifter.

Shimano, I love your bike parts, but if you're going to go electronic, and provide software so that it can be updated, configured, etc., then for God's sake do at least a three-quarter-assed job of it, not this half-assed bullsh*t software that three years after I first installed it still suffers the same obvious and really stupid deficiencies. Oh yeah, trying to install 3.4.5 on this laptop it wouldn't even start. The solution? Use someone's link on a web page to download from Shimano an old version (3.4.3), then upgrade it to 3.4.5, just so it will start up correctly. Oh, and the web page that showed this fix was posted A YEAR AGO. Jesus.
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Old 04-09-20, 03:37 AM
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I'd double check the shifter is actually still connected and the electric wire hasn't come loose, just to be sure. And when it is connected and still not working I'd take it to a shop to have them check it using their SM-PCE1 / SM-PCE02 diagnostics unit. It is possible the shifter can be restored.
(no need to take the entire bike to a shop, just the shifter would be enough)
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Old 04-09-20, 10:08 AM
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Originally Posted by TerryDi2C
I'd double check the shifter is actually still connected and the electric wire hasn't come loose, just to be sure. And when it is connected and still not working I'd take it to a shop to have them check it using their SM-PCE1 / SM-PCE02 diagnostics unit. It is possible the shifter can be restored.
(no need to take the entire bike to a shop, just the shifter would be enough)
I have a feeling this isn't going to turn out as badly as I thought. I had a look, and I would bet dollars to donuts that it's just the Di2 cable that connects the shifter to the junction box under my stem that's got a break in it. I don't know this as a fact, but I'm betting that's the problem. The cable currently comes out of the junction box and then turns pretty sharply to the left and goes under the bar wrap.

The Lynskey came with a 44cm handlebar, but when I got it I immediately removed the bar it came with and installed my 46m Ergonova bar that I removed from my previous bike. The cable was just barely long enough, and in retrospect, probably wasn't really just barely long enough, because it got pulled over at a fairly tight angle from the junction box to where it goes under the bar wrap. With a little constant tension like this I'm betting the cable got a break in it. I'll have to look into cables and what lengths they come in and so forth, but as long as cables can be replaced individually it's going to be much cheaper than the shift. The left shifter hasn't actually even been used all that much except as the place I have my hand most of the time (I ride mostly the hoods), since I started using synchro shift right off the bat.
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Old 04-09-20, 12:40 PM
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Last night I took a sheet of paper and redid the calculations like I'd done three years ago, and changed one of the shift points in my synchro shift settings. I'll test ride it today and see if I like it, and if not, I'll revisit the topic again. There's something about the difference in feel of the upshift or downshift that I'm not liking, though my mind is hazy right now so I gotta go try it again to solidify my thinking on it. It may just be the difference in feel between gears using the small ring and gears using the big ring, I don't know. With my current 12-25t cassette I've got mostly 1-tooth shifts, since it's 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25, but my current synchro shifting is waiting all the way until I get to the 23t before shifting suddenly back to up to one of the higher gears but using the small ring. That means I suddenly go from the realm of 2-tooth shifts back up to 1-tooth shifts, so the change in rpms in these shifts changes. I'm also not happy about how cross-chained I am if I'm still on the big ring and the chain is going back to the 23t cog. I may set up synchro to shift if I move down from the 19t, so it'll go to the small ring and then back up to the smaller cogs with the 1-tooth shifts. It would result in a better chain line, and also keep me in the realm of 1-tooth shifts for all conditions except climbs steep enough that in the small ring I end up in the 21+t cogs.

I'll have to unwrap my left handlebar this weekend, remove the Di2 cable that is probably broken due to being held in tension at a high angle going into the junction box, measure it, and then order two replacement cables in the next size up. I believe they come in increments of 50mm. When they arrive I'll replace the cables on both sides at once, since the right-side shifter's cable is also at a pretty sketchy angle going into the junction box, so if the left cable went bad from this it's only a matter of time for the right side cable to go bad too. May as well fix them both right, then I only have to rewrap the bars once. I'll re-wrap the left side this weekend using the same bar tape just so I can keep riding while waiting on the replacement cables, but I'll probably start with new tape when I do the actual cable replacements.
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Old 04-09-20, 12:56 PM
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Twice I have had "shifter malf" in my Di2 bike. Once after hitting a bad hole on the road side, both brifters stopped. On another
occasion I fell over and the handlebar did a full R turn all the way to the top tube. Both events slightly popped the connectors
out of the brifter, the first getting both brifters, the second only the L brifter. Unwrapping the bar tape and resetting the L cable plug
into the brifter fixed that (after an A box total reset maneuver did nothing) but the second event where I thought I had fully
plugged in the connectors to the brifters, I had NOT in actuality and an E tube diagnostic and knowledgeable bike shop tech
fixed the connectors. Bike shop tech said that in his experience 98% of sudden Di2 brifter malf are due to cable disconnect at the
brifter, such as turning the bar fully so that the bar touches the top tube or resetting the handle bar height, crashes etc.

Tech also said he likes to have ~1/2" of cable slack at the brifter to minimize such occurences.

Last edited by sch; 04-09-20 at 01:01 PM.
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Old 04-09-20, 01:12 PM
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Originally Posted by sch
Twice I have had "shifter malf" in my Di2 bike. Once after hitting a bad hole on the road side, both brifters stopped. On another
occasion I fell over and the handlebar did a full R turn all the way to the top tube. Both events slightly popped the connectors
out of the brifter, the first getting both brifters, the second only the L brifter. Unwrapping the bar tape and resetting the L cable plug
into the brifter fixed that (after an A box total reset maneuver did nothing) but the second event where I thought I had fully
plugged in the connectors to the brifters, I had NOT in actuality and an E tube diagnostic and knowledgeable bike shop tech
fixed the connectors. Bike shop tech said that in his experience 98% of sudden Di2 brifter malf are due to cable disconnect at the
brifter, such as turning the bar fully so that the bar touches the top tube or resetting the handle bar height, crashes etc.

Tech also said he likes to have ~1/2" of cable slack at the brifter to minimize such occurences.
Thanks, that's some good thoughts. I'll try resetting the cable on the left brifter and see if that clears it up. If it does I'm probably still going to order the next size up and re-do both sides, because I know when I swapped the components from the 44cm bar that came with the bike to the 46cm bar I prefer (they also have different reach and whatnot) things were pretty tight, and I'm sure I don't have good strain relief at either the brifters or the junction box. Now that this has happened I think the best idea is just to fix it right, and that hopefully fixes it for good.
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Old 04-09-20, 02:18 PM
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Yeah, Shimano recommend you leave a small 'U' bit of excess wire at the shift levers - much like sch's tech does:

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Old 04-09-20, 06:14 PM
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Originally Posted by TerryDi2C
Yeah, Shimano recommend you leave a small 'U' bit of excess wire at the shift levers - much like sch's tech does:

That's a great shot. I went out and peeled up my hood covers on the let brifter to see what I could see, but the handlebar tape was covering all but the plug itself, so I didn't see anything useful. I still have to ride today, so I'll unwrap it tomorrow and see what's what. I appreciate the comments, and I'm optimistic that this is a cabling issue and not a brifter itself issue, and will be much cheaper to resolve.

I was honestly both a little shocked and amused that I have no idea how long my left brifter has been non-functional, since with synchro shifting engaged I just don't use it. That said, the idea of it continuing not to work is unacceptable to me, and the idea that my right brifter could go bad for the same reason (too-short cable stretched too much to make it fit) compels me to get to the bottom of this.
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Old 05-11-20, 12:30 AM
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Just a followup in case the experience helps someone else. I finally got around to unwrapping my left side of my handlebar to check out the Di2 wires. It was actually quite a process because I had one of those Fizik gel pads under the handlebar tape and the brake line and Di2 cable were buried under all the electrical tape I'd used to secure that to the tops of the handlebar.

It was just the Di2 cable having pulled out. That's it. Nothing's broken, everything works. Once I had the cable free I just plugged it back in and the shifter worked fine.

It is really too short, though, for the bar it's mounted on. There's no doubt, and of course it pulled out in the first place, and was pulled at bad angles going into the junction box. I measured them (300mm) and have just ordered a set of the 350mm long cables. That will be long enough to mount these properly with a little strain relief, as shown in the photo above. I'm definitely very relieved that the brifter itself is fine.
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