PM5 Review

[Carl Watts]

Okay so I finally got my hands on a new PM5.

Essentially the V20 firmware has it looking like a PM4 but what I really wanted to test was the USB stick memory, even though I will probably not use this if I get one as the internal memory is large enough for a seasons rowing and you simply format this (although this doesn't appear to be an option in V20 Firmware)

Okay so on the bench the PM5 uses more power just to run without the USB stick. Current consumption is back up to the level of the older version of PM3 and PM4 so its much higher. Plug in a memory stick of any description and this is where the problems start, current consumption goes to over 100mA CONTINUOUSLY so with the backlight on your seeing as much as 140mA which is going to kill your batteries.

The self powered generator in the flywheel cannot supply this so you going to have to plug your PM5 into the wall via a 5V USB phone charger or the batteries will last a couple of months.

Formatting the USB using the PM5 hidden internal menu calls it a "Logcard" still and not only can you add your name after this you can change the lifetime meters on the USB stick.

Downloaded the new update utility 7.04.5, this is nice and updated the firmware from V20 to V22 no problems. There are also some cool features within this that are still to come like easily changing the rower type on your monitor.

Still cannot see a menu that lets me format the internal Logbook memory or even delete individual rows like you can from the PM4 LogCard so this is a bit of a problem. For me however using RowPro the monitor will be always connected to the PC so powering the USB is not a problem so will use one of these so it doesn't hang way out the back of the monitor and I can just pull it out and format it once a year on the 1st May.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/MEMSDK ... -USB-30-Fl

Overall a nice monitor in the design but the firmware has a little way to go still but I think I will buy one in a few months time and start using it as soon as RowPro V5 for the PC is released, by which time all the problems should be sorted out.

[jackarabit]

Professional grade test and review of the power-starved PM5 and excellent summary of remedies. The micro USB stick is inexpensive insurance against damaging the USB port.

Question: My used PM5 is tethered to a PC running RowPro as was the PM4 which preceded it. I don't always slave the monitor to RP for workout setup or result file export to the utility. For my situation, powering from a SATA port which is hot with the puter shut down appears logical, convenient, and the equivalent of using a cell charger. Are there possibly negative electronic consequences of so doing? Conversely, is there the possibility of shortened display life for monitors which are slaved to RP and cannot be depowered except by pulling the USB plug? TIA.

[c2jonw]

Carl,

Thanks for the review but you missed a couple of key points:
• Most importantly, yes, the PM5 consumes a lot of battery power when the backlight and USB are in use and you are not rowing (USB 3.0 sticks are worse). But once rowing and/or when not needed the stick is turned off. And the generator supplies plenty of power once the flywheel is up to a threshold speed. Battery life is effected most by how long the PM5 is on when the machine is not being rowed, which is most problematic in a gym setting where the machine is being used for brief warmups.
• There has never been a menu to “format” the internal memory. You can do a factory reset on the PM5 to clear everything by holding down UNITS and DISPLAY together and then press and release the Reset button. The memory is deep enough and will kill off oldest workouts when full.
• The hidden menu with mention of the Logcard is a leftover that few people know about but we will either revise or delete in a later version.

Keep Rowing......C2JonW

[Carl Watts]

Received the SanDisk 16Gb USB 3.0 Ultra Fit drive, it doesn't work in the PM5.

Also got an Apacer 8Gb USB 3 drive and this works fine.

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/MEMAPC ... lash-drive

Really no idea why there are USB compatibility issues, they are both formated FAT32 and have the same 16 Kilobytes allocation size, possibly it just cannot address the larger 16Gb at this stage and this will come later in the PM5 Firmware. Reminds me of an old laptop with a 2Gb harddrive and all it could "See" was 8Gb maximum with the BIOS when I put a 40Gb drive in it. Once you got windows XP on it you could then unlock the remaining space on the drive and create a 32Gb partition.

[c2jonw]

Hi Carl,

Warning, there may be more information in this post than some folks may wish for- apologies in advance.....

The SanDisk Ultra Fit 3.0 drive has been tested and has worked for us in the lab, however we do note that like all other 3.0 drives we have tested take MUCH more current to run them; in some cases 2-3x. For example, a sample Kingston DataTraveler DTSE9 (8 and 32gb or Verbatim “blue” (16 and 64gb) drive consumes around 75-80mA, the Ultra Fit tops out at 260mA! For this reason, Concept2 recommends use of USB 2.0 drives.

Though Concept2 has not tested above 64gb drives, as long as it is truly formatted as FAT or FAT32 it should work. Please note that we have seen some operating systems falsely report that a drive is formatted as FAT or FAT32 when it was actually formatted as exFAT or other system. If the PM5 is not recognizing the drive and it is a ‘larger’ drive, this could be the problem.

Another thing we have noted: some USB flash drives, especially when new but sometimes in general operation have been observed to ‘go to lunch’ for long periods of time: seconds or even up to a minute or two. We suspect the drive is doing some housekeeping such as correcting bad bits (which is normal for flash drives) and moving data to fresh blocks of data. Sometimes this process takes longer than the PM5 will put up with, resulting in an error or other strange operation. There is not much that the PM5 can do about this. We could lengthen the timeout I suppose.

There are also some drives that do not seem to respond properly to industry standard protocols including something called a BOT Reset. The SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 16gb drive we tested falls into this category. I believe that we have made workarounds for this in upcoming firmware

Thanks to Scott Hamilton for this information..............Keep on Rowing.....C2JonW

[Carl Watts]

The 16Gb Ultra I have is a no go, tried everything with it, even wiped it totally and reformatted it.

My suggestion is if you plug the brand new USB drive out of the pack in and it doesn't work straight away then buy one that works the first time you plug it into the PM5, its not worth the time stuffing about with it to get it to work.

The Apacer USB 8Gb drive also stayed below 100mA while it was working so I suggest its not a bad option compared to others out there and it only sticks out of the back of the monitor enough for you to pull it out so that the one going into my PM5 when I get one..

[jackarabit]

Tried Sandisk Cruzer Fit 8gb USB 2 low profile (SDCZ33-008G-B35). Worked .