PM3 erratic when erging very slow (cool-down)

[Sean Seamus]

lately I have noticed that when doing my cool-down (10 minutes with HR less than 120 bpm) the PM3 gets quite confused.

Firstly, it massively overstates the SR (stroke rate), jumping from 14 to 86 and then hovering in the high range for a while before returning to the teens. Also the force curve breaks up, or disappears. The clock count-down seems to pause, and indeed I have used my Polar wrist monitor and a separate *** DELETE - SPAM *** timer to ascertain that the 10 minutes counted down - and reported as 10 minutes by the recall - is actually 12 minutes or more.

I am certain that I am not pulling an 80+ SR at 111 bpm !
Of course I have no way of determining whether the reported wattage is bogus.
The HR reported by the PM3 corresponds with the wrist monitor.

While the cool-down results are not critical in themselves, their wrongness calls into question all of the other figures reported.
- - - - -
any ideas ?
The erging is done at a slow steady rythymic pace.

[PaulS]

What Pace range are you doing for the cool-down?

Latest PM3 updates installed?

[Bob S.]

Firstly, it massively overstates the SR (stroke rate), jumping from 14 to 86 and then hovering in the high range for a while before returning to the teens.
The erging is done at a slow steady rythymic pace.

Is it possible that you were rowing at a rate less than 10? I have observed that 10spm seems to be the lower limit for the monitor. Mine will read 10 if I am careful to hold steady to a 6 second stroke, but for stroke times longer than 6 seconds, it comes out with garbage. There seems to be a top limit as well, but I can't tell what it is. At short, quick, arms only strokes, it gets up to somewhere over 60 and then the reading goes haywire.

Have you contacted C2 about it? They usually respond quickly to questions about technical problems.

Bob S.

[Citroen]

any ideas ?

#1 Change the batteries.
#2 Upgrade the firmware to V97 (if it hasn't already got V97)
http://www.concept2.com/us/support/soft ... tup097.exe

[Sean Seamus]

thanks for the responses

battery at 55%
firmware 90
hardware 434

stroke rate 14 / 15 / 16 per minute (counted against digital *** DELETE - SPAM *** timer)

have not contacted C2 - I observe they often pick up on queries on the forum though

I distrust computer upgrades (along with elective eye surgery !), figuring that if a given computer set-up is doing what I want, why squander hours and dollars - potentially lots of. Been down that alley.

But if I must, I must. . . . .

[Citroen]

I distrust computer upgrades (along with elective eye surgery !), figuring that if a given computer set-up is doing what I want, why squander hours and dollars - potentially lots of. Been down that alley.

I don't trust any computer I can lift. (I've been working with S/370, S/390, zSeries mainframes since 1981.)

If the V97 upgrade doesn't fix it then you'll need to contact Concept2.

[BobD]

This was one of the problems corrected with a firmware upgrade as I recall.

[Sean Seamus]

well that was fun . . .
at first the computer refused to recognize the pm3
then the pm3 wouldn't turn on - not at all - dead as Genghis Khan
so I plugged unplugged again and again
did circles through the %^&&*(_)(*'ing Windows troubleshooting !!!!

and then took out the batteries and put them back in

everything lit up and installed

wish me luck, I'll try it out later or in morning

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN ! ! !

[Sean Seamus]

alas . . . sadness - it didn't work

yesterday it seemed better, probably was a little better, at least at 15 - 16 spm it stayed true, but less than that and the original problems returned.

so tonight I put in 2 new batteries, and rowed very slowly, 13 - 14 - 15 spm, and all the problems are as they were

as an aside - maybe relevant - between Nov 05 late p.m. and Nov 06 early a.m., the pm3 stopped working, and the lifetime meters and custom workouts were wiped out - no big deal in itself - I took out and put back in the batteries and again everything worked as well as usual, albeit still with the wackiness at very slow light rowing

I suppose it doesn't matter that much, but like finding a few wrong entries in an accounting system, the question becomes "how do we know what if anything is right ? <hey ! maybe I'm actually pulling 1:45 splits ! !>

and one more thing - now I have a %$#@ kids game in the spot where I used to have Log Card - not an option I'd have requested . . . .

I'll call C2.

[Terry S.]

Sean--

I've been struggling with this for quite a while. I've a Model C with a retrofitted PM3 running v.97--which didn't help. I find things run best when in "Just Row"; also, when I've cycled through the different display modes it seems to stimulate the PM3 into acting up. Take a look at your force curve--see if there are "gaps" in it where the curve "pieces" are displaced. After seeing that on your force curve I'll bet you see your SPM fluctuate high and low with random frequency.

Let us know what you find out. I started a dialogue with C2 about this last spring and let it drop without resolution.

Terry

[michaelb]

I have seen the force curve break up at times, and wild HR data, but not wild SR data. I thought (hope?) this was better or gone for me with one of the firmware upgrades.

Try rowing without the HR pickup in the PM3 and see if that eliminates it. My impression was that it was errant HR data messing up the PM3 readout. I upgraded my HR belt last year, so that may also have helped with this for me.