Tong Sheng TSDZ-2 issue, and is Eco Cycles in TN still in business?

M

mwhipple

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Location
Boston, MA
Last fall I purchased a TongSheng TSDZ-2 kit from Eco Cycles to mount on a recumbent. Worked great - until recently. I have the 860c display and it's saying "Error brakes or comms" and no response from the motor. Fully charged battery. I don't have brakes connected, although I do have a throttle. I've disconnected/reconnected all the cabling. Still not luck. I'm guessing the controller is fried - any thoughts?

The Eco Cycles site has had an Opening Soon page for some time now, with an explanation that there were issues updating the web site. Calls and emails to Eco Cycles have not been answered. Anyone know what's going on with this shop? David was great to work with until now.


Thanks,
Mark Whipple
Boston, MA

Volae Expedition with Tong Sheng TSDZ-2 mid-drive
 
What did you do with your eBike after that last Successful Ride ?

You said - "I don't have brakes connected," - please correct me if I am wrong - not having brakes connected to me is the same as having open circuit - meaning motor cutoff.
 
fabbrisd said:
What did you do with your eBike after that last Successful Ride ?

You said - "I don't have brakes connected," - please correct me if I am wrong - not having brakes connected to me is the same as having open circuit - meaning motor cutoff.
Click to expand...
That is incorrect. Closing the circuit shuts off the motor.

I have my brake sensors disconnected and have no problems.

I don't really see the need for brake sensors I always stop pedaling before I put on the brakes, and would let off the throttle if I had one.

I also have the motor setting so that it doesn't engage until I have pedaled about a quarter turn so that you don't have the motor come on when you are walking the bike and bump a pedal.
 
fabbrisd said:
What did you do with your eBike after that last Successful Ride ?

You said - "I don't have brakes connected," - please correct me if I am wrong - not having brakes connected to me is the same as having open circuit - meaning motor cutoff.
Click to expand...
I don't think this could be the case as the motor would have never worked if that was true, right? Have you reached out to the motor mfg? Maybe search for another dealer that works with that system.
 
Sorry, I thought I replied but it didn't go through.

I don't have brakes, I have a throttle instead.

After the last successful ride (probably in July?) I parked the bike in its usual spot in my basement and removed the battery for recharging.

Mark
 
mwhipple said:
Sorry, I thought I replied but it didn't go through.

I don't have brakes, I have a throttle instead.

After the last successful ride (probably in July?) I parked the bike in its usual spot in my basement and removed the battery for recharging.

Mark
Click to expand...
I have had a very similar issue: power on 860c (OSF firmware 0.20.1c-4) and first get "Wait TSDZ2" for about 45 seconds, then "Error brakes or comms". After trying everything with cables (even swapping some out) it was decided that the controller was bad. Exchanged the controller and found that the original one looked fine. After reconnecting/reassembling and doing a test ride, everything seemed fine. I then spent quite a bit of time going through the configuration screens, making changes where necessary. I then accidentally either did one of these two things:
1. turned off the battery while the display was still on and then hit the display power button
-or-
2. powered off the display, then turned off the battery and then powered on the display again.

Whichever of these two I did -- the display flashed on for a brief moment. I then realized the batter was off and turned it back on. Then powering on the display got the dreaded "Wait TSDZ2" followed by "Error brakes or comms"! This was my original problem before the controller swap. Interestingly enough, even though the display shows "Wait TSDZ2", long pressing the M button will go into the configuration menu which appears to be fully functional. Hitting the power button to exit the configuration menu will then bring up the normal display EXCEPT battery power shows zero and there is no pedal assist. Sigh. My suspicion is that hitting the power button with the battery off somehow put the controller into a strange state. I am not going to try anything else until I get some expert guidance. I would like to do a factory reset of the controller, but I will hold off on that for now.

Has anyone else experienced this issue or have any ideas?

--peter
 
Follow up: finally got around to installing the new controller I bought. Problem solved.

Looking back, after reading ebike_builder's response, I think I may have turned off the battery while the display was still powered on and that may have caused the problem with the controller. I will avoid doing that in the future.

Mark Whipple
Boston, MA

Volae Expedition with Tong Sheng TSDZ-2 mid-drive
 
Followup:
After searching the forums about the the "Error brakes or comms" TSDZ2 issue, I found some posts indicating that the controller needs to have the OPTION BYTE reflashed. So I did more research and then ordered an ST-LINK cable from Electrifybike. Carefully followed instructions on reflashing the firmware. This was successful!

I believe the reflash of the OPTION BYTE solved the "Error brakes or comms" issue. Here are some details of the flash process:

It was my first time using ST Visual Programmer with the ST-LINK cable and I had a few glitches. I had the battery turned on (from what I had seen in a YouTube video) when I hooked up the ST-Link cable. When I tried to read each tab (PROGRAM MEMORY, DATA MEMORY, OPTION BYTE) all showed as zero and an error about the option byte appeared. So I then tried to program the option byte and a different error appeared that did mention powering off/on. After powering off/on the battery, the flash of the OPTION BYTE succeeded. I then disconnected the ST-Link cable, reconnected the speed sensor, powered on, and voila, the display came up normal -- no more error. Tested with throttle and worked perfectly. I then did an extended smoke test ride, which was successful.

This has been quite the ordeal when the actual solution was so simple -- reflashing the OPTION BYTE.

I believe what originally got my TSDZ2 into the "Error brakes or comms" state was accidentally powering on the display with the battery turned off. There must have been enough residual battery charge left (even with battery turned off) that the display briefly flashed on and somehow the OPTION BYTE must have gotten corrupted in the controller.
 
ebike_builder said:
Followup:
After searching the forums about the the "Error brakes or comms" TSDZ2 issue, I found some posts indicating that the controller needs to have the OPTION BYTE reflashed. So I did more research and then ordered an ST-LINK cable from Electrifybike. Carefully followed instructions on reflashing the firmware. This was successful!

I believe the reflash of the OPTION BYTE solved the "Error brakes or comms" issue. Here are some details of the flash process:

It was my first time using ST Visual Programmer with the ST-LINK cable and I had a few glitches. I had the battery turned on (from what I had seen in a YouTube video) when I hooked up the ST-Link cable. When I tried to read each tab (PROGRAM MEMORY, DATA MEMORY, OPTION BYTE) all showed as zero and an error about the option byte appeared. So I then tried to program the option byte and a different error appeared that did mention powering off/on. After powering off/on the battery, the flash of the OPTION BYTE succeeded. I then disconnected the ST-Link cable, reconnected the speed sensor, powered on, and voila, the display came up normal -- no more error. Tested with throttle and worked perfectly. I then did an extended smoke test ride, which was successful.

This has been quite the ordeal when the actual solution was so simple -- reflashing the OPTION BYTE.

I believe what originally got my TSDZ2 into the "Error brakes or comms" state was accidentally powering on the display with the battery turned off. There must have been enough residual battery charge left (even with battery turned off) that the display briefly flashed on and somehow the OPTION BYTE must have gotten corrupted in the controller.
Click to expand...
I
ebike_builder said:
Followup:
After searching the forums about the the "Error brakes or comms" TSDZ2 issue, I found some posts indicating that the controller needs to have the OPTION BYTE reflashed. So I did more research and then ordered an ST-LINK cable from Electrifybike. Carefully followed instructions on reflashing the firmware. This was successful!

I believe the reflash of the OPTION BYTE solved the "Error brakes or comms" issue. Here are some details of the flash process:

It was my first time using ST Visual Programmer with the ST-LINK cable and I had a few glitches. I had the battery turned on (from what I had seen in a YouTube video) when I hooked up the ST-Link cable. When I tried to read each tab (PROGRAM MEMORY, DATA MEMORY, OPTION BYTE) all showed as zero and an error about the option byte appeared. So I then tried to program the option byte and a different error appeared that did mention powering off/on. After powering off/on the battery, the flash of the OPTION BYTE succeeded. I then disconnected the ST-Link cable, reconnected the speed sensor, powered on, and voila, the display came up normal -- no more error. Tested with throttle and worked perfectly. I then did an extended smoke test ride, which was successful.

This has been quite the ordeal when the actual solution was so simple -- reflashing the OPTION BYTE.

I believe what originally got my TSDZ2 into the "Error brakes or comms" state was accidentally powering on the display with the battery turned off. There must have been enough residual battery charge left (even with battery turned off) that the display briefly flashed on and somehow the OPTION BYTE must have gotten corrupted in the controller.
Click to expand...
I have the same errors ("Wait TSDZ2" followed by "Error brakes or comms"), which I believe was caused just as you did. I have TSDZ2 & 860C w/OSF 0.20.1c-4.1, which I purchased from ECO-Cycle in November 2022. I downloaded ST-Link V2 and purchased the cable from Electrifybike w/o instructions. Also, downloaded HEX file "TSDZ2-v1.1.2.hex" based on research @ github.com, is this correct HEX file?

Can you explain how to reflash the "OPTION BYTE"?

Thanks,
Dick
 
I didn't take notes about how I did it, but essentially I followed the steps from this YouTube video:

Note that you can program just the Option Byte without having to flash everything. That way you don't lose your settings. I have attached the Option Byte file I used [stockoptionbyte.hex]. Note that this is actually an ascii file (with linux line endings).

Good luck! And let us know whether you are successful or not.

--peter
 
ebike_builder said:
I didn't take notes about how I did it, but essentially I followed the steps from this YouTube video:

Note that you can program just the Option Byte without having to flash everything. That way you don't lose your settings. I have attached the Option Byte file I used [stockoptionbyte.hex]. Note that this is actually an ascii file (with linux line endings).

Good luck! And let us know whether you are successful or not.

--peter
Click to expand...

I renamed 'stockoptionbyte.txt' to 'stockoptionbyte.hex'. Then do I use STVP to Open 'stockoptionbyte.hex' and write to the OPTIONBYTE tab?

Dick
 
Once you download it, just rename it to "stockoptionbyte.hex" and follow instructions from the YouTube video with the exception of only programming the Option Byte.
 
Yesterday I renamed to '.hex' and tried to open file, but I get msg 'File : line 1: Not in Intel Hex format!'
What STVP Configuration Device should I be using: STM8S105x4 or STM8S105x6? Tried both.
When Device set STM8S105x4, got msg 'Cannot communicate with the device!', so assume s/b using 'x6'.
Should battery be On or Off? Tried both ways.
When should ST-LINK cable be plugged into laptop USB? If battery s/b on, before or after turning battery on?
Should 'stockoptionbyte.hex' file be opened before plugging ST-LINK into USB?

Thanks for you help,
Dick
 
I was able to successfully flash the OPTION BYTE and fix my 'error brakes' issue. The "stockoptionbyte.hex" also gave me the error 'File : line 1: Not in Intel Hex format!' after changing the extension to .hex. I instead loaded the TSDZ2-v1.1.2.hex here: https://github.com/OpenSourceEBike/TSDZ2-Smart-EBike/releases and programmed the option byte tab in STVP. I used the 3.3V connector instead of 5V on my STLINK and turned the battery on after connecting to the speed sensor. STM8S105x6 config in STVP.
 
ebike_builder said:
I have had a very similar issue: power on 860c (OSF firmware 0.20.1c-4) and first get "Wait TSDZ2" for about 45 seconds, then "Error brakes or comms". After trying everything with cables (even swapping some out) it was decided that the controller was bad. Exchanged the controller and found that the original one looked fine. After reconnecting/reassembling and doing a test ride, everything seemed fine. I then spent quite a bit of time going through the configuration screens, making changes where necessary. I then accidentally either did one of these two things:
1. turned off the battery while the display was still on and then hit the display power button
-or-
2. powered off the display, then turned off the battery and then powered on the display again.

Whichever of these two I did -- the display flashed on for a brief moment. I then realized the batter was off and turned it back on. Then powering on the display got the dreaded "Wait TSDZ2" followed by "Error brakes or comms"! This was my original problem before the controller swap. Interestingly enough, even though the display shows "Wait TSDZ2", long pressing the M button will go into the configuration menu which appears to be fully functional. Hitting the power button to exit the configuration menu will then bring up the normal display EXCEPT battery power shows zero and there is no pedal assist. Sigh. My suspicion is that hitting the power button with the battery off somehow put the controller into a strange state. I am not going to try anything else until I get some expert guidance. I would like to do a factory reset of the controller, but I will hold off on that for now.

Has anyone else experienced this issue or have any ideas?

--peter
Click to expand...
Hi Peter, sorry to follow up to your post has been so late but I found it and we're having the same problem. Do you know how to do the factory reset? I've searched and I can't find it. Thanks
 
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