Levo Gen 3 Charge Limit doesn't work anymore

torabora851

Member
Apr 13, 2020
108
67
Sydney, Australia
It worked from the beginning, but now it just ignores the setting and charges 100% every time. Firstly I thought that this is like "However, on every 10th charge your bike will charge to the full 100%" but 4 times in a row it charges to 100%.
 

torabora851

Member
Apr 13, 2020
108
67
Sydney, Australia
By recommendation from Spesh support, I did a factory reset. No luck, it still ignores the charge limit setting. Will try to disable it, make a full charge and then enable it.

I wonder how the battery knows about the setting? Is there some internal memory?
 

ThierryGTLTS

Member
Feb 17, 2020
116
55
Belgium
I think there is a Coulomb counter in the battery.

For the SL batteries (Levo, Creo, Vado,...), 15 minutes of charge = 10% of charge.

So when I have to charge my battery, I calculate the time, and cut it after that time.

For example 45 minutes for 30% of charge.

That's easy, you can use a small timer if you fear to forget to cut it off :)

Have a Nice Day.

Thierry
 

torabora851

Member
Apr 13, 2020
108
67
Sydney, Australia
Hey, @Crockej have you tried to do a factory reset? Press the + and - buttons for 45s and wait until the TCU will restart twice and you will see the "factory reset" screen. It didn't work for me.

Would be nice if you test this, so we can push the Spesh to address the problem.
 

torabora851

Member
Apr 13, 2020
108
67
Sydney, Australia
Got this sequence from the spesh support, which fixed the issue for me:
  1. Perform factory reset.
  2. Deplete the battery to below 80%
  3. Toggle on charge limit
  4. Force close the Mission Control app
  5. Open the app and enter the tune screen to check the settings
  6. Then charge the bike and see what happens and report back to us please.
 

BushLevo

Member
Subscriber
Oct 11, 2019
71
26
Melbourne, Australia
Got this sequence from the spesh support, which fixed the issue for me:
  1. Perform factory reset.
  2. Deplete the battery to below 80%
  3. Toggle on charge limit
  4. Force close the Mission Control app
  5. Open the app and enter the tune screen to check the settings
  6. Then charge the bike and see what happens and report back to us please.

My Levo is a 2019 with the standard (blue LED) TCU. After I had the battery firmware updated I had about 8-9 charges (from around 55%) up to the charge limit of about 81% with no problem...the limit cutout worked every time. On about the 10th partial charge, the charger kept going to 100% so I let it finish charging so the charger turned itself off (green). I think you have to let the charger finish so it can balance/recalibrate all the cells in the battery.

Just in case I was going to have the same problem as you, I followed steps 1-6 above exactly and the next charge (from 62%) finished properly at 81%.

What confuses me is that Specialized say the charger will go to 100% every 10 charge cycles. This doesn't appear to be the same "Charge Cycles" that MC reports. Because I only do partial charges each time, my Charge Cycles number changed from 46 to 48 throughout the last 10 or so partial charges I have done. So I suspect that what happens is the battery firmware counts each time you charge the battery (whether full or partial), ignores the total Charge Cycles number shown in MC and forces a 100% charge every 10 charging events. I'm going to keep a careful log of all charges I do for the next couple of months to see if this is what really occurs. Also, I'm going to see if the next 100% charge event is followed by a 80% charge event automatically without having to do any resets, or charge limit toggling.

I'll be complaining loudly to Specialized Australia if there are problems with this battery firmware. The LBS I brought the bike from in 2019 charged me $50 to update the battery (and TCU) firmware in February, since you can't do your own battery update with MC.
 

LevoBiker

New Member
Feb 11, 2023
22
2
NJ
I started having the same problem. Doing the toggle and Force Stop process. Will see what happens.

[Update] Finished a ride at 40% charge. Charge Limit toggle was ON. Put it on the charger. I could tell it was going over 80% so I stopped the charge. Checked Mission Control. Charge Level was 95% but Charge Limit toggle was OFF !! What? I toggled it back ON. Will see what happens after ride tomorrow.
[Update] Nope, no luck.
 
Last edited:

6950rpm

Member
Sep 22, 2021
22
16
Isle of Wight
My charge limit has now stopped working so before I follow the troubleshooting steps outlined above, can anyone tell me if by doing a factory reset on the TCU, do you have to pair the bike again? Is any other data lost?
 

LevoBiker

New Member
Feb 11, 2023
22
2
NJ
My charge limit has now stopped working so before I follow the troubleshooting steps outlined above, can anyone tell me if by doing a factory reset on the TCU, do you have to pair the bike again? Is any other data lost?
I watched this video from Specialized University () and it says 20 seconds will retain your settings for TCU 2. I also read in the Levo manual that 45 seconds will erase everything but I could not find the 20 second reset mentioned in the manual. So, what to believe?
 

6950rpm

Member
Sep 22, 2021
22
16
Isle of Wight
My charge limit has now stopped working so before I follow the troubleshooting steps outlined above, can anyone tell me if by doing a factory reset on the TCU, do you have to pair the bike again? Is any other data lost?
I did a standard reset (hold + & - down for 20 seconds) and now the charge limit is working again.
 

HDC

Member
Jul 11, 2021
7
0
France
Same problem here. I did try to reset the TCU / deplete battery below 80%/ force quit MC but it was not working. Battery shows 100% this morning. Will give another try over the weekend
Hopefully bug will be fixed in next firmware release.
 

HDC

Member
Jul 11, 2021
7
0
France
Same problem here. I did try to reset the TCU / deplete battery below 80%/ force quit MC but it was not working. Battery shows 100% this morning. Will give another try over the weekend
Hopefully bug will be fixed in next firmware release
 

LevoBiker

New Member
Feb 11, 2023
22
2
NJ
It finally started working for me. Just need to follow the steps exactly as above:
Power on bike. Connect to MC. Do the 20sec TCU reset. Wait for MC to reconnect. Toggle the Charge Setting in MC. Force Stop MC App. Restart MC and check that Charge Setting is still enabled. Power off bike. Charge.
 

HDC

Member
Jul 11, 2021
7
0
France
It finally started working for me. Just need to follow the steps exactly as above:
Power on bike. Connect to MC. Do the 20sec TCU reset. Wait for MC to reconnect. Toggle the Charge Setting in MC. Force Stop MC App. Restart MC and check that Charge Setting is still enabled. Power off bike. Charge.
It started to work as well. I followed your steps at the letter and battery load displayed 81% after loading.
Really hope Spe will fix this ;)
 

6950rpm

Member
Sep 22, 2021
22
16
Isle of Wight
The issue is back. Hopefully Specialized will fix it soon, i don't like to do hardware reset every 10 charge.
The issue came back for me. I checked the app and charge limit was showing as off. I turned charge limit back on again, turned bike off then on again and reconnected the app and charge limit was showing as enabled. Turned bike off again and plugged in and it charged to 80%. I didn't need to do a hardware reset.
 

torabora851

Member
Apr 13, 2020
108
67
Sydney, Australia
The issue came back for me. I checked the app and charge limit was showing as off. I turned charge limit back on again, turned bike off then on again and reconnected the app and charge limit was showing as enabled. Turned bike off again and plugged in and it charged to 80%. I didn't need to do a hardware reset.
Nah, the charge limit is on, and still 100% charge.
 

LevoBiker

New Member
Feb 11, 2023
22
2
NJ
On the 10th cycle, it successfully charged to 100%. I was happy. The next time it charged, it went to 100% instead of 80%. Yea, some bug in the function they need to deal with.
 

LevoBiker

New Member
Feb 11, 2023
22
2
NJ
Seems like reset procedure didn’t work this time. Once again the battery charged to 100%. I’m tired of dealing with this.
 

Damin

New Member
May 17, 2023
24
34
USA
I use my watch timer. It's more like 20% per hr and it picks up a little past 80%.
I use this with my eBikes for charge time limiting. Has an app. Let's you set timers, schedules etc.. Set it for four hours for 80% roughly on a Levo 700wh.

Geeni Outdoor Duo Wi-Fi Smart...
 

BushLevo

Member
Subscriber
Oct 11, 2019
71
26
Melbourne, Australia
Seems like reset procedure didn’t work this time. Once again the battery charged to 100%. I’m tired of dealing with this.
Yep, same here for my Gen2 Levo. After the first factory reset I got another 9 limited charges before it went back to 100%. Factory resets no longer work.

I've contacted Specialized Support and they're aware of this problem, saying they expect an update 'soon' that will fix this permanently. What 'soon' means is anybody's guess. Specialized are at the mercy of Brose in Switzerland for the TCU and Motor hardware and firmware, but I'm not sure about the battery.

Does anyone know who the battery and firmware designer is?
 

ThierryGTLTS

Member
Feb 17, 2020
116
55
Belgium
Yep, same here for my Gen2 Levo. After the first factory reset I got another 9 limited charges before it went back to 100%. Factory resets no longer work.

I've contacted Specialized Support and they're aware of this problem, saying they expect an update 'soon' that will fix this permanently. What 'soon' means is anybody's guess. Specialized are at the mercy of Brose in Switzerland for the TCU and Motor hardware and firmware, but I'm not sure about the battery.

Does anyone know who the battery and firmware designer is?
Are you sure?!

Levo SL motor is not a Brose one, but the App is the same.

So it's probably developped by Specialized.
 

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