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[HOW TO] Calibrating IPS A130


fearedbliss

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Hello all,

So you guys already know from my IPS A130 review that I said one of the downsides of it was that the pedals were pointing down too much. This made it uncomfortable to ride in various scenarios (even if it was doable). However, @fabio70mi posted a pdf which shows what you need to do in order to calibrate the IPS 121. I went on to open my IPS up and see if I can find a connector that seems similar.. and I did! The IPS A130 has a 9 socket connector, thus I proceeded to put a wire between the orange and black holes and powering on the machine. This pretty much calibrated it. Of course, that's just a summary of what happened.

The IPS A130 has 8 standard phillip screws (4 on each side at the top of the IPS), and it has 12 non-standard (I'm calling it that..) bolts. 3 on each side of the wheel, both forward and back, which is a total of 12 bolts. After you remove all of these screws, you need to carefully open the case to the side that doesnt have the cable coming from the IPS to the wheel. The side that doesn't have this cable is the side that will easily allow you access to the cables needed. Once you find this side, there will be panel that has 5 screws (2 on each side and 1 in the middle). When you remove these 5 screws and lift the panel, you will see all of the cables in the wheel. Find the 9 socket connector (That isn't connected to anything) and take a piece of wire and put it in the orange and black holes (I used a piece of soldering wire since I didn't have any copper wires.. so whatever can conduct electricity is ok). Once that's done, you can carefully close to wheel just enough so that things don't fall apart, and go ahead and stand up the wheel and put it in a way that the pedals are perpendicular to the floor. I used the "Bubble level (No Ads)" app from the Google Play Store. When I opened up the Bubble app, I placed my phone directly on the floor and clicked the calibrate button, after that was done, I placed my phone on top of one of the pedals and made bubble go directly in the middle of the app. This ensures that the pedal is centered. After that, I turned on the wheel and that made the wheel turn on, blink red a few times, and then the light will turn green and start beeping. I believe this means it is done. There were some times that I turned it on and the red button would flash and turn off, and sometimes the light would turn on red, stay red for a bit, and then beep _once_ when it is green. I don't know what's the difference between it beeping multiple times, and it beeping once. Maybe it means that nothing changed?

Either way, that's basically all you need to do. Don't try to take the "easy" route and try to "quick test" the wheel by not putting in most of the screws (or many screws) and trying to ride it "just to see if the calibration actually feels good".. I tried that by only putting 4 bolts on the wheel and trying to ride it, and as soon as I put my weight on the wheel, I almost broke the plastic.. Make sure you completely re-assemble the wheel and place ALL of the bolts and screws before riding. If you did the calibration correctly like I described above, the wheel should be calibrated perfectly centered.

After I re-assembled it, I rode it inside my house quickly and then took it around the block. The calibration definitely made a HUGE difference and the wheel is actually usable now, especially usable to teach beginners. Before I didn't want to use this wheel to teach beginners because the wheel would point down and that added a major level of difficulty for people that are just starting out and are already worrying about balancing on the wheel, among other things. Also from my quick testing, I feel I can turn much more easily now without the pedals hitting the ground.. of course this is just a quick test so I would need to test it more extensively to really know if the turning improved by a lot, but from what I can feel at the moment from my ride around the block, the turning definitely improved even if the pedals are still low.

Pictures

App Screenshots

The T15 is the screw driver head that I used to remove the bolts. It came as part of a toolkit set I bought a long time ago at iFixIt.

Videos of Calibration Sound

Continuous beep at end (green light)

Red light turns off but one beep at end

Single beep at end (Basically same scenario as previous video)

- Jonathan

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