- Power meters are one of the most technical components
on a bike, and how they're made is a closely guarded secret.
However, we have come to a rather lovely part
of rural Germany to the HQ of Power2Max
'cause they are gonna show us how they do it.
This is how you make a power meter.
(speaks in German)
- Sorry, I'm really sorry.
Now, a little bit of bad news, unfortunately.
At my first day of work, they said,
"Company breakfast is at 9:00,"
so we've turned up at 9:00, but it turns out
they've already been working for two hours.
Apparently, everyone starts work here at 7:00 a.m.,
so we're a little bit late.
(rhythmic techno music)
Now, step one, and I'm already excited,
and we're only at the storage, okay,
this is like next-generation shelving.
The bulkiest part of the power meter of course is the
aluminium spider and seeing as there are lots of different iterations for
different cranks and different chainrings
They are all stored in here.
It's an automated shelving system.
Okay, so first of all we are going to chose the right one.
I'm going to go for 110BCD on here
touch this button.
Look at that.
There we go. Number five.
There we go, check it out.
Little things, eh?
Now, step two of the process
Is again hopefully relatively un-technical
but again it involves laser beams so I'm even more excited
So what we are gonna do is is very simply etch on there
things like the logos
but also the bar codes that each have that is traceable
and then actually things are gonna help
the manufacturing process.
So those little holes there they need to be prepared
for the stain gauges to then be attached
and also little lines are gonna go on there
to help with collaboration.
Okay, ready?
Then we need to switch on the fan,
switch on the extractor fan
and then I press go.
Whoa laser beams
(upbeat techno music)
There we go, check it out.
Hopefully that's gonna be traceable to me, specifically.
But ah, yeah. My first laser etched spider.
I know that's probably a bread
and butter process to many of you watching
but to me that is generally thrilling.
Cleaning, super important, wanna see?
(air compressor blows)
Right for this next stage of the process.
I need to take a seat
because things are getting really serious, okay?
So at this point I need to glue on two strain gauges
on to our freshly prepared aluminium spider
and it is incredibly important
because if you don't do it correctly
then the power meter isn't going to work properly.
So to put it in some kind of context
the way a strain gauge works
is it's got a little wire that runs through it.
And you measure the resistance of that wire.
And then as the aluminium flexes
then the resistance of the wire changes
because it's simply changing length.
But we are talking tiny numbers here.
So, the wire resistance is about 350 OHMS, so I'm told.
And if you were then to ride at 100 watts at a cadence of 90
the difference detected in that strain gauge is just
20 parts per million.
So someone has already done the maths for me.
That just naught point naught naught 7 OHMS of difference.
So, you can see,
this is actually a pretty skillful part of the process.
All there you go, okay, now blow out any kind of air bubbles
all there we go, oh my goodness mate,
I got air bubbles all over it,
Can't really see.
I'm pretty sure I nailed that.
Do you guys want to check my handy work?
Give me your mark out of ten.
- That's not good.
(laughter)
- Right, one more chance.
More glue, more glue.
Take two.
Zero out of ten, aww.
- Ugh...
- Now fortunately someone has drawn at least some way
saving my very poor craftsmanship on the glueing stage.
Now I got another highly skilled job
that I'm probably going to fail miserably at as well
because we need to obviously attach our string gauges
to the circuit boards
so we basically need to solder the wires on.
Before wires go anywhere near it though
we need to pre-solder so another difficult step.
Wish me luck.
Flux, flux first, flux first, always flux first.
I'm going to put more flux on than I did glue.
Hopefully that's the right thing to do.
Oh wow weird, how cool is this?
I have a feeling this is melting the strain gauge
Marks out of ten please?
- Hmmm...
Eight? - Eight! Ah yes!
These are all wires that we attach to our strain gauge
and into the PCB.
Now they are actually being cut by a machine
because the length of them is incredibly important.
As we just learned we are resisting
so longer wire are going to provide more resistance
so that's gonna throw the strain gauge off.
So it's all really quite precise.
(techno music)
Alright I solded.
I'm gonna keep going I'm gonna go white now.
Alright that one is solded as well.
Okay I'm ready.
Let's go for it.
(laughs)
No? One?
Naught?
- Zero. - Zero?
Okay so now a change of scene now
leaving my woeful soldering
probably in the bin somewhere.
We are now programming and checking our circuit boards.
Okay so these are printed just down the road
couple hundred K's away still in Germany.
And these ones are actually from the type S power meter.
So the new ones the NG and NG Eco are much much smaller.
But this is really good to illustrate
some key points on here.
So, we got our accelerometer just tucked away in there
then we got our temperature sensor somewhere down there
not quite sure.
We got a little radio transmitter there.
And then we got our sensor processor there, okay?
And what we are gonna do is pop it in that machine
and scan it first,
so we got that whole record of exactly where it comes from.
And then pop it down and that is going to programme it
and check it.
Okay, so hopefully, hopefully I can't get this one wrong.
Okay, shut the lid.
And there are three PCBs can do their work.
Okay look, checking it.
Done, done, done, pass, done.
Yes, looking good.
There ya go, that's what we like to see.
100% success rate.
No soldering needed, all passed.
Now we are going to stick our PCB into our housing here.
This is the housing for the NG Eco.
So the new one.
Alright so we need to line those two points up
with our battery connector.
Alright soldering time.
Wow, wow at that!
That looks pretty good to me.
Okay, you ready, no?
Oh that doesn't sound good
Yeah, that didn't sound good.
You know it's getting really good
when we have to put safety specs on.
This part of the process.
I'm gonna say it, it's completely taken me by surprise.
I didn't know it existed.
What we're doing is we are going to seal
all the electronic components
in a polyurethane rubber
and it is applied in liquid form though that bit there.
And we seal the whole thing, cover it up,
and then it goes in an oven and is then cured.
Making the whole thing completely and utterly water proof.
And I need 11.5 grammes polyurethane
and everything is quite hot and a little bit dangerous.
Okay, you ready?
Quite proud of that.
Ready for use under water or in Great Britain.
Quick change or location and now in the test lab okay?
This machine behind me is a dynamometer,
and what it does is
it can dynamically calibrate the power meter.
So in there you got a motor
and this point here this is the calibration reference box
and that's accurate to naught point one percent.
So that's like super, super duper accurate.
Then of course we got our power meter
and then behind our cassette here
we got a brake which generates a known resistance
so use all of that we can tell whether or not
the power meter is moving perfectly.
Okay, first off,
programmed this all myself just a little bit earlier.
There we go.
So, the power meter that is in there at the moment
is an NG Eco.
Normally it would be a power meter NG that is in there.
Every single NG unit
comes up here to this dynamic collaboration.
Because the unit is accurate
to one percent it needs the accuracy of this machine
to make sure that each one is perfect
This one though the NG Eco that is accurate to 2%
So normally that is collaborated
using a static collaboration
and then one out of every batch
so one out of ten power meters
will come up here
just to make sure the static collaboration is working.
So then it is run through this extra extra precise machine.
Right now we can see here the profile of the test.
So that red line there is what the software
is telling the motor to do
and that blue line is coming from
our collaboration reference.
So that is the one that is accurate
to naught point one percent.
And that is the one that we can now measure
a power meter off just to see whether
or not those two traces match up.
So there are plenty of unboxing on GCN.
But I think this could be the first time
we are actually gonna get to box something up.
However, this might not be the last stage of the process
but one more thing to do before that.
First thing we need to clean up
our power meter just to make sure it is in
the kinda condition you would like to receive it in
then you are gonna put a battery in,
seal the battery compartment up
then very important, we scan the bar code
then that is gonna give you a tracer,
registration of your power meter
and is also gonna print something out that means you,
the owner will know that it has be collaborated.
Then, then it can be put in the box.
I guess the last step in making a power meter
if you are gonna sell it is actually
packaging it up and shipping it out.
And I have an order right here.
It's not going very far, I don't think
but I'm gonna pick it
and then maybe throw in a little GCN swag.
So I need a type S for a rotor power meter
it's got a bonus seal kit
black and red colour GCN colours.
I like it.
Fitting tool.
And one last thing stick a GCN t-shirt
in there for you as well.
There we go, now we're cooking.
We're back now at one of my top five storage solutions
of all time.
It's not just the raw materials that are packed away
in here, it's also the finished product as well.
And I've been asked to scan that little code there
and then apparently something cool is waiting for us.
I like cool things.
Hello what have we got here?
That's what I like to see GCN.
That's a nice NG.
Aw look at that!
The laser etching machine has done it's stuff
look at that, the GCN NG Eco.
One of the first off the production line.
That's amazing.
Fantastic.
Well I think it's pretty fair to say that I've left quite
the trail of destruction in an otherwise pristine
German engineering facility
but don't worry they kept a close eye
on literally everything that I touched.
Now, in all seriousness
I would like to say a big thank you to power2max
for showing us so much detail
hopefully you've learned as much as I have
even if quite clearly, like my soldering,
it would take an awful lot more practise
to be able to do it for real.
Now, do make sure you subscribe to GCN
before leaving this video.
It's very easy just click on the globe.
And if you would like some more content right now
you can check out mountain bike versus road
just down there.
Or see inside an NG power meter from an unboxing perspective
click, just down there.
(speaks in German)