WheelTop EDS TX Full Wireless Groupset (Chinese SRAM)

[TidyDinosaur]

I posted this on the Facebook EDS forum.  I had a concerning incident yesterday with my EDS TX hydraulic brakes.

Yesterday, on a gradual descent, coasting at around 25kph, (15mph) I was approaching an "S" curve on a trail that I ride numerous time per week.  I wanted to apply a small amount of braking power, so I pulled on the brakes to slow down just a little to make the first turn.  As I applied force to the levers, both levers "locked in place" at about 25% travel, and the hydraulic calipers did not brake on the rotors.   This quickly became an "Oh Shit" moment!  I pulled harder on the levers and they would not budge, and I was still accelerating into the turn.  I dove through the turn to the next short straight section, let go of the levers, then tried quickly pumping them, but they were still locking at about 25% travel.   Just as I was starting to panic, and my speed was now over 30kph (20mph), I pulled on the levers again and they worked normally, and I was able to slow down enough to make the next turn.   

Has anyone else experienced "locked brake levers"?   

This is very concerning and I don't have a clue why this happened.  Now I have doubts that these brakes will work all the time in the future, braking power that I take for granted for my safety and life.

I have a 160 mile ride that starts this Friday July 19th that starts at midnight, and I have concerns that I will be coasting down a long descent and the brakes will not work again.  I keep walking up to my bike and pull the brake levers to be sure they are still working....

This looks a very simple choice... If you value your life you stop using this groupset. I can't believe you are still thinking about riding it.

[Linsook]

I posted this on the Facebook EDS forum.  I had a concerning incident yesterday with my EDS TX hydraulic brakes.

Yesterday, on a gradual descent, coasting at around 25kph, (15mph) I was approaching an "S" curve on a trail that I ride numerous time per week.  I wanted to apply a small amount of braking power, so I pulled on the brakes to slow down just a little to make the first turn.  As I applied force to the levers, both levers "locked in place" at about 25% travel, and the hydraulic calipers did not brake on the rotors.   This quickly became an "Oh Shit" moment!  I pulled harder on the levers and they would not budge, and I was still accelerating into the turn.  I dove through the turn to the next short straight section, let go of the levers, then tried quickly pumping them, but they were still locking at about 25% travel.   Just as I was starting to panic, and my speed was now over 30kph (20mph), I pulled on the levers again and they worked normally, and I was able to slow down enough to make the next turn.   

Has anyone else experienced "locked brake levers"?   

This is very concerning and I don't have a clue why this happened.  Now I have doubts that these brakes will work all the time in the future, braking power that I take for granted for my safety and life.

I have a 160 mile ride that starts this Friday July 19th that starts at midnight, and I have concerns that I will be coasting down a long descent and the brakes will not work again.  I keep walking up to my bike and pull the brake levers to be sure they are still working....

This is concerning.  I've not had any issues with mine but now I'll be thinking about it whenever I ride.   

[rockerplates.de]

I posted this on the Facebook EDS forum.  I had a concerning incident yesterday with my EDS TX hydraulic brakes.

Yesterday, on a gradual descent, coasting at around 25kph, (15mph) I was approaching an "S" curve on a trail that I ride numerous time per week.  I wanted to apply a small amount of braking power, so I pulled on the brakes to slow down just a little to make the first turn.  As I applied force to the levers, both levers "locked in place" at about 25% travel, and the hydraulic calipers did not brake on the rotors.   This quickly became an "Oh Shit" moment!  I pulled harder on the levers and they would not budge, and I was still accelerating into the turn.  I dove through the turn to the next short straight section, let go of the levers, then tried quickly pumping them, but they were still locking at about 25% travel.   Just as I was starting to panic, and my speed was now over 30kph (20mph), I pulled on the levers again and they worked normally, and I was able to slow down enough to make the next turn.   

Has anyone else experienced "locked brake levers"?   

This is very concerning and I don't have a clue why this happened.  Now I have doubts that these brakes will work all the time in the future, braking power that I take for granted for my safety and life.

I have a 160 mile ride that starts this Friday July 19th that starts at midnight, and I have concerns that I will be coasting down a long descent and the brakes will not work again.  I keep walking up to my bike and pull the brake levers to be sure they are still working....

Well, both brake levers locked sounds very strange, as they are seperate hydaulic systems? never seen this before in the wild?
Regarding your 160 mile ride: if you can swap to another system, i would do so....not an enjoyable ride feeling downhill and in total?

[coffeebreak]

For real, stop riding that groupset. Thanks for posting it, this one instance is enough to deter anyone from considering it. I frequently go downhill at 40mph + and just the thought that brake levers locking up is giving me a panic attack.

[Tijoe]

I performed a caliper inspection and cleaning followed by a rear brake fluid purge.   I didn't find anything that I can blame the calipers for the problem.   I am thinking that somehow, after heavily using them on the previous descent, the heat build up somehow increased the internal pressure of the pistons in the front levers and somehow pushed them forward and made them stick/lock.  Since I was able to pump the levers back and forth, and they did start working again,  in the back of my mind I am not as worried about a catastrophic failure/crash.

The question in my mind is how is the front hydraulic piston/actuator designed.  Is there a way they can get pushed forward, say at a slight angle and become stuck?  I haven't taken one apart to see what the innards look like.   I would just about have to see a cross sectional view of the design, along with dimensions and machining tolerances to determine if there is a way for both of them to jam/stick at the same time.   (As a side note:  I have had a problem with what I believe to be a tolerance stack-up/machining problem on one of my EDS OX rear derailleurs, and Wheeltop customer service has been less than helpful. -I presume due to me purchasing the kit from an Aliexpress store - They call this an "unauthorized seller".  Quite a cop-out because on this EDS OX derailleur this is a defective design/manufacturing problem.)

[rockerplates.de]

well, i am not quite sure, but i have a durace tt lever, which let me down with leeking fluid...after is took it apart completely, i found a little rubber bladder, which basically gets squished when braking and after you let go, the lever gets to his homeposition.
Maybe the oil got hot and the bladder size increased...? Just an estimated guess :-

[Nomuetze]

What I find a bit weird though is, that this failure happened in 2 completely separated systems at the exact same time.
Not that I dare to question that, but concerning heat, front and rear would have different heat sink capabilities.
But yes, maybe kind of exploded view of STIs would shed some light on how system works.

Besides that I did a 120mi loop on gravel with about 20.000feet ups+downs and did not have a single moment of loss of braking.
However I would recommend to change from wheeltop brake pads to let’s say Shimano standard…either with heat fins or not.
Both fit and deliver better stopping power and modulation.

[Tijoe]

Update: I had the brake lever pistons lock up twice on my long ride yesterday. (Brakes were working normally at the start of the ride.) The first time was about 4 miles after the start of the ride, after a short downhill where the brakes were lightly used to control my speed. I was in a pack and as we came up to a stop sign, I pulled on the brakes to slow with the pack, and both brakes levers were locked up. I veered out of the pack, while pulling harder on the levers, and I felt a slight "pop" and they were working again.
 The second time was at the top of a 6 mile climb where I hadn't used the brakes in quite some time, I pulled on the brakes at the top of the climb, and only the right lever was stuck. (The one I purged with new mineral oil ) The Left/front brake worked normally.

It is becoming clear to me that there it is something in the brake lever hydraulic/piston side of things that becomes stuck. As soon as I can allocate the time, I will have to take one apart and see if I can find what is causing this problem. On the flip side. The ride had over 12K of climbing/descending, and on all of the long high speed descents, the brakes worked really well without any problem.

[rockerplates.de]

Update: I had the brake lever pistons lock up twice on my long ride yesterday. (Brakes were working normally at the start of the ride.) The first time was about 4 miles after the start of the ride, after a short downhill where the brakes were lightly used to control my speed. I was in a pack and as we came up to a stop sign, I pulled on the brakes to slow with the pack, and both brakes levers were locked up. I veered out of the pack, while pulling harder on the levers, and I felt a slight "pop" and they were working again.
 The second time was at the top of a 6 mile climb where I hadn't used the brakes in quite some time, I pulled on the brakes at the top of the climb, and only the right lever was stuck. (The one I purged with new mineral oil ) The Left/front brake worked normally.

It is becoming clear to me that there it is something in the brake lever hydraulic/piston side of things that becomes stuck. As soon as I can allocate the time, I will have to take one apart and see if I can find what is causing this problem. On the flip side. The ride had over 12K of climbing/descending, and on all of the long high speed descents, the brakes worked really well without any problem.

sorry for this quote but: you deserve a darwin award.....i would not like to have you riding behind me on a steep descent with this kind of material!
dont get me wrong, but it is one thing if you bump into a wall but getting bikemates in danger is not a polite thing to do...

i would not touch the brakes, it is the sellers or manufacturers duty to take care of this kind of quality issues....

Stay alive mate!

[thegreygoose]

Update: I had the brake lever pistons lock up twice on my long ride yesterday. (Brakes were working normally at the start of the ride.) The first time was about 4 miles after the start of the ride, after a short downhill where the brakes were lightly used to control my speed. I was in a pack and as we came up to a stop sign, I pulled on the brakes to slow with the pack, and both brakes levers were locked up. I veered out of the pack, while pulling harder on the levers, and I felt a slight "pop" and they were working again.
 The second time was at the top of a 6 mile climb where I hadn't used the brakes in quite some time, I pulled on the brakes at the top of the climb, and only the right lever was stuck. (The one I purged with new mineral oil ) The Left/front brake worked normally.

It is becoming clear to me that there it is something in the brake lever hydraulic/piston side of things that becomes stuck. As soon as I can allocate the time, I will have to take one apart and see if I can find what is causing this problem. On the flip side. The ride had over 12K of climbing/descending, and on all of the long high speed descents, the brakes worked really well without any problem.

You might want to do an easy shakedown ride in the park or something before your next ride to see if it seizes up.

I hope you manage to find the source of the problem but you need to ride safely.

Its not just matter of your own personal safety but also safety to others - cant emphasize this enough!

[aliexpress_junkie]

Update: I had the brake lever pistons lock up twice on my long ride yesterday. (Brakes were working normally at the start of the ride.) The first time was about 4 miles after the start of the ride, after a short downhill where the brakes were lightly used to control my speed. I was in a pack and as we came up to a stop sign, I pulled on the brakes to slow with the pack, and both brakes levers were locked up. I veered out of the pack, while pulling harder on the levers, and I felt a slight "pop" and they were working again.
 The second time was at the top of a 6 mile climb where I hadn't used the brakes in quite some time, I pulled on the brakes at the top of the climb, and only the right lever was stuck. (The one I purged with new mineral oil ) The Left/front brake worked normally.

It is becoming clear to me that there it is something in the brake lever hydraulic/piston side of things that becomes stuck. As soon as I can allocate the time, I will have to take one apart and see if I can find what is causing this problem. On the flip side. The ride had over 12K of climbing/descending, and on all of the long high speed descents, the brakes worked really well without any problem.

Thanks for the updats, glad to see that you're alive and well. But that is absolutely terrifying, I would not want to ride this groupset or ride with someone that has experienced this in a group ride. Have you contacted L-twoo about this?

At least we know the rim brake version can't have this issue right? How could they fuck up just pulling a cable I wonder...

There's nothing to do with your groupset (at least no serious rides), the only thing you can try (for science) is to find a park or a huge patch of grass where you could naturally slow down in case of failures and try to spam the brakes (probably just one at a time so you have a "backup" if it seizes) with crazy force from high speed to see if you can somehow reproduce it. Of course all in a controlled environment again with no risks to you or others. Heat buildup should not cause this kind of problems. Either something is wrong with their piston/hydraulic system design or you have a faulty system, I'm hoping for the latter since so many peoples bought this groupset already...

[MartinSolder]

Had the wheeltop eds tx now for just over 2 months. Rode about 600 mile on it with no problem until yesterday when I started to get intermittent shifting and the derailleur wouldn't move . The shifter was sending the signal to move and I also used the app and that wouldn't move the derailleur. Reinstalled everything and re paired everything but that didn't make any difference. I have swapped the shifter batteries for new ones but haven't had a chance to ride yet to see if that makes a difference. Has anyone got any other ideas or things I can try. I'm out of ideas!!

[Fleckinger]

Had the wheeltop eds tx now for just over 2 months. Rode about 600 mile on it with no problem until yesterday when I started to get intermittent shifting and the derailleur wouldn't move . The shifter was sending the signal to move and I also used the app and that wouldn't move the derailleur. Reinstalled everything and re paired everything but that didn't make any difference. I have swapped the shifter batteries for new ones but haven't had a chance to ride yet to see if that makes a difference. Has anyone got any other ideas or things I can try. I'm out of ideas!!

You can contact the manufacturer for a warranty.
You can reset system through the app and reinstall all settings.

Or you can open your derailleur and and check for water ingress if your derailleur has been in contact with water.

Here is example how to remove the battery.  https://youtube.com/watch?v=LLNrfIdh9r8

Here https://youtube.com/watch?v=-k5TzYEYwJg you can see that RD battery easily removable, i hope Wheeltop will sell batteries separately as other spare parts. Also video contains some instruction to prevent water ingress, you can turn on auto translation for subtitles, they are decent.

But you also need to check the main unit, the black box in the derailleur parallelogram, see this post and the attached pictures.

Here's the picture of those PCB.

As an addition the picture of a shifter button and a report about shifter water ingress.

 



 

[jonathanf2]

Trace Velo posted finally posted his review of the Wheeltop EDS TX:

youtu.be/PeoQ-bSFPwc

[erallen30]

This groupset is trash. You'd be stupid to buy it over a complete 105 di2 groupset.