LTWOO ER9 & ERX - Electronic groepsets

[Jonty12]

Quick Q, Does eRX have a button that can control the head unit screen like Di2 (Ultegra+) has? 

To clarify, with Ultegra and DA Di2, there are buttons on top of the hoods that can be programmed to page up/down on your head-unit.

[toxin]

No

[Serge_K]

Have you tried contacting LTwoo directly?

https://www.ltwoo.com/foot/Contact_us/Contact_us

The support / ticket page i saw said to go via your reseller first, so i did. if i understand him correctly (his English is conveniently dubious at critical times), ltwoo is sending him 2 replacements and then he'll have to ship them to me. I'm not sure i understood correctly, it's happening in real time and he's bad at answering emails and gets upset when i chase him. There hasn't been any feedback on what the problem may be / is. If they are sending replacements i guess they're just broken? I would have wished there would be a software / reset solution to it, because it means 2 RDs just randomly died under normal use.
I have extremely mixed feelings about RD randomly dying for no reason, imagine a cycling holiday, a bike tour, or a long day out, how F'ed you are if that happens...

[jonathanf2]

I have extremely mixed feelings about RD randomly dying for no reason, imagine a cycling holiday, a bike tour, or a long day out, how F'ed you are if that happens...

It's definitely concerning to hear about the ER9/X RDs just dying. By any chance do you have a bar code on your RD? Joe from China Cycling said it should say the manufacturing date. Reading the first 6 digits, mine says 250123. If that's dd/mm/yy, that means I have an RD from early last year. 

I'm not sure I would take the ER9 groupset as my travel bike either. Luckily I have other mechanical bikes for travel. I'm just wondering if there's a way we can narrow down the problematic groupsets or if they're all ticking time bombs! 

[coffeebreak]

Don't know if I should feel happy or sad. My second purchase of the ER9 has been sent back to seller because of the batteries. This is after I sent message to seller (for once they replied) and confirmed if its without batteries. Then I placed the order and sent them order number. No dice. They included battery and pretty much immediately was back in their hands. Now reading these reports, may be it was for the better.

[Serge_K]

Reading the first 6 digits, mine says 250123. If that's dd/mm/yy, that means I have an RD from early last year. 
I'm just wondering if there's a way we can narrow down the problematic groupsets or if they're all ticking time bombs! 

I have access to 4 of the 5 now (2 broken, 1 on my road bike that's working and 1 that's not broken but on a bike with a broken wheel & a trashed RD hanger, so not seeing any use for several weeks already):
Broken: 250123
Broken: 250123
Working: 250123
Working: 250123
...
Maybe more interestingly full numbers 250123XXXX0119 / 123 / 122 / 133.  I blanked out the middle, idk if it's sensitive or not to share the serial #.

[Finkster]

It's definitely concerning to hear about the ER9/X RDs just dying. By any chance do you have a bar code on your RD? Joe from China Cycling said it should say the manufacturing date. Reading the first 6 digits, mine says 250123. If that's dd/mm/yy, that means I have an RD from early last year. 

I'm not sure I would take the ER9 groupset as my travel bike either. Luckily I have other mechanical bikes for travel. I'm just wondering if there's a way we can narrow down the problematic groupsets or if they're all ticking time bombs! 

I have two ER9 sets, one with the RD phantom batt drain fault that I described a few pages back.  Both have serial numbers starting with 250123.  First set was bought in Nov 2023, second in Feb 2024.  More likely that these numbers are just product codes identifying it is an ER9 RD with the following numbers the actual serial number.  Unless someone actually owns an ER9 RD that has different first six numbers.

I'm hesitating installing the 2nd ER9 set on my gravel tourer due to reliability concerns.  When riding on the road near home in relatively good conditions, its not a big deal, but in a foreign country with limited access to LTWOO ERX/ER9 parts, its a big risk unless you carry a spare ER9 RD around on your travels.  With SRAM and Shimano, almost every decent bike shop will be able to provide the needed parts in a jiffy.

[max_the_rider]

Hello folks,

I do have a doubt about my er9 groupset...

It works perfectly when connected to the charging cable (via the app and sync with the levers), but as soon as I plug it out, nothing happens... No green light on the rear derailleur...

I guess it's not normal but hum...?!

I might have solved my problems... But... Don't ask me how, I don't really know... Plug out/plug in batteries, long press on RD, reset, fine tuning and that's it!

[Pedaldancer]

I have access to 4 of the 5 now (2 broken, 1 on my road bike that's working and 1 that's not broken but on a bike with a broken wheel & a trashed RD hanger, so not seeing any use for several weeks already):
Broken: 250123
Broken: 250123
Working: 250123
Working: 250123
...
Maybe more interestingly full numbers 250123XXXX0119 / 123 / 122 / 133.  I blanked out the middle, idk if it's sensitive or not to share the serial #.

You are in the EU? I am familiar with the physical analysis of broken electronic units.
I can't of curse guarantee anything, but if this failure is due to a water ingress or internal dewing event there should be visible traces on the printed board. Sometimes it's also possible to see bad solder joints.
Internal damages of components unfortunately very often do not show any signs of something which can be seen visually. Sometimes they show discoloration on pins or melted housing but that's not always the case.
This analysis is very often destructive,. But .. its already dead, right? 

[Benbenben]

I have two ER9 sets, one with the RD phantom batt drain fault that I described a few pages back.  Both have serial numbers starting with 250123.  First set was bought in Nov 2023, second in Feb 2024.  More likely that these numbers are just product codes identifying it is an ER9 RD with the following numbers the actual serial number.  Unless someone actually owns an ER9 RD that has different first six numbers.

I'm hesitating installing the 2nd ER9 set on my gravel tourer due to reliability concerns.  When riding on the road near home in relatively good conditions, its not a big deal, but in a foreign country with limited access to LTWOO ERX/ER9 parts, its a big risk unless you carry a spare ER9 RD around on your travels.  With SRAM and Shimano, almost every decent bike shop will be able to provide the needed parts in a jiffy.

I have a ER9 and RD code starts with 250124

[Serge_K]

You are in the EU? I am familiar with the physical analysis of broken electronic units.
I can't of curse guarantee anything, but if this failure is due to a water ingress or internal dewing event there should be visible traces on the printed board. Sometimes it's also possible to see bad solder joints.
Internal damages of components unfortunately very often do not show any signs of something which can be seen visually. Sometimes they show discoloration on pins or melted housing but that's not always the case.
This analysis is very often destructive,. But .. its already dead, right? 

Yes i'm either in France or Romania. after i get the replacements, let's chat. I may open one myself to see if there's something obvious, i could maybe send you one if you're curious to play around. It would be interesting to figure out what happened.
Either way, neither died because of water or humidity. One died after a descent on bad asphalt with teeth rattling vibration, the other one just died at the very start of the ride, but we're not in humid climate or season so can't be condensation.

[Sebastian]

My RD's serial number starts with 250123 as well. Bought in Sept 23.
No issues yet apart from one ride with intermittent shifting due to humidity in the plug. Without issues since I weatherproofed the connection.
I've done roughly 3000km and 16.000 shifts with it. Fingers crossed.

I did shy away from using the bike in a race recently due to the number of reports here. I didn't want to be stranded on the side of the road with non working derailleurs, so I used my mechanical bike. But I've done 6+ hour long gran fondos with this and used the battery with as little as around 25% of its capacity. It kept working. I also regularly ride cobbled and dirt roads on my rides and the vibrations have not been a problem so far.

[Avalius]

Mine is working fine so far, damn I really hope that it just doesn't die in the middle of a race here. But if it happens oh well bad luck than lol

I'm selling an eGR group in Belgium. Don't wonna take the risk on the gravel since I'm mostly far from home when riding gravel.
Asking the price i've paid for it, if it doesn't sell I'll try it anyway.

[jonathanf2]

I have a ER9 and RD code starts with 250124

Curious which seller you bought your ER9 groupset from? Also report back if you have any issues. If the 250124 is a newer batch with silent revisions, perhaps those are the groupsets to buy?

I somewhat have this love/distrust with the ER9. Now that my ER9 is setup properly, functionality-wise it's been running great. The way I can hammer the shifts on the fly is awesome in conjunction with a close ratio 12 speed cassette, finely tuned cog spacing and gear protection helps so I can just focus on my cadence. I rode my mechanical Ultegra the other day and totally forgot I had no gear protection (shifted into big/big) and I was wondering why my computer wasn't seeing the shifters? Lol

Only if LTwoo weren't such dumba**es and put a bit more effort in refining their product. They could literally sweep the market if the ER9/X was far more reliable. All these user reports of failing RDs and lack of support just undermines a potentially good product. Hell, I'd pay $100 USD extra if they could improve their quality assurance and customer support. The fact I can use 7-13 speed cassettes and use run-of-the-mill rechargeable batteries is enough for me to pay extra.

[Finkster]

So it seems more likely that 250123 and 250124 are batch numbers.  I'll have a replacement RD coming in a week or so.  We'll see what numbers this one has.