Levo Gen 3 TCU unresponsive, battery fully charged

daveawb · Mar 9, 2025

I’ve not used my bike in 3 months, last time I used it I knew there would be a long break before I had a chance to use it or even see it.

I took it out today to clean and service. It was already quite clean as it was washed before I put it into storage. I left the battery at 40% charge and all was working fine.

Today the TCU is unresponsive. I fully charged it but nothing.

I intend to service the bike myself. Can anyone with experience of this bike (Turbo Levo Comp Alloy 23) let me know if any reasons this might be the case.

My thoughts are battery connections have corroded or come loose, possibly some water ingress that’s corroded the TCU’s connections. I read online that a faulty motor could cause this but I have no reason to believe this could be the case.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, comments etc.

salko · Mar 9, 2025

TCU has a coin CR1620 battery which is most likely depleted ... But it is not so easy to replace it:

daveawb · Mar 9, 2025

salko said:
TCU has a coin CR1620 battery which is most likely depleted ... But it is not so easy to replace it:

Thanks, I’ll try that first

Mikerb · Mar 9, 2025

daveawb said:
I’ve not used my bike in 3 months, last time I used it I knew there would be a long break before I had a chance to use it or even see it.

I took it out today to clean and service. It was already quite clean as it was washed before I put it into storage. I left the battery at 40% charge and all was working fine.

Today the TCU is unresponsive. I fully charged it but nothing.

I intend to service the bike myself. Can anyone with experience of this bike (Turbo Levo Comp Alloy 23) let me know if any reasons this might be the case.

My thoughts are battery connections have corroded or come loose, possibly some water ingress that’s corroded the TCU’s connections. I read online that a faulty motor could cause this but I have no reason to believe this could be the case.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts, comments etc.

as per posts a bove you cannot charge the TCU battery...you have to replace it. The USB port is for LBS service access..its not a charging port.

daveawb · Mar 9, 2025

Mikerb said:
as per posts a bove you cannot charge the TCU battery...you have to replace it. The USB port is for LBS service access..its not a charging port.

Before this post, I was blissfully and ignorantly
unaware it had its own battery, I wrongly assumed it was powered by the bikes battery. I don’t plan on trying to charge a CR1620, that would be supremely dumb.

Ou812 · Mar 10, 2025

It depends which TCU you have, if it’s the older one then replace the battery. If it’s the newer TCU with the screen then you plug it in and charge it back up.

daveawb · Mar 10, 2025

Ou812 said:
It depends which TCU you have, if it’s the older one then replace the battery. If it’s the newer TCU with the screen then you plug it in and charge it back up.

I’m going to read the manual before I do anything, but thanks for the info.

Binhill1 · Mar 15, 2025

If you washed it ? I would dry cables and TCU out in house overnight thats free. I just replaced TCU on mine a month ago. It wouldn't go through the modes but went OK on eco.

daveawb · Mar 15, 2025

Binhill1 said:
If you washed it ? I would dry cables and TCU out in house overnight thats free. I just replaced TCU on mine a month ago. It wouldn't go through the modes but went OK on eco.

I’ve been quite careful washing it, I’ve only used a wash mitt and avoided using excess water over the motor housing, tcu and any cable ingress points. I hope I don’t need to replace the TCU, I’ll find out tomorrow. Sound advice though, thanks.

Binhill1 · Mar 15, 2025

daveawb said:
I’ve been quite careful washing it, I’ve only used a wash mitt and avoided using excess water over the motor housing, tcu and any cable ingress points. I hope I don’t need to replace the TCU, I’ll find out tomorrow. Sound advice though, thanks.

Bit of a pain for me as my dealer is a long way away. Options were use local dealer which are few and far between. Or take motor out and send to Berkshire cycles who I know will do job properly. The new TCU has to be paired with the motor. Sent to Berkshire cycles.

daveawb · Mar 18, 2025

Ou812 said:
It depends which TCU you have, if it’s the older one then replace the battery. If it’s the newer TCU with the screen then you plug it in and charge it back up.

This helped a lot. I took the TCU out of its housing and it’s the new model without the battery. I charged it with a USB-C cable for 2 hours and it’s functioning again.

Annoyingly the manual has absolutely no information about this TCU, or that it needs charging, in fact it states ‘do not use the usb port’

Edit: the last section is incorrect, it does mention it in a section about starting the TCU. Had to flick back quite a bit to find it.

Levo Gen 3 TCU unresponsive, battery fully charged

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