Pedalcell dynamo - Supplement of my May review
I have to supplement my May review because since then I have continued to use the Pedalcell dynamo, but in the end it was a bit of a failure, as described below.
After having collected the non-functioning of the prioritized port, in early August the generator at the wheel rim breaks down and no longer generates power. I still don’t know what could be broken in the generator, which should be a very simple element in constructive terms and therefore should last for long time if designed and built well, but this is what happened.
Obviously I immediately contacted Pedalcell via e-mail, that asked me, as last time, to fill out a new warranty form, this time for the generator not working. They replied that maybe that generator had slipped their quality control and that they would send me a new generator as replacement.
The new generator arrived after about two weeks, exactly the day before my departure for Paris to participate in the Paris-Brest-Paris, the most prestigious and famous endurance race in the world, for which I had thought of using the Pedalcell dynamo. I was a little skeptical at first, because the new generator could break down like the previous one during the race, but in the end I decided to mount it and use it during the race.
Unfortunately after only about 300 km also the new generator breaks down and no longer produces power. Fortunately I had brought a 20000 mah power bank, but I had to extend some stops and ultimately waste time to recharge the power bank, my iPhone (the navigator) and the bike devices, instead of the dynamo.
In the end I managed to complete the 1.219 km and 11.800 meters of altitude difference of the race in 75 hours, within the maximum time limit of 80 hours, but already during the race I e-mailed again Pedalcell to report what happened.
This time they realized that the dynamo was not suitable and reliable enough for intensive use, so to say, and offered to take it back by refunding the related cost, which they did without delay.
Therefore in the end, as said at the beginning, my purchase experience with Pedalcell was a bit of a failure because:
1) the Pedalcell dynamo proved to be unreliable and not solid at all for prolonged use (I would say for no use, as I run just a few hundred kilometers before it broke down twice),
2) it has two charging ports, but only one works with the main bike devices on the market
3) mounting it is not very simple, since it depends on the type of front fork of the bike; moreover the mounting brackets, when tightening the screws to keep the generator in position, may give way, as it also happened to me.
Nevertheless Pedalcell idea is great, I do not know what did not work as expected, but they may deep dive on it and hopefully make an improved product. The product did not live up to expectations, but I cannot fail to appreciate the seriousness of Pedalcell and the willingness to solve all kind of problems as much as possible.
Objectively I don’t think they deserve more than two stars at the moment and I hope this review is useful to other cyclists who love running long distances and need a reliable source of power to feed their bike devices.
13 settembre 2023
Non scritta su invito