Ultegra Di2 Upgrade (or not)

See Update Here:  Di2 Monitoring - Update

I am lucky enough to have a bike with Ultegra Di2 - my Giant Propel:

I have had it since about April 2016 and have done nothing to the gears except charge the battery a few times

A rash moment during the 2018 Black Friday sales saw me buy a Garmin 1030. No real reason for this other than the mapping is much better as is the range of sensors that can be connected. For 2018 Christmas I got some Amazon vouchers, and coincidently I needed to use my IHG loyalty points - I did not have enough for a free night so redeemed them for more Amazon vouchers. As a result I had enough to buy some toys - namely the Di2 D-Fly unit that would allow me to read selected gear and battery level on my Garmin. 

I carried out some research as there appeared to be several types of unit - the "old" type and the "newer" type:

This is the older type - part/model number: EW-WU101

And this is the newer type - part number EW-WU111.

The main difference is clearly the physical size and shape. The older model is normally fitted to the seat stay 

Whilst the new model is small enough to fit inside the frame or discretely under the handle bars by the A Box for example

The other difference is that the EW-W111 supports Bluetooth and using a Shimano App can be used to update and configure Di2. This is an alternative to using the wired connection and Shimano's PC based E-Tube software (apparently E-Tube is Windows only so this is a huge advantage for Mac users). I was not bothered by the Bluetooth feature and capability as I was happy to use E-Tube and bits of wire

There was various documentation and discussion on the internet and it seemed that whilst there was some mention of needing battery upgrades (newer batteries have more processing power apparently) in order to support synchro shifting this did not appear to be a prerequisite. My Giant has an internal battery which I believed was a newer type. Given the different sizes between the 2 units (and availability - the WU101 unit seems harder to get hold of) I ordered the WU111 with the intention of fitting it in the seat tube with the battery.

I also needed to order a cable as well. Whilst its not unreasonable to assume that different bikes will drive different installations, the fact that a cable is required, but not supplied, is rather annoying

I did also have an internal dilemma about the price and output. Basically (Jan 2019 prices) its £70 for the D-Fly unit and £15 for a 250mm cable. I am sure weight for weight this is more expensive that gold. So about £90 to get a few numbers on the a Garmin. I rationalised it as its was mostly "free" as I was using Amazon vouchers which I had no paid for. So a few clicks later and Amazon's massive logistic operation was working to deliver the items. (I used free delivery and like most times they came in less than 2 days - I never pay for deliver and am always pleased with the delivery time)

The following weekend I was all geared up to fit the unit. The first action was however to update the Di2 firmware on my bike

The E-Tube software is not the greatest. A few comments are that the window is a fixed size and does not show all the components fitted, and there are quite a few conflicting and unclear prompts and messages. Here's a typical sequence of what is required to update:

First start the software and then make the physical connection.

Once it has connected it will display the components it found. Note that I was asked if I had sprint shifters fitted to the primary shifters as part of the process. Above it shows both front and rear dérailleurs and the Left and Right shifters. I then needed to scroll the window (poor software so I said above) to see the rest of the components:

Here the battery and A Junction box are shown. Note that at this point I have no wireless unit installed.

The E-Tube software also identified automatically that there were later firmware versions available:

Selecting OK allows you to select which components to update (all are selected by default):

This shows that battery was the latest version and the dérailleurs were quite outdated.

Select and the update process starts:

This took about 3-4 minutes at most.

Having  completed the update I then removed the cable and checked all was still functioning which it was. I then removed the seat post to insert the WU111. 

A good thing about my Giant is that the seat post is marked:

 

With the seat post removed the battery connection can be seen:

There is a special Shimano tool to remove the cables:

However its not possible to use this on the battery cable - and was in fact not needed as it was easy to get a firm grasp of the moulding rather than the cable itself. I fitted the spare cable to the battery and connected the WU111 between the two cables.

And the shifting stopped. I removed the WU11 and refitted as standard - and it worked again. Repeat the connection of the WU111 and it didn't work. So I replaced the original cable to the battery and added the WU111 between a shifter and Junction Box A - and it didn't work still.

So I reconnected the E-Tube software and let it search for the components. In this case it showed the WU111 but it was in red - with a note about checking the compatibility chart with a URL link. Following THIS link gets you to a Compatibility pdf file that I had not seen before. The key data was here:

This clearly shows that my battery needs a SM-EWW01 to broadcast the data. Any other unit is not compatible. 

I had not seen this data sheet before - if I had I would not have bought the parts.

So to summarise:

• I have updated my Ultegra Di2 system to the latest Firmware
• I cannot use an EX-WU101 or EX-WU111 with my battery
• SM-EWW01 are impossible to find (obsolete and none second hand on EBay)
• I need to spend ~£100 to upgrade my battery in order to use an EW-WU111 to get Di2 data onto my Garmin
• I need to send my purchases back to Amazon

One change I noticed after the firmware update was a changed battery level check behaviour of the lights. Prior to the update a battery check would use the green light only. Post the upgrade I saw that the orange light flashed as well. Some double checking showed the following behaviour (my battery was fully charged):

• Solid Green light
• Solid green light and solid orange light

Here's a short video of the new behaviour (Planet Rock in the background!):

I was concerned I had somehow induced an error state but a quick Google showed:

The first light is the battery charge indicator.

• Solid green = 76 to 100 percent charged
• Flashing green = 51 to 75 percent charged
• Solid red = 26 to 50 percent charged
• Flashing red = 1 to 25 percent charged

The second set of lights indicates the which shift mode is selected.

• Green and red flash once = manual shift mode
• Green and red flash twice = semi synchro shift mode
• Green and red flash thrice = full synchro shift mode

I didn't think (from my initial research) that my battery supported syncho shifting so I am not quite sure what is going on here. I have no intention (at present) of using synchro shift. 

Therefore despite this minor panic all was well

I hope there is some useful information for others in this post

Finally - my Giant supports "Ride Sense" - Giant's own wheel speed and cadence sensors. This involves a couple of holes in the frame that let water in. Some recent Google use found the spare parts that are blanks, Although these were £1.99 postage made it closer to £5 - however I bit the bullet in the hope that the Bottom Bracket might last a little longer. Its just possible to see the parts fitted here: