Put yourself on the FortiusANT map!

[WouterJD]

Of cources I'm curious what athletes actually use the software and a post is appreciated, perhaps with picture and/or reference to strava or else...
The list of FortiusANT users is growing:

My strava experiences can be found on: https://www.strava.com/athletes/2885978
Riding, using Trainer Road and Zwift interfacing to FortiusANT simultaneously:

[fritz-hh]

I plan to use it as soon as the tacx imagic is supported by FortiusANT.
And luckily that should be very soon :-)

Thanks again for all the energy you have put in this project!

[yegorvin]

Thank you @WouterJD and others for great work and the opportunity to give a second life to the old Tacx trainer.
It is very bad when the manufacturer does not support old devices in any way, stimulating excess debris on our planet.

Using FortiusANT the next winter season I will be able to train with more efficiency and interest.

My profile in Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/4806561

[RamonFigueras]

Thank you Wouter for your excel·lent Job and even a better support to have FortiusAnt up and running. I'm currently using it under Zwift and Rouvy.
Please extend my thanks to all contributors.
Ramon

[vincentb2709]

Hello.
Thank you for this initiative, it permits me to use old solution with Zwift ! I use Tacx Imagic 1904 with win10 and it works well.
However my Tacx is not detected when I launch FortiusANT.exe (prompt opens up and down immediatly with message "Tacx not found"). However, if I launch from command prompt FortiusAnt.py, it detects Tacx, open the status windows in prompt, works and Zwift recognize it.
Can you explain this behaviour ?
Thank you again for this amazing job!

[vincentb2709]

I'm from France! We cannot go out or cycle so I got an old Tacx and were frustrated of its program. Thank you for this information, I understand now

[oflahero]

I have an old Fortius, and run WIndows 7. I'll certainly be trying this when Aliexpress send me the two ANT+ dongles I ordered this evening! Country has just locked down so lots of indoors training for a while :)

[WouterJD]

Keep me informed, I'm curious what USBid those dongles will use

[E-NINA]

Hello, due to this situation about Corona I was also checking my old trainner. I just relaised that Tacx Trainner Software isn't supported anymore. I've try fortiusAnt and I get working parcially as I have some issues.
I'm from Portugal, Evora and I've a Fortius T1932.
I've 2 ANT dongles but I realised one is very old (GARMIN USB) and as only 4 channels so no detected as a ANT dongle by ExplorANT.exe (I don't know if this is soposly to be like that but left here for reference).
The other dongle works correct and is dected by ExplorANT.exe.
I'm able to go ahead as I've a tablet with ANT integrated.
So running fortiusant windows exe file I got the following:

• on ZWIFT detects HR but not the trainner.
• on ROUVY detects HR and also the trainer (but as soon I start pedal - fortiusant crashes)
  Runing PY files
• on ZWIFT detects HR but not the trainner.
• on ROUVY detects HR and also the trainer and app runs smothly.

Any hit why ZWIFT can't detect trainner?

[vincentb2709]

Keep me informed, I'm curious what USBid those dongles will use

I tested it this week and it works well with .exe on win10! Thank you!
The soft is just quite slow to start (20 seconds) but do the job!
Just one point, is it normal to not have possibility to have GUI?
Thanks again for your job and help that is saving my Mont Ventoux training! ;)

[WouterJD]

Buon jour, Vincent

The exe unzipped itself into a temp folder and then executes; try his causes a slower start. The python version has a quicker start

No GUI is the default, -g flag provides GUI. For more info check wiki.

Succes with your moUnt Ventoux training; when do you go?

Please meet on Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/2885978

[iepuzaur]

hi, I own a Tacx i-vortex (the non-smart one). Would this work with it? I might give it a try :)

[Smieszm]

Hi Wouter,
I have just found your software that hopefully will clean my I-Flow Multiplayer from dust. Greeting from Poland. :) It would be great at some point if the calibration for the I-Flow would be available as it is for the Fortius. :). I will check how (and if) it works with ZWIFT - I have two ANT+ dongles which seem to be recognized by the soft. Anyway amazing job!

[WouterJD]

It would be great at some point if the calibration for the I-Flow would be available as it is for the Fortius. :).

Please check #30 where @yegorvin has done the meassurements for iMagic, if you have a powermeter then you could do the tests for iFlow. As soon as you have your iFlow working and you start with calibration, start a new issue please.

[mattipee]

Just tried out FortiusANT on Windows this morning. I have a Fortius T1941 motor brake w/ blue T1932 head unit.

Looking forward to using it more and having a play with source. Good work!

[WouterJD]

Just tried out FortiusANT on Windows this morning. I have a Fortius T1941 motor brake w/ blue T1932 head unit.
Looking forward to using it more and having a play with source. Good work!

Great and welcome in the FortiusANT community; show the results on strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/4806561

[iainhay]

@WouterJD my Strava link is
https://www.strava.com/athletes/iainhay and I'm based in London not Cambridge FYI

[WouterJD]

@WouterJD my Strava link is
https://www.strava.com/athletes/iainhay and I'm based in London not Cambridge FYI

Thanks for adjusting; the list of users is longer than I can maintain and even know of; shortly I may limit to the first two people in a country or so - and then add a pin on each country on the map :-)

Funny; I looked for your name and the Cambridge-athlete is a (reasonable, quick) look alike based upon the foto. This is better though!

[brianrow]

Hi, this is a great facility for us who don't have or can't get smart trainers. (Cost!) Thank you for you efforts. I've connected my Fortius (0x1932) and can see output data for all parameters, however in 'Run mode' the Target stays fixed at 100W. I'm using GoldenCheetah (GC) as the trainer app, and it seems that either GC is not sending data to Fortius, or Fortius is not accepting. Even if I use manual ERG mode and increase or decrease load, there is no change on the trainer.

1. Where does the Target come from?
2. Does FortiAnt send info back to the trainer?

Thanks again for this utility.

B.

[szczurem]

It looks like you have not installed the cadence sensor. Fortius increases resistance when cadence is not detected. This is meant as a safety feature to prevent someone putting a hand into spinning rear spokes of a bike without a rider.

[WouterJD]

It looks like you have not installed the cadence sensor

Agree

[Mikebeem]

Thanks! That indeed was the problem. I thought I installed it all, but the "magnet" on the crank was missing a magnet, so I only had an empty plastic magnet holder. Never would have thought about that.

[WouterJD]

@Mikebeem Welcome to the FortiusANT community

---

I'm always curious to know who I communicate with, where FortiusANT is used and what configuration is used.
Please tell me what bundle did you buy, and what brake and what head unit do you use?
I would therefore appreciate that you introduce yourself; perhaps leave a comment under issue #14.
You could also consider to visit the sponsor page

---

[jujroy]

-->Another happy camper ! Cheers jean

[Mikebeem]

@WouterJD I'm still trying to find out how it all should work. I'm able to do a ride in Zwift for example, but I don't notice any difference in resistance going up or going down a mountain. The only difference is the virtual speed that I'm driving in Zwift. Is that how it should work, or should I notice that I'm driving up a hill or going down a hill? So to illustrate, if I close my eyes, I can't tell if I'm driving up or down, because it always feels the same.

[orrmany]

I'm still trying to find out how it all should work. I'm able to do a ride in Zwift for example, but I don't notice any difference in resistance going up or going down a mountain. The only difference is the virtual speed that I'm driving in Zwift. Is that how it should work, or should I notice that I'm driving up a hill or going down a hill? So to illustrate, if I close my eyes, I can't tell if I'm driving up or down, because it always feels the same.

It depends on how you have set the "CTP program". From the trainer's (the "brake")'s point of view there are 2 modes

1. Fix resistance: this is not "smart" mode, it is a fixed resistance, i.e., fixed brakeage. Note, that wattage=resistance*rolling_speed, so in this mode the wattage depends on your pedalling speed (rpm)
2. ERG mode ("ergometer mode"): you set the target power (say 150W) and trainer adjust the brakeage automatically, regardless of pedalling rpm (but within limits)

Many virtual-cycling program (such as Zwift) tries to control the controllable ("smart") trainers, for this these porgrams usually wish to switch the trainer in "ERG" mode:

1. The program whishes to set a constant reistance (i.e., "flat road, no wind")
2. The program whishes to set reistance according to the simulated terrain/weather. I.e., it shall brake heavier in simulated uphill, or it might even actively drive your bicyle wheel (if you have a so-called "motor-brake") simulating "downhill"
3. The program wishes to conduct a "structured workout": pre-set wattage as per the workout instruction (i.e., a variant of 1., i.e., ERG mode, but not with static resistance)

[firux88]

Hi, I'm Jimmy from Quebec, Canada,
I'm happy to be able to rescue my neighbour Tacx :-)
I'm using:
Motor Brake: Unit Firmware=0x1007 Serial= 4585 year=2010 type=T1949 Version2=1051 MotorBrake=True
Head Unit T1932
FortiusAntifier 6.8 with 2 bluetooth dongle in nodejs (-b) mode
I'm using Zwift for now

[WouterJD]

@firux88 Do you link your Zwift to Strava?
Do you use separate Strava accounts?

[Paulospg99]

Hi, i'm Paulo from Portugal,
I use fortiusant since the covid, my setup is windows 10 + tacx genius T2000, had been using zwift on winter
Currently im trying to setup on mac with 2 ant pens

[WouterJD]

Hi @Paulospg99 nice to hear from you! I recall that you joined early '21; now I know you're from Portugal!
Another star on the map!

[zapiens]

Hi I am Dag from Stockholm Sweden.

I was happy when I found this project. Amazing work reverse engineering the protocol to the trainer and implementing it. Thanks a lot for the effort.

I am currently using a Raspberry Pi 4 which is connected to the Trainer.

9:41:50,354: Find and initialise USB head unit
19:41:50,361: Connected to Tacx Trainer T1932
19:41:50,663: Motor Brake Unit Firmware=0x1004 Serial= 2048 year=2008 type=T1941 Version2=516 MotorBrake=True
19:41:50,764: FortiusAnt applies the MotorBrake power curve
19:43:31,762: ---------- BLE-devices are activated ----------

It seems my Up button is faulty nothing happens when I press it, for the time being I use the Enter button as up, small patch in usbTrainer.py ;)

I have problem pairing with another computer using bluetooth on the raspberry and bluetooth on the laptop. Laptop is running ubuntu. A dialogbox in FortiusAnt is shown after the pairing with the text: Waiting for response from Bluetooth device

What is expected here? Any pointers what I should look at?

[WouterJD]

Hi @zapiens Welcome @ FortiusAnt; always curious to know what Tacx you use....

What is expected here? Any pointers what I should look at?

The Bluetooth connectivity appears to be quite platform / version dependant.
I think it's good to create a separate issue for that.

[zapiens]

Hi @WouterJD I am trying to bring an old Fortius from 2008 back into life. It has the motor brake (T1941), a steering sensor and the head unit (T1932) It seems the T1932 is a little broken as the up button does not work. :)

I was about to throw away the Fortius as there is no support any longer but then I found this project. It's fun to get it setup on an Raspberry. My expectation is to get into better shape ha ha.

I agree it seems to be platform/bluetooth issue. By writing it here I thought that maybe someone else has been through the debugging and found a solution.

[userbz]

Hi @WouterJD,
I just came here to say thanks to you all the contributors of this amazing tool.
We bought a second-hand Tacx Genius (not Smart) from Facebook and were so disappointed to realize that it only works with TTS3, which is impossible to activate anymore. The seller sent us the link to your project, it immediately solved the problem. With a little tweak on the command line parameters: -a -bb -H-1 -D-1 -t Genius, the Windows executable worked perfectly.
Then I realized that it also works on a Raspberry Pi3B. However, setting it up on my RetroPie (Buster) was not that easy, I ended up having difficulty installing both nodejs (-b) and bless (-bb). It eventually worked somehow with bless, but the BLE signal was so weak and the connection was dropping frequently. After two days of struggling, I decided to start fresh with Raspbian 12 (Bookworm). It was not without a fight, as the default Python version changed to 3.11 and some packages (including wxPython as documented in the script) were unhappy about it. I also noticed two missing libraries lib-programname and requests when using venv, but that was easy to fix by pip install.
This project is amazing! It rejuvenated the Genius, the Raspberry Pi, and the bike, and it was a lot of fun!

[WouterJD]

Welcome to the FortiusANT community

---

I'm always curious to know who I communicate with, where FortiusANT is used and what configuration is used.
Please tell me what bundle did you buy, and what brake and what head unit do you use? [Genius not smart]
Thanks for this comment under issue #14.
You could also consider to visit the sponsor page

---

This project is amazing! It rejuvenated the Genius, the Raspberry Pi, and the bike, and it was a lot of fun!

Hey, good to hear! I really hope you will enjoy; the machine is better than it's maker (''s software). 😉
Unfortunately raspberry is not as predictable as desired 😢
Are you on Strava, let me know; Keep me updated!

[rick8245]

Hi Wouter,

I just tried your software and it works fine.
On my Tacx Software version 4.x i now get the error : connection to the brake system lost.
That happens quite often now.

Just to test if the brake system still works fine I used your software and it ran fine.
The only thing what I noticed is that :
on the TTS4 software i need 180 WATT to reach a 30 km p/hour average
On your software i ride 210 WATT with only 27 km p/hour
Als when i ride 240 Watt it still says i ride about 27 km per hour

Can you explain the huge difference ?

Thanks in advance and thanks to your software I now know the rake system is not broken but still works

Rick8245

[szczurem]

Speed is mostly irrelevant for an indoor trainer, unless you use a virtual racing software. For a simple trainer, power, HR and cadence is all that matters.

Once you start competing with others or do a time trial on a virtual course speed starts to matter of course. Then you need to take into account your weight, grade, model your riding position, wind and drafting. It is done in Rouvy, Zwift, etc, where you enter some crucial parameters (rider and bike weight in particular).

I suspect Tacx Software was modelling this a bit differently or your parameters are different, but power calibration would be the only thing I would worry about if you only use fortiusAnt and not the VR software.
Mateusz

[orrmany]

Hi Rick8245, be aware that the power (watt) does not have constant mapping to the wheel speed, but rather is a product of the wheel rotational force (Torque, in Newton-meters); and the wheel angular speed (expressed in radians/second, that is, 2π/60*rotation_per_minute ). That is: you can have 180W with 25Nm wheel torque and ca. 69rpm wheel rotation, and you can have 180W with 50Nm wheel torque and ca. 34 rpm wheel rotation....The former case shows you twice as big "speed" than the latter.... You can have 180W, 210W and 240W and have the same "speed" if the braking resistance of the trainer (which determines the necessary torque to apply) is changed accordingly. rick8245 ***@***.***> ezt írta (időpont: 2024. nov. 26., K, 15:08):

…

Hi Wouter, I just tried your software and it works fine. On my Tacx Software version 4.x i now get the error : connection to the brake system lost. That happens quite often now. Just to test if the brake system still works fine I used your software and it ran fine. The only thing what I noticed is that : on the TTS4 software i need 180 WATT to reach a 30 km p/hour average On your software i ride 210 WATT with only 27 km p/hour Als when i ride 240 Watt it still says i ride about 27 km per hour Can you explain the huge difference ? Thanks in advance and thanks to your software I now know the rake system is not broken but still works Rick8245 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#14 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AD3DSNAWFIUBCQDFPTFCAID2CR6G3AVCNFSM6AAAAABSQQ66NOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKMBQHA4TQNRYGE> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[rick8245]

@orrmany and @szczurem
Thanks for your reply .
I ride a flat course here with 0.0% slope.
I would expect that 210 WATT would be more than 30 km per hour.

According to other tools like Zwift etc I will try to find the different parameters and how they work

[WouterJD]

In addition to @orrmany and @szczurem

FortiusAnt shows the speed and the power (as provided by the tacx trainer) using various algorithms which have been empirically established as described in the manual and available in the source code.

CTP's like Zwift and Rouvy use the power to calculate the speed.

A CTP sends a desired power to FortiusAnt (target power) and FortiusAnt sends the actual power back to the CTP. This is what happens in structured training where the target power is based upon your FTP and the training scheme that you should execute. A possible visible scenery is seconday in such a case.

In case of a virtual ride, the CTP sends the slope to FortiusAnt and based upon the parameters, the target power (given the wheel speed) is calculated. From here the same happens.

Bare in mind that you use an old trainer, most likely one before power meters were available in the cycle environment. The brakes are not exact, and calibration difficult. You could calibrate, using a power meter on your bike and try to get the Fortius brake in line. But this will be difficult, since it's environmentally dependant what happens. The algorithms used are best-as-known, given the used hardware.

One might assume, Tacx TTS would have more precise algorithms, resulting in different power-figures. But since they did not publish the formula's, we're all reverse-engineered it as good as possible.

If you discover discrepencies, try the calibration parameters as described in the manual.

[rick8245]

I understand your explanation and thanks for that
The fortius is old I know but on that the average always was about 1 or 2 km per hour lower than outside.
Now with your software is is 3 to 4. So that is not ok.

I will test some things the next weeks