BBSHD Performance Settings (slightly refined)

In BBSHD Programming for the Pedaling Cyclist, I laid out what my preferred settings were for my ebikes. I have settled upon them after a fair bit of tinkering over time. Since that was published, I have made some refinements.

I’m going to skip all the background I went into before. None of those details have changed. I’ll just note what I have done, and what it seems to accomplish.

Remember, There is no one perfect suite of settings for the Bafang BBSxx series of motors. Most likely, your perfect setup will take a bit from here and a piece from there to give you exactly what you want. Use what you see here as a basis for your own experimentation.

In fact, I don’t even have a single flavor I stick to as you will see below.

The Basic Screen

From then to now, I changed nothing on this screen, and I’m only showing it here to give you a complete settings reference in one place.

The Pedal Assist Screen

There are several changes here, all geared to toning things down and making behavior more gentle. I have two versions of this screen in play on different bikes. The first is the more general-use, but the things I get from Version 2 could be very desirable on any bike.

I can’t say enough that there is no one best choice of settings for your BBSxx motor.

Version 1

Pedal Sensor Type

Ignore this one unless you are in the mood to play around and see whats what. Some motors come programmed with BB-Sensor-32, others with DoubleSignal-24. This is something I just leave as-is depending on what the motor originally came with. Frankly its not a setting I know much about so I don’t fool with it.

Start Current

This has been reduced to 4 from 6. Start Current dictates how much juice goes to the PAS system when it initiates. A lower number means a lower ‘jerk’ on the drivetrain as the PAS system engages. This is a percentage number, so we are going from 6% to 4%. Restated, that is from ‘very gentle’ to ‘mouse-fart’! Still, as small of a change as is indicated by the numbers, its a noticeable decrease. Bear in mind I am riding some pretty big fat and cargo bikes and when starting a bike with a heavy load, a little less is much more.

Also don’t forget no setting is an island unto itself. These things taken together make up a whole, and its that whole that matters.

Start Degree

This has been increased from 4 all the way up to 10. Start Degree is the number of signal points that are crossed (as you turn the crankarms) before pedal assist engages. A full rotation of the crankarms equals 24 signals, so I have kicked up the pedal assist engagement from a 1/6 turn to almost a half-turn.

This comes in handy when I am at a stop light, but I stopped smart, several car lengths back from the actual edge of the intersection. I can then stay in the saddle, balanced with feet on the pedals. I slowly turn the crankarms a bit at a time to maintain my balance and crawl forward. If I do it right, the light turns green before I reach the edge of the intersection, whereupon I can hit the throttle and move forward without having to dismount (and then re-mount) the bike. If I decide not to use throttle and pedal my way out, I’ll need about a half turn to re-engage assist, and when it comes on it will be a very gentle ramp-up in part thanks to the new lesser Start Current above.

Current Decay

I have set this to maximum now, meaning the system pretty much doesn’t want to cut back power as my cadence increases; virtually disabling the cut-back feature from the Basic screen, which conserves power (if you can spin the crankarms superfast, you don’t need assist). This is a setting I will very likely continue to play with. If I set it to the minimum of 1, then the motor will aggressively reduce the provided power as cadence increases. A lower setting is much more in tune with the pedelec ‘philosophy’ which I usually stick to. So don’t be too surprised if you come back in a month and this text has been supplemented with talk of a different, much lower setting.

Why did I change it? Just playing around. I’m leaving it here to illustrate that these settings often interact with one another in some big ways.

Version 2

Version 2 is a riff on Version 1 above. Its what I use on my 2wd/awd Bullitt cargo bike.

Slow Start Mode

The slow start mode – the strength of the initial punch the motor gives out when it fires up – has been turned down a notch to ‘2’ from ‘3’, which was already a low number. I have noticed the bike this is used on has a noticeable, audible clunk when the chain engages the upgraded, 36T internal ratchet mechanism of the DT Swiss 350 steel cassette body. Every time I hear that clunk is a time the hub gets beat on. Even if it was already a reduced amount, I wanted to notch it down further. This is a good thing on a heavy, often-laden cargo bike, and its probably not such a terrible thing for any ebike.

Start Degree

In Version 1 I have this set so that there needs to be just under a half rotation of the cranks before the slow-start of pedal assist engages. When all of the settings are taken in together, it typically means pedal assist doesn’t begin to be felt until the bike crosses a 5 mph speed (If I want assist earlier there is always throttle).

In Version 2, I have reduced this to a 1/6 turn of the crankarms. The idea with all of these settings put together is that assist from the rear motor starts faster – Remember, on this bike the BBSHD is supplemented by a front motor that starts almost instantly from a stop, so the BBSHD is not trying to haul a bike up from zero on its own. On such a big, heavy bike as this cargo bike, some assist from both wheels asap is a good thing. Net result is that with two motors, I can get a good result from pure pedal assist without having to resort to the battery-sucking thing that is hitting the throttle. I start pedaling and the bike sedately glides forward even if its weighing 400+ lbs.

Current Decay

This is a full 180 from Version 1, where Current Decay is set to do as little as possible, meaning the motor is the least likely as it can be to pull power as your cadence increases. Here, it is at its next-most aggressive setting. In part this is informed by the fact that there is a front hub motor (running off the same common battery) that – if faced with a sudden power drop from the rear motor – will still provide forward assist, and in practice that means it will increase wattage as its workload increases. This is part 1 of 2 of this story, with Part 2 being …

Keep Current %

The amount of assist that is retained when Current Decay pulls power back has been reduced to 30%. So the two settings together make it more likely that, as cadence increases, power will be reduced, and the amount of power that will continue to flow has further been reduced by 25% from its previous (fairly low) value.

Got all that? Here’s what the rider feels: Not much. Despite my characterization of these changes as ‘aggressive’, which they are if you just look at the numbers onscreen, reality is the result is muted. We’re using a little less power, which we don’t miss much, and that is going to give us a bump in range. At 20-25 mph, pedaling strong at 60-70 rpm cadence, the BBSHD on flat ground is eating about 200-250w on the typical Assist Level 4 and 225-275w at Level 5. Thats pretty light (power consumption will be more on a bike with just the BBSHD for a motor!)

If you want to have the motor back off when you demonstrate you don’t need it (if you did you couldn’t spin your legs and the crankarms) the Keep Current and Current Decay settings are your go-to’s to making that happen and reducing your power consumption.

The Throttle Screen

There is just one change here, and its along the same lines as what I tinkered with on the Pedal Assist screen

Start Current

This is the same kind of effect as Start Current on the Pedal Assist screen, only it works when applying throttle. I have halved the initial response the throttle gives down to a 5% delivery.

What’s the actual effect of that? Well, in conjunction with the broadened Start Voltage and End Voltage already in place, setting such a low value lets me feed in a constant 50-100w to the motor. Its important to understand this is not an initial value that increases: This is the initial value that will output continuously at the lowest level of throttle engagement.

Lots of times, I want to engage throttle just a little bit to slowly navigate some delicate or narrow pathway of some kind; especially where pedaling might throw my balance off (remember I could be riding a loaded 500+ lb cargo bike). This lets me do that. It also means when I engage throttle, the thunk of the cassette body engaging itself is no longer a thunk at all.

So not only is the bike more controllable at a low level, no thunk means stuff lives longer!

Thats It?

Yup thats it. At this point in the development of what I like and dislike on a BBSHD setup, I’m down to the last of the fine-tuning.