BigNerd
Well-Known Member
That is beyond me. I'm just reporting what I've figured on the Espin Sport. I'm fine with the PAS as it is... I just want to see if I can change number of PAS levels to see how that affects things.
Espin Flow pedal assist power levels
- Thread starter rbermanaz
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No, Kevin doesn't say that. He says the power continued to be applied even if you ride faster, and that's with the power based PAS, not the old speed based PAS, which they switched from, which your Espin has. You can't even understand what you're seeing in a video.
https://youtu.be/9tFylNSFmCM?t=1331
Shifting down and pedaling faster (high cadence) does not increase power in either system. Other Espin owners have even commented on that not being the case.
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BigNerd
Well-Known Member
I'm sorry... I mixing up the Evelo site with what Kevin said. I think what Kevin said is in his "speed-based system", you can set the the current limit at each PAS level. This is what it is for the Sport. Not that you can customize the power limit, but that there is a different power limit at each PAS level. This is different from what McCorby is saying that it's 100% power at each PAS level and the only limiters are speed.
That's what I said, pedaling faster does not increase motor power. That's how a cadence system works. Pedaling faster actually reduces power, but I don't know if you are McCorby agree with that.
No, Kevin didn't say that you can set a current limit at each PAS level in their old "speed based system". In fact, that is a more recent change only applicable to the bikes with the KD218 display, and that use the "power based assist", not speed. On the older bikes with a current limit, it used to be a global current limit, not per PAS level. The R1U bikes using the KD21C display do not have current limits per assist level, either. I don't think the Sport has a current setting for each PAS level, maybe a global current limit. Maybe someone with an Espin can check that if you can really set current limits separately for each PAS level.
I guess I should have phrased it as "Shifting down and pedaling faster (high cadence) does not CHANGE the power in either system." The bike only senses whether the pedals are being rotated, not how quickly they rotate, so that's not a factor. With the Espin, it uses the bike actual traveling velocity to determine when it's hitting its speed limit for a given PAS level to drop the power level.
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BigNerd
Well-Known Member
You accuse me of not reading but this is exactly what I said when I started this conversation:
And again:
Why call it a cadence sensor if it's not measuring cadence? Why do EBR reviews talk about the number of magnets a cadence sensor has in relation to granularity of power output?
Believe it or not, the cadence sensor actually controls power based on how fast your are pedaling.
You saw changes in the power because the bike reads the speed it is traveling and starts dropping power as it nears its configured speed limit for the given PAS. So it doesn't surprise me at all that you saw power drop when you pedaled faster, but it had nothing to do with the cadence sensor reading the pedal rotation speed, only that the bike was traveling faster. Otherwise, shifting down and the resulting high cadence would really run things afoul. We've already concluded it's a speed based assist system, so I'm not sure why you keep up the same tired arguments.
If there are more magnets, then when you start to rotate the pedals, one will pass the sensor sooner and can engage power sooner during the rotation. It's not related to the speed of pedal rotation changing the amount of power as a result of cadence speed.
You said that power is being "decreased" when you pedal faster. As I said above, this is because you are reaching your PAS level's cutoff speed, so it's dropping the power. It has nothing to do with how fast you are rotating the pedals. A power based PAS system would maintain the same power regardless of bike speed (up to the bike's global maximum speed), so that's clearly not the type of system used by the Espin. You should look into changing it since you aren't happy with it.
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BigNerd
Well-Known Member
Nope. I told you... my first test was under the 10mph speed limit just to test the cadence... both on flats and hills, the power output changes inversely to pedal cadence. Pedal slower, P number goes up, pedal faster, P number goes down.
I'm not sure why you don't want to believe me about the cadence sensor... which ebikes have you ridden before?
AHicks
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The reason a cadence sensor has more than one magnet is about sensitivity - how far the crank must turn prior to sensing movement. For instance, a 12 magnet sensor barely has to move before generating a signal. This, vs. a theoretical sensor that has one magnet, the may have to turn nearly an entire revolution.
BigNerd
Well-Known Member
I was just reporting what my testing bore out. Someone keeps doubting the results and even pulls in other members to refute it.
@AHicks Since you have a Flow now, maybe you can see if what I’m observing is incorrect. On the display, if you toggle the power button, it will take you to a display mode with a P at the bottom. I believe that reports power output as you are riding.
For all I know, I’m interpreting the results wrong but it seems to be in line with how the bike operates and I’ve ridden this thing hundreds of miles already. I don’t mind being wrong, that’s what I was trying to determine in the first place.
@AHicks Since you have a Flow now, maybe you can see if what I’m observing is incorrect. On the display, if you toggle the power button, it will take you to a display mode with a P at the bottom. I believe that reports power output as you are riding.
For all I know, I’m interpreting the results wrong but it seems to be in line with how the bike operates and I’ve ridden this thing hundreds of miles already. I don’t mind being wrong, that’s what I was trying to determine in the first place.
Nice. I bought a cloud 9 seat for my Sport in advance of receiving my bike. I actually like the original seat so never changed it.
AHicks
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Sorry my friend. We are temporarily down, looking at options to replace this controller. Thinking a 22a KT controller. Trying to find a path that'll be easy for everyone to follow with just a little work.
Prior to pulling it down, I toggled through everything, and read the manual front to rear twice, and I don't remember seeing a P at the bottom - or any other method to monitor watts real time. My display is marked 800A A0348 on the back. -Al
I never doubted that your interpretation of what you experienced was to the best of your knowledge accurate, but rather, it was some of your conclusions that I was disputing. A flaw in your test is that you didn't start out with a baseline showing power and speed while ghost pedaling at a consistent riding speed for several seconds after acceleration had stopped, prior to pedaling to a higher speed to see the effect that had on power compared to the baseline. That is something I had suggested from the beginning to make all of the other tests meaningful by having a baseline to compare against. In your test, you gave the power number of 400 for when you "start pedaling" and then give the number 80 for when you said you "pedal faster". There's no baseline for ghost pedaling to see what your P number was. You also added "Well, on a flat surface, when I hit 10mph, that number drops down to like 20", but again, you didn't say whether you were ghost pedaling and maintaining that speed for several seconds to determine a baseline power and speed. The 400 looks like a surge acceleration power, but the 20 and 80 power readings don't mean much without knowing what the baseline power is. And that's too bad, because I would have liked to have known what the baseline was, and then what the power dropped to if you then proceeded to pedal to a higher speed than the baseline speed.
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OK, it sounds like the misses didn't like the power response, so you are addressing sooner rather than later.
AHicks
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Love the bike, hate the controller setup, and can find no way to change it.
There are some additional comments about the Espin PAS in this thread:
electricbikereview.com
Torque sensor vs Cadence...
An early surge of power provided by the controller to increase acceleration, even if it's different at PAS1 vs PAS2 (yet not proven) does not mean that it's not a speed based assist. It's still speed based because it drops way down at a specific speed while power based PAS will maintain the...
electricbikereview.com
BigNerd
Well-Known Member
BTW: As I was looking at the manual, if you adjust the PAS levels (to 3 or 9), that doesn't really reduce the power jump in PAS 1:
As you can see, going to 9, PAS 1 is the same as it is in the default 5 levels. And if you go down to 3 levels, PAS 1 will take you to the PAS 2 level in the 5 setup.
The only gain from 9 levels is the granularity between 1 and 9 which in my case is not necessary.
There is also a section to adjust the assist level but have no idea what it means because it only shows one screen:
Maybe that's how much assist each level will give after you reach the speed limit at that level? Maybe I'll play with it.
There is also a setting to set at which number magnet to start the assist. This may be helpful if it's an available setting on the Aventons because they require a 1/4 turn before PAS kicks in which some have been complaining about.
As you can see, going to 9, PAS 1 is the same as it is in the default 5 levels. And if you go down to 3 levels, PAS 1 will take you to the PAS 2 level in the 5 setup.
The only gain from 9 levels is the granularity between 1 and 9 which in my case is not necessary.
There is also a section to adjust the assist level but have no idea what it means because it only shows one screen:
Maybe that's how much assist each level will give after you reach the speed limit at that level? Maybe I'll play with it.
There is also a setting to set at which number magnet to start the assist. This may be helpful if it's an available setting on the Aventons because they require a 1/4 turn before PAS kicks in which some have been complaining about.
@BigNerd thats right, it doesn’t change start or end rate - it just adds more steps between levels. I set ours to 9 and it is a help IMO to have those extra levels. The only downside is it’s a lot of clicks when you want full power.
In tinkering around with custom settings I think the only way to slow down PAS 1 is to reduce the watts used setting, but I didn’t play with it really and didn’t want to dull the power of the bike overall. Unfortunately the manual is not an exact match for the settings screens you’ll encounter - I believe 1 or 2 settings from the manual aren’t there in the display and one is named differently than anything in the manual.
In tinkering around with custom settings I think the only way to slow down PAS 1 is to reduce the watts used setting, but I didn’t play with it really and didn’t want to dull the power of the bike overall. Unfortunately the manual is not an exact match for the settings screens you’ll encounter - I believe 1 or 2 settings from the manual aren’t there in the display and one is named differently than anything in the manual.
I haven't really looked into it too much but I guess I'll try changing my sons Espin to 9 levels and see how it is. Again like you said the only issue with that is when you want more power it's a lot more clicks. I haven't really looked into it but I guess the manual shows how to change the assist levels?. I'm sure I could find it online somewhere. That's why I ended up on my 700 series lowering it from nine levels down to seven for now and just having a bigger jump between three and four
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