Installed a Rohloff Speedhub 14, IGH on my mid-drive Luna Z1 Ultra Mag

[Tom@WashDC]

4/26/23
Reduced Bafang Controller "Time of Stop" from 20 to 10. Has no effect, see below
Runs real nice, near instantaneous shifting!
See update added/edited to original post #1

 

[smorgasbord]

Changed the "Stop Decay" setting in the controller to "0". I want instant power cut off when I stop pedaling for shifting under load.
* I may have to adjust the "Time of stop" down also, not sure how they will interact with each other.

View attachment 152423

4/26/30
Did a quick test drive this morning around the block. Reducing "Stop Decay" from 10 to 0 made a noticeable difference, but still want power to cut out faster. Came back and changed "Time of Stop" from 20 to 10. It made a big difference in the time to cut power after I stop pedaling. I think it is good here, might try 5 later, but; " setting this number lower may feel more natural when you come to stop, this will also start to affect PAS system [below 10] as it will start to cut in-out between pedalling cadences." Bafang Ultra Programming

View attachment 152437

I'm 99% certain that the parameters you're changing on the Pedal Tab have no effect on the Bafang Ultra motor's behavior. See this thread:

Ultra Tuning: Decoding the Pedal Assist Tab

I was re-reading the available Bafang Ultra tuning guides/suggestions to see what they said about the Pedal Assist tab, which looks like this in the Windows Application: As I have posted before, most of these parameters seemed like they were left over from the legacy cadence-only-sensing...

electricbikereview.com

in which I quote from Karl's original Bafang Ultra tuning blog post from 2017 in which he found no difference in changing these settings. Four of the settings on this tab (eg Start Current, Keep Current, Current Decay, Startup Degree) are almost certainly replaced by equivalent settings per SpdXX range on the Torque Tab (thus providing more granular control), while Slow Start Mode is replaced by 0 Speed Boost Time, and the other 3 settings are cadence-sensing related and wouldn't seem to apply to the torque-sensing Ultra motor.

If you look at this great post from @circuitsmith,
https://electricbikereview.com/foru...for-a-smoother-ride.37833/page-10#post-595638 , you can see how the Pedal tab settings affect the cadence-sensing BBSxx motors, but mapping those to the Ultra seems a challenge.

The blog post you reference contains several other errors, as documented by me here:

Ultra Tuning: Where other guides go wrong

For the past few weeks I've been on a mission to finally get our Bafang Ultra motors (UART) tuned. I've learned a lot along the way, thanks to some posters here and to some reverse engineering. There have been several guides posted on the interwebs (old joke, sorry), which surprisingly have...

electricbikereview.com

If you can isolate for sure that changes to these parameters do affect the Ultra motor, I'd be interested in your test procedure.

 

[smorgasbord]

BTW, for tuning everything on the Bafang Ultra motor, I humbly suggest starting with my master thread post here:

Ultra Tuning: Master Thread -- Start Here!

If you're starting out to tune, or re-tune, your Bafang Ultra G620/M510 motor, you've come to the right place. There's a lot to setting up an Ultra to ride the way you want, but if you take it a step at a time it won't be as daunting. You don't have to do them all at once - I actually recommend...

electricbikereview.com

 

[Tom@WashDC]

BTW, for tuning everything on the Bafang Ultra motor, I humbly suggest starting with my master thread post here:

Ultra Tuning: Master Thread -- Start Here!

If you're starting out to tune, or re-tune, your Bafang Ultra G620/M510 motor, you've come to the right place. There's a lot to setting up an Ultra to ride the way you want, but if you take it a step at a time it won't be as daunting. You don't have to do them all at once - I actually recommend...

electricbikereview.com

Yes, I am familiar with your thread, and your input is greatly appreciated, many thanks. I've read several threads relating to programming the BBSHD and the Ultra. One thing that stands out is there does not seem to be a definitive answer on some of the parameters, there seems to be some ambiguity. Shure would be nice if Bafang would explain things. The change to the "Stop Decay" did seem to make a difference in the motor "run on". However, sometimes the brain can see what it wants to see, things can have the placebo effect! Especially when all things are new like adjusting to shifting the Rohloff versus a derailleur system. You've got me intrigued, so tomorrow I will do a test and increase the stop Decay to 40 (originally 20) and see what happens, then back it down to zero. Thank you for the input and I will make adjustments to the Torque settings.
....many thanks smorgasbord!

 

[Gionnirocket]

Yes, I am familiar with your thread, and your input is greatly appreciated, many thanks. I've read several threads relating to programming the BBSHD and the Ultra. One thing that stands out is there does not seem to be a definitive answer on some of the parameters, there seems to be some ambiguity. Shure would be nice if Bafang would explain things. The change to the "Stop Decay" did seem to make a difference in the motor "run on". However, sometimes the brain can see what it wants to see, things can have the placebo effect! Especially when all things are new like adjusting to shifting the Rohloff versus a derailleur system. You've got me intrigued, so tomorrow I will do a test and increase the stop Decay to 40 (originally 20) and see what happens, then back it down to zero. Thank you for the input and I will make adjustments to the Torque settings.
....many thanks smorgasbord!

I can tell you with certainty that on the BBS02B the Stop Decay has nothing to do with motor run on and in fact raising it to at least 100 adds a level of smoothness, lengthens the acceleration curve and all but eliminates the ON/OFF feel of a cadence sensor only Bafang mid drive. I've had it as high as 225 with absolute no motor run on and as far as I can tell the Time to Stop is what affects motor run on... at least on the cadence only BBS02B.
I for one think this setting is mislabeled and totally misunderstood..again with regards to the BBS*
You hit the nail on the head with BAFANG is the only one that knows what's really going on.... and they ain't sayin!
This said... Excellent work on this mod'!

 

[smorgasbord]

I can tell you with certainty that on the BBS02B the Stop Decay has nothing to do with motor run on...

For BBS drives, is this diagram not correct?

 

[Tom@WashDC]

I can tell you with certainty that on the BBS02B the Stop Decay has nothing to do with motor run on and in fact raising it to at least 100 adds a level of smoothness, lengthens the acceleration curve and all but eliminates the ON/OFF feel of a cadence sensor only Bafang mid drive. I've had it as high as 225 with absolute no motor run on and as far as I can tell the Time to Stop is what affects motor run on... at least on the cadence only BBS02B.
I for one think this setting is mislabeled and totally misunderstood..again with regards to the BBS*
You hit the nail on the head with BAFANG is the only one that knows what's really going on.... and they ain't sayin!
This said... Excellent work on this mod'!

Thank you Gionnirockeet. The best thing about this board is the people like yourself, Smorgasbord, and others that are sincerely interested in helping each other evolve our understanding and skills in tinkering with, building, and purchasing these contraptions. I have learned so much since my original DIY BBSHD back in 2021 through this Board.
Yes, I meant "Time of Stop" in that post. Reducing "Stop Decay" had no effect. I corrected the post. Gonna fiddle with "Time of Stop" today.

 

[Tom@WashDC]

BTW, for tuning everything on the Bafang Ultra motor, I humbly suggest starting with my master thread post here:

Ultra Tuning: Master Thread -- Start Here!

If you're starting out to tune, or re-tune, your Bafang Ultra G620/M510 motor, you've come to the right place. There's a lot to setting up an Ultra to ride the way you want, but if you take it a step at a time it won't be as daunting. You don't have to do them all at once - I actually recommend...

electricbikereview.com

Tested the "Time of Stop" setting: Moved it from "10" to "40" [stock setting is 20]. Then I rode it after moving it to 100. My ear hears the motor power down consistently when I stop pedaling no matter what the "Time of Stop setting. I feel the drop in power too, at the same rate, no matter the "Time of Time of Stop" setting. The problem "visually" seems to be the inconsistent lag time on the amps bar graph readout of the display. Sometimes it "looks" like the amps cut off quickly, sometimes there is a delay, it is an inconsistent readout across the various settings I used. I suppose the graph is just eye candy and not very accurate.
In conclusion I would agree that the "Time of Stop" has no effect on the Ultra with torque sensing.
Thank you Smorgasbord and Gionnirocket.

 

[smorgasbord]

Tested the "Time of Stop" setting: Moved it from "10" to "40" [stock setting is 20]. Then I rode it after moving it to 100. My ear hears the motor power down consistently when I stop pedaling no matter what the "Time of Stop setting. I feel the drop power too, at the same rate no matter the setting. The problem seems to be the inconsistent lag time on the amps bar graph readout of the display. Sometimes it "looks" like the amps cut off quickly, sometimes there is a delay, it is an inconsistent readout across the various settings I used. I suppose the graph is just eye candy and not very accurate. In conclusion I would agree that the "Time of Stop" has no effect on the Ultra with torque sensing.
Thank you Smorgasbord and Gionnirocket.

I've done a bunch of isolation/reverse engineering testing on my Ultra. I found that using the EggRider was great for a few reasons.
My procedure is to have a section of a road that has very very little car traffic, so I can run the tests on the same road with the same riding style, have my phone connected to the EggRider via Bluetooth with screen recording turned on. The screen includes speed, power, current, distance, and running time so it's pretty straightforward to correlate what effects single changes to settings (or gear selection or road speed) have.

I've been thinking that a stationary trainer with power read-out would be a great way to run these tests under controlled conditions and with actual data being reported.

BTW, the graph I linked/included is for the BBSxx drives, not the Ultra. And @Gionnirocket claims it's not 100% accurate even there. I don't have a BBS drive bike to do any testing on, but many people spent a lot of time and energy doing that here. It's now 49 pages, but buried in there is some pretty decent isolation testing. Not much of that testing has been done with the Ultra Max motor. Going by "feel" is not good enough for me, as I know about the Selective Attention effect. Heck, the settings may affect motor behavior under certain conditions that you're not exercising and so that alone may lead to false conclusions.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Not sure what the fascination is with the graph but it doesn't illustrate anything that hasn't been known (assumed) /discussed for years... and some of which (Stop Decay in particular) are incorrect assumptions.
A month ago you were asking me about the graph and now your touting it as gospel on a motor that you have no experience with. But I do know what it does on a motor that I do own and I shared that. Those that try it with the same motor agree...including @circuitsmith in his great post.
Most of that time and energy used on the 49 page post is a regurgitation of The Hackers Guide.
Not trying to pick a fight... But your desire to be the end all of all info Bafang is leading you to false conclusions.
My milage varies....

 

[Tom@WashDC]

I had originally thought that I would need to insure that the motor shut down quickly, for shifting purposes, hence my desire to fiddle with the settings. After riding with the hub, I found this from the Rohloff manual to be true:
"In a situation whereby it is not possible to reduce the pressure on the pedals (e.g. hill climbing), it is still possible to change gear quickly and smoothly. Simply change gear when the cranks are in a straight up-down position where hardly any pressure is being applied upon the pedals."
And, I pray that this is true... "due to the robust construction of the Rohloff SPEEDHUB 500/14 changing gear under pressure is possible and is not harmful to the hub."

It appears to work just as they say. A millisecond pause with a pedal at 12 o'clock, and I can get to any gear instantly. No need to rotate the cranks to complete the gear change, as it it is fully in gear once I feel the click of the twist shifter, and, I can apply full power to the cranks or throttle.

 

[smorgasbord]

Not sure what the fascination is with the graph but it doesn't show anything that hasn't been known (assumed) /discussed for years... and some of which (Stop Decay in particular) are incorrect assumptions.

The graph, if correct, would be a great way to visualize what's happening with the BBS motors. A good graph is worth a thousand words.

A month ago you were asking me about the graph and now your touting it as gospel on a motor that you have no experience with.

You're misreading me if you think I'm "touting it as gospel." I still haven't seen any corrections to it, and I haven't seen anyone with better explanations of what the pedal tab parameters mean. I only cared because many Ultra tuners claimed that those pedal tab parameters had the same effect on the Ultra Max motor behavior, but Karl himself disclaimed that and I have not in my testing found that Karl was wrong. Understanding those BBSxx parameters was a way for me to understand and figure out how to test if the Ultra behaved the same. So far, it doesn't, as @Tom@WashDC just confirmed for Time of Stop.

Most of that time and energy used on the 49 page post is a regurgitation of The Hackers Guide.

No, you have that exactly backwards. As Karl Gesslein himself says in that guide:

This article is the culmination of many hours of work and was contributed to by Paul(cellman) from em3ev, Matt from Empowered Cycles, kepler and drprox from Endless-Sphere and this insanely long 37+ page thread on ES. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. I could have done it without you but the results would have been really laughable.

Those 37 pages are now 49, but those 37 pages came before Karl's guide. Karl also participated in the thread before writing the guide. I've read lots of those pages, btw.

Not trying to pick a fight... But your desire to be the end all of all info Bafang is leading you to false conclusions.
My milage varies....

Again, you have me wrong. I'm not trying to "be the end all of all info Bafang," I'm trying to get the full picture of what is going on with the Bafang Ultra Max motor, and presenting what I've found through reading and confirmed with actual isolation testing. Most of the reports I read on forums and blog posts are simply reports of "feel" without real data behind them, and I've learned to discount those as anything other than possibilities.

If you want to claim I have reached a false conclusion, please be specific. As I've constantly posted, I'm more than happy to provide my test procedure and data and welcome other data-based testing even if they produce different results.

 

[Gionnirocket]

The graph, if correct, would be a great way to visualize what's happening with the BBS motors. A good graph is worth a thousand words.


You're misreading me if you think I'm "touting it as gospel." I still haven't seen any corrections to it, and I haven't seen anyone with better explanations of what the pedal tab parameters mean. I only cared because many Ultra tuners claimed that those pedal tab parameters had the same effect on the Ultra Max motor behavior, but Karl himself disclaimed that and I have not in my testing found that Karl was wrong. Understanding those BBSxx parameters was a way for me to understand and figure out how to test if the Ultra behaved the same. So far, it doesn't, as @Tom@WashDC just confirmed for Time of Stop.


No, you have that exactly backwards. As Karl Gesslein himself says in that guide:

Those 37 pages are now 49, but those 37 pages came before Karl's guide. Karl also participated in the thread before writing the guide. I've read lots of those pages, btw.


Again, you have me wrong. I'm not trying to "be the end all of all info Bafang," I'm trying to get the full picture of what is going on with the Bafang Ultra Max motor, and presenting what I've found through reading and confirmed with actual isolation testing. Most of the reports I read on forums and blog posts are simply reports of "feel" without real data behind them, and I've learned to discount those as anything other than possibilities.

If you want to claim I have reached a false conclusion, please be specific. As I've constantly posted, I'm more than happy to provide my test procedure and data and welcome other data-based testing even if they produce different results.

Well 7 years, 49 pages, Karl's Guide and now a graph and they still got Stop Decay wrong.
I don't require anymore evidence then riding my bike that now has 3yrs/+10000mi and I know for a fact that it does not cause motor run on and does affect smoothness of acceleration and the ON/OFF effect of a cadence sensor. Key being you need to go above 80 to experience and have not seen any post testing it that way except for mine. I've been as high as 225 and still no run on.
You want charts, graphs and isolation testing... you go right ahead. But might I suggest that you buy a BBS* first.

And lastly.. let's stop polluting Tom's very interested thread.

 

[smorgasbord]

Well 7 years, 49 pages, Karl's Guide and now a graph and they still got Stop Decay wrong.
I don't require anymore evidence then riding my bike that now has 3yrs/+10000mi and I know for a fact that it does not cause motor run on and does affect smoothness of acceleration and the ON/OFF effect of a cadence sensor.

I don't have a BBSxx so I can't say who's right, but in this Endless Sphere post, Ken Taylor says in part:

The setting Stop Decay(x10ms) on the PAS tab I found to affect run on when testing on the Kurt Kinetic rolling road. I tried a large value, I forget the upper limit but there is one, and it ran on upwards of a second (I forget exactly) but it seemed a long time. Run on time also seemed inconsistent but I didn't investigate why. I didn't want run on because if you are drafting and the gap starts to reduce you need to be able to stop human and motor power as fast as possible to avoid collision and you can't use the brakes or the person behind is likely to collide with you. I set this value at 0, which was how it was supplied from EM3EV and as far as I can tell there is no run on.

The Kurt Kinetic rolling road is a stationary trainer that reports data back to a smartphone app. Between this and Taylor's ride data that incorporates speed, power, and cadence, if I were to bet on who's right, I'd bet on the data, not your feeling of "smoothness of acceleration."

Bafang's UI has the units for Stop Decay being "x10ms" which is x0.01 seconds, so your value of 225 is 2 & ¼ seconds. What do you think this parameter affects that takes over 2 seconds to accomplish?

You want charts, graphs and isolation testing... you go right ahead. But might I suggest that you buy a BBS* first.
And lastly.. let's stop polluting Tom's very interested thread.

Ironically, since your comments are related to a motor @Tom@WashDC is not using, they're the actual thread pollution.

 

[Gionnirocket]

I don't have a BBSxx so I can't say who's right, but in this Endless Sphere post, Ken Taylor says in part:

The Kurt Kinetic rolling road is a stationary trainer that reports data back to a smartphone app. Between this and Taylor's ride data that incorporates speed, power, and cadence, if I were to bet on who's right, I'd bet on the data, not your feeling of "smoothness of acceleration."

Bafang's UI has the units for Stop Decay being "x10ms" which is x0.01 seconds, so your value of 225 is 2 & ¼ seconds. What do you think this parameter affects that takes over 2 seconds to accomplish?


Ironically, since your comments are related to a motor @Tom@WashDC is not using, they're the actual thread pollution.

You're 100% right in all aspects of this conversation.
Now you can post that graph in all threads remotely relevant and tell us all where we went wrong and how you saved the day.

Sorry Tom

 

[Tom@WashDC]

Hey Guy's, you are both great contributors to this forum and very helpful!

 

[smorgasbord]

Now you can post that graph in all threads remotely relevant and tell us all where we went wrong and how you saved the day.

Why would I want to copy your bad behavior?

 

[Gionnirocket]

Why would I want to copy your bad behavior?

https://electricbikereview.com/foru...where-other-guides-go-wrong.52606/post-600000

Again, my apologies Tom

 

[Tom@WashDC]

4/28/23
Still no action from Dealer or Rohloff on the missing part
See update added/edited to original post.

 

[keithj69]

By chance, did you measure your wife's cc for the rohloff, or did you not have the bike when you had the measuring kit? With what knowledge you have, do you think the CC can accept a rohloff?