Luna Apollo Bafang Ultra Motor programming question

[Tim02035]

Hi Everyone,
I just purchased and received a Luna Apollo with the Bafang Ultra motor. The programming is pretty horrible on it and I was hoping to make adjustments to the torque. It has a huge delay when pushing the throttle and when it does kick in, it slaps pretty hard. I would like to adjust it so that the ramp up is much more gradual. If anyone could shed some light on the best way to do this. I know there is a programming cable which I will need to purchase and a program i need to download to run on a nearby computer. Are there any pitfalls or common issues when doing this? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

 

[tomjasz]

Luna has a forum.
electricbike.com/forum

Lots of help there from their support staff.

 

[AHicks]

How old is this bike Tim? The newest generation of Ultras, that were built and shipped in '21 have a CAN BUS programming format that hasn't been cracked yet. The older Ultra's use a UART format. Those are the one severyone is much more familiar with, and able to be changed pretty easily.

The acid test regarding which one you have (UART vs. CAN BUS) is the connector the display plugs in to. The UART plug is round. The CAN BUS plug is often described as house shaped (not round!).

More info on what's going on with both formats here on EBR is available at (in addition to Luna information/support) : https://electricbikereview.com/forums/forum/bafang/

 

[Tim02035]

Thanks Tom.
The bike is brand new. It is one of the magnesium motors though so i think it is old stock that they are putting on the new bikes. I will crack open the connector to see which it is. I can say that it looked round to me from just looking at it earlier today. I did see that there are two identical looking connectors tied together. One appears to run from the screen (dc-18) to the frame and the other looks to go to the power buttons and then down to the frame. Would either work or is only one designed for the link up? I will take a look at both of those links you guys posted once i get a good look at the connector type. I have been storing it at work since it seems like a huge bike haha. Dont know that have room for it in the apartment. Alas, no garage.........Thanks again!

 

[AHicks]

The connector you're after comes from the display. It's one of 2 wires on the display. The other leads to the combo PAS and on/off switch mounted on the left handlebar (usually)

 

[tomjasz]

Pictures help.

 

[Tim02035]

Hey guys,
Thanks for your help. I verified that it is the round housing connector on the lead coming from the screen. Therefore, Im going to go on the assumption that i need to get the programming cable and download the software to make the changes. Ahicks, I saw a post that you made with a Frey set of setting for a smoother ride on the ultra motor. Would that be applicable to my setup? It is a 52v battery with the ultra motor set up where I think yours was a 48v? Might be nice to find a nice easy bunch of numbers to drop in there and use as a jumping point. Thanks again!

 

[AHicks]

Hey guys,
Thanks for your help. I verified that it is the round housing connector on the lead coming from the screen. Therefore, Im going to go on the assumption that i need to get the programming cable and download the software to make the changes. Ahicks, I saw a post that you made with a Frey set of setting for a smoother ride on the ultra motor. Would that be applicable to my setup? It is a 52v battery with the ultra motor set up where I think yours was a 48v? Might be nice to find a nice easy bunch of numbers to drop in there and use as a jumping point. Thanks again!

My thought exactly. As good a first try as I've seen anywhere.

As far as 52v, sorry, no experience.

 

[TomD]

I think the problem may be the ludi mod which doubles the current. 52V isn't going to make much difference. For example, a 52V battery at 50% charge puts out the same volts as a 48V battery at 75% charge. Not as if your motor is going to be more or less smooth at different battery charge levels.

 

[AHicks]

I think the problem may be the ludi mod which doubles the current. 52V isn't going to make much difference. For example, a 52V battery at 50% charge puts out the same volts as a 48V battery at 75% charge. Not as if your motor is going to be more or less smooth at different battery charge levels.

52v vs. 48v won't change the performance much, agreed, but it's going to screw with the display battery condition indicators.
You do bring something up I hadn't considered. I have no idea if Luna modifies the Ultra motor in any way that might be screwed up by loading the "Smooth" settings.

 

[Tim02035]

Hmm all good points. Maybe i should reach out to Luna before moving forward. Ill let you know what Luna says about this.

 

[TomD]

Presumably that's what Karl's sauce is for. I'm not sure if that's how Luna tunes them or they leave for the user to do but guessing it still leaves a lot to be desired. If you want world class refinement look at the controller upgrade from watt wagons. Probably not needed if you just want smoother throttle response.

 

[ElevenAD]

Hmm all good points. Maybe i should reach out to Luna before moving forward. Ill let you know what Luna says about this.

Their customer service has been Kickass in my experience, they should respond pretty fast! Your super lucky to have snagged on of the Magnesium Ultras, if i remember correctly Luna said this may be the last batch!?

 

[AHicks]

Presumably that's what Karl's sauce is for. I'm not sure if that's how Luna tunes them or they leave for the user to do but guessing it still leaves a lot to be desired. If you want world class refinement look at the controller upgrade from watt wagons. Probably not needed if you just want smoother throttle response.

That's my understanding, but I suppose a lot of that will be what you are trying to accomplish.

Not here to knock anyones settings. Bigger point is that they are older, and possibly a lot has been learned since they were developed.

 

[TomD]

Sounds like the OP is focused more on throttle than torque sensing. Here are Karl's settings. Sounds like he didn't focus too much on throttle.

I Void Warranties : Hacking The Bafang Ultra Max Mid-Drive Ebike Drive

There is half a dozen low power torque sensing mid drives on the market right now that advertise themselves as being between 250 and 750 Watts. The one thing that all these ‘low power’ …

electricbike-blog.com

In reality, I'm not sure you can really make throttle that smooth and responsive at the same time as it's more of an on/off switch unless you have very adept thumb motor skills. On my original Frey CC it was similar to the OPs observation when you hit throttle. Slight delay then vroom. Exhilarating but probably not so good for the drivetrain. Going to be a lot more vroom on the ludi moded ultra. When I upgraded my controller I was initially annoyed that Watt Wagons had restricted the throttle. What happened to my vroom? It blends in the output slowly. While I was a somewhat let down initially, I now actually love it (since I'm not a throttle jockey). I never used to use throttle except when I needed to floor it in traffic. Now I use it all the time to get going, in any gear. There's likely a way to blend in the power, and make it smooth, but the flip side may not be responsive enough soon enough.

 

[AHicks]

You can make that throttle behave/do about anything you want once you understand the options. It does take some experimenting, and maybe some homework. Just know it will spool up the power very slowly or quickly according to how it's set, and the amount of power/giddyup when the power is first applied is adjustable as well. Just a couple of parameters control that so it's not difficult to set up at all. My bike will go so slow on just throttle it's difficult to keep your balance....

What's crazy is Bafang built that kind of potential control finesse into the controller, then they give it to the consumer with ham fisted settings....

 

[TomD]

Yeah, I'm sure it's possible to blend in, just saying smooth and responsive are harder to marry since the thrumb throttle is for the most part binary on/off. Blending in will make it less responsive and vice-versa. I've never had a problem maintaining balance on my CC with restricted throttle, the way Watt Wagons programmed it is almost perfect to get going, but it's not going to win any drag races. If you've programmed the stock controller to blend in throttle might be helpful for the OP to know what settings to focus on.

 

[TomD]

Here is the throttle screen and settings per karl's writeup

 

[TomD]

Here are some insights from eggrider as far as what the parameters do. I cut and pasted a few select snippets.

E-bike Settings - Bafang - Throttle | EggRider user manual

Personalize your ebike ride with EggRider V2 display

manual.eggrider.com

Start Voltage (x100mV)​

Best to leave between 10 and 15. Too low and the display will throw an error as the motor will want to run continuously. If you change the throttle you will need to find the new lowest setting.

End Voltage (0x100mV)​

You can set the max range to 42 which is the max input the controller accepts from throttle input 4.2v. If you set lower than this value your throttle response is not as linear or smooth as it could be.

Throttle Mode​

Switching this to Current Mode (instead of Speed mode) has an improvement in the throttle response smoothness.

Designated Assist​

To have always maximum power for throttle set Dessignated Assist = 9 and in Bafang Basic page set for Assist 9, Limited Current(%) = 100 and Limited Speed(%) = 100.

Start Current (%)​

Percentage of available current when throttle initially applied. Lower values for smoother startup: 5 or 10 gives a much smoother startup. This can be set all the way down to 1.

 

[Jon A]

Yeah, those settings are going to be pretty vicious. There are limitations to what you can do with the throttle--it's never going to be perfectly "gas pedal-like" when at full power--but it can be improved dramatically.

While full power blasts can be fun with the throttle, I've found when I actually need to use the throttle (to make it through obstacles/areas that can't be pedaled) having more control is usually a lot more important than having full power on tap.

Here are my settings:

Changing to current helps a bunch at low speeds, by only giving you a certain amount of current instead of trying to propel you up to a certain speed.

Setting the assist to the Display's Command helps a ton as well. In the lower PAS modes, the throttle becomes very smooth and controllable at lower speeds. If you want to use it for a top speed blast on the road, or to drag race somebody up a steep hill, just turn up the PAS.