ToSeven DM Series Mid Motors

[knightrider]

My experience with a Cyc X1 Pro told me I would not touch the Photon until its had two years in the market, and it turns out that was a good move. I said the same thing with ToSeven and sadly it doesn't look like we will need anywhere near that long to judge them.

I bought a photon a yr. ago from Matt at BMW. I had to send it back to him after about 300 mi. as it just quit. He never said the problem he found. I think it was firmware issues. He paid for overnight return both ways and since then it has performed flawlessly. The only motors I never had any issues with is the old BBSHD and my CYC stealth gen 3. You like most of us on here have played with most all the diy units in one way or another. Unlike the Kanook I don`t need an electric m/c. I got ice m/c`s for that.

 

[knightrider]

One would have to just wonder if the Toseven company people read any of the forums. I know that a lot of the e bike forums just like any other internet sites has its share of complainers and B/S posters. I settled on this forum by seeing some of the people on here like me that have built a lot of bikes. We aren`t just ranting and hoping to put a company out of business. Hell! competition is good for all to control pricing. The CYC forum gets responses from the manufacture when someone post about their problems. It seems the new guys on the block don`t want to get involved. Just my 2cts.

 

[Ken Shopken]

For years, I swore by KMC x9e and e9 chains. That or the e11. But in recent years, the market has given us new options. Many moons ago I did a whole SRAM EX1 drivetrain ($$$), which in 2024 I would never even consider.

For 9s clusters, Microshift Advent has an 11-46T that is solid, hardened steel cogs. Pinned together all over the place and even the 11T cog is steel. And its like $40. For 10s, Microshift Advent X is the same durable animal as the 9s in 11-48T and its about $45. For 11s clusters, the strongest is the Sunrace CSMS7 which is all steel again, and also pinned-together. Steel spiders. 11-42T but they just released an 11-46T. About $60. The BFD uses a Sunrace CSMS8 which is all steel except for the 51T cog, which I can live with. But now we've bumped up to about $105. But if you want ultra wide range and 11s thats the only one I'd trust with a BBSHD.

For my 9s setups I have been using the SRAM EX1 chain, which is compatible with 8s thru 10S and is $25 or less. Indestructible. For 10 and 11s I've been using just 11s chains. The narrower exterior of the 11s makes a 10s as quiet as a belt and an 11s chain's interior dimensions are the same as 10s so it works just as well.

For derailleurs I've used Box 2 and Microshift for 9s, Advent X for 10S. SRAM GX for 11s. I have to say the Advent X is my favorite of the bunch for cost and smoothness. But the Box 2 ultra wide long cage is the slickest. And the most expensive..

As far as I can see, Most of the Linkglide system is just Shimano offering what you can get elsewhere for less $. In particular their cassettes. But if I wanted a wide range 11s derailleur, I'd have to go Linkglide. SRAM maxes out at 42T.

Good stuff.. My current Sram cluster is coming apart with loose rivets.. The DM01 is too much for it. I will give the Sunrace solid steel a go. I appreciate the cheaper chain too.

 

[m@Robertson]

I have never used a BBSHD without the lekkie 42t chainring so maybe the BBSHD with stock chainring has a bad chainline as well.

Yup it sure does. I am currently trying out a Gustavo chainring, which is a US$35 clone of the Lekkie. Just to see how it behaves. Its powder-coated vs. anodized so it appears to wear immediately, but thats just the powder coating wearing off. It also has a little less offset, but only a little. I've got a slew of Lekkie rings ranging from 52T all the way down to 28T, so I'm a big fan... but $35 versus about US$150 now on some of the sizes makes for a powerful argument to go cheap and just buy 5 of them as they wear out.

On the other hand, I just bought another Luna Eclipse and two more 42T replacement sprockets. I'm using them on two bikes now. I depend on their 22.2mm offset to be able to get as good of a chainline as I can on big cogs.

Its obvious to me that the 'high voltage channel' on youtube has a grudge against CYC and the photon. As can be seen from his videos, he likes to ride around on throttle only and sells BBSHD 72V kits so thats his perspective.

I've had a fair bit of personal communication with him and what I got was he had great hopes for the Cyc, but if you dig a little into his experiences, his wife was using the Photon for a pedelec commuter and it failed on her. Then he had to send the motor back to Cyc for a few weeks turnaround because there were no user-serviceable parts. He got the motor back, but an experience like that is the sort of thing that sours you on something you have to depend on for transportation. Especially when you see that Cyc is moving towards a dealer-service model.

I have seen literally countless user group reports of similar reliability issues going back to the Cyc X1 Pro v1.0, where it was pretty clear that Cyc was great on doing paid returns, and sending out replacement parts, but they were also clearly using their production customers as beta testers, and this went down very poorly in the Cyc user groups at the time (for instance, not using hardened steel on the main gear for the kart chain... oops. They replaced the worn out ones but still... you had to find that one the hard way and live with the down time). I know they tried to reverse that with the Photon, but its not just that High Voltage guy who still suffered. Lets remember the Proton was supposed to follow the Photon, but it still hasn't seen the light of day, and nagging issues with the Photon design are likely the reason why

While I agree the photon is probably not best for mr robertson, I dont understand how he is so negative on something he has no experience with directly

Because I can see other people reporting their experiences, and they sound entirely familiar in terms of the nature of the problem. I've also had the opportunity to talk directly with people who have experience trying to sell them. I take it you've heard the publicly acknowledged return rate on these motors? All you have to do is scroll up and you'll see another one here in this thread. And this is a motor that sells for $950. I expect premium reliability for a premium price like that. And its pretty clear you don't get that. I think its great that you had good experience. But I can't close my eyes to problems that are clearly more common among Cyc product owners than they should be.

And if that is not enough, the Photon requires an internal re-grease after a few thousand miles and this service must be handled by a dealer. The motor has to be removed, sent in for service and your bike is disabled until that motor comes back to you. I don't need to own one to understand the negative ramifications of that.

 

[m@Robertson]

Good stuff.. My current Sram cluster is coming apart with loose rivets.. The DM01 is too much for it. I will give the Sunrace solid steel a go. I appreciate the cheaper chain too.

Take a peek at the Microshift too. Now that I have it in hand, it looks pretty good. Installing it this weekend. Can be had for right at the same price as the Sunrace. Neither Sunrace or Microshift clusters have given me even the slightest bit of trouble.

 

[Ken Shopken]

Does anyone know which setting can shorten / shut off the trailing motor assist? I am doing too many loop outs on hard climbs, when I momentarily quit pedaling for front wheel lift, but the motor keeps assisting. Riding a wheelie or carrying the front wheel over holes is not possible with the stock settings! I found the settings for assist delay and set it to assist immediately upon pedal pressure (much better for off road control and balance with pedal input) but this can amplify the trailing assist issue. The other day when starting a ride, I hopped on and gave one pedal a good crank to get moving while in a lower gear, and did a near wipe out as trailing assist boosted the low gear bike almost past the balance point. I was not expecting that! Off road needs immediate response and immediate assist cut similar to a motorcycle. I have the LCD135C if that matters for settings menu.

 

[Ken Shopken]

Does anyone know which setting can shorten / shut off the trailing motor assist? I am doing too many loop outs on hard climbs, when I momentarily quit pedaling for front wheel lift, but the motor keeps assisting. Riding a wheelie or carrying the front wheel over holes is not possible with the stock settings! I found the settings for assist delay and set it to assist immediately upon pedal pressure (much better for off road control and balance with pedal input) but this can amplify the trailing assist issue. The other day when starting a ride, I hopped on and gave one pedal a good crank to get moving while in a lower gear, and did a near wipe out as trailing assist boosted the low gear bike almost past the balance point. I was not expecting that! Off road needs immediate response and immediate assist cut similar to a motorcycle. I have the LCD135C if that matters for settings menu.

I set run time on the "PAS - Keep Time" to its lowest time of 200ms. The adjustment is a BIG improvement to the annoying trailing assist, but there is still a bit too much trailing assist to ride wheelies or carry the front tire over anything with any confidence. As it was mentioned earlier, it also reduced assist on takeoff and lower input cadence in a negative way. If I let cadence falls below 60 or if I continued in a higher gear, assist would abruptly stop or refuse to begin assisting. It would also shut off assist intermittently when climbing at anything below 5mph. I fell off the bike 2 times while doing low speed maneuvers. The stock settings would only have this fault if I were going very slow in a tall gear while in a standing, hard pedal climb. I will unfortunately have to raise the trailing assist time and wait for the firmware cable and update to hopefully address this issue.

 

[EMGX]

A simple fix might be to add a motor cuttoff to one or both of your brake levers. Tap the brake to instantly shut off the motor. I did this to a TSDZ2 that I had converted to be coaster brake compatible with a solid main gear. The run on wasn't that bad but it interfered for an instant when backpedaling for braking.

 

[JRA]

Does anyone know which setting can shorten / shut off the trailing motor assist? I am doing too many loop outs on hard climbs, when I momentarily quit pedaling for front wheel lift, but the motor keeps assisting. Riding a wheelie or carrying the front wheel over holes is not possible with the stock settings! I found the settings for assist delay and set it to assist immediately upon pedal pressure (much better for off road control and balance with pedal input) but this can amplify the trailing assist issue. The other day when starting a ride, I hopped on and gave one pedal a good crank to get moving while in a lower gear, and did a near wipe out as trailing assist boosted the low gear bike almost past the balance point. I was not expecting that! Off road needs immediate response and immediate assist cut similar to a motorcycle. I have the LCD135C if that matters for settings menu.

I also can't stand any run on, especially in the lower assist modes and did all I could to program it out of my UART Bafang motor. I do find it interesting though that one of the big selling features in the EU spec motor genre that Bosch and Shimano are programing it into their systems now and touting it as a feature that allows for better control in uphill technical terrain?

I used to use the method EMGX describes when I had my first couple of TSDZ2 bikes with mechanical disc brake that were compatible with the levers that came with the kit also and it worked well enough but now that I use hydraulic brakes that method doesn't work for me any more. Although I have a throttle onboard I never use it over the same pedaling technique of reading the trail ahead and some artful crank timing along with dialing in instant engagement as possible via programming and a high engagement hub I can make it all work at least as well as I've been able to the last 40 yrs. of riding mtb.

 

[Ken Shopken]

A simple fix might be to add a motor cuttoff to one or both of your brake levers. Tap the brake to instantly shut off the motor. I did this to a TSDZ2 that I had converted to be coaster brake compatible with a solid main gear. The run on wasn't that bad but it interfered for an instant when backpedaling for braking.

Good call on that. Years of technical dirt bike riding have permanently taught me to use the front brake on the right hand side and the foot brake for traction control, front end loft drop on jumps and vertical wheelie management. It is so learned that I must move my mountain bicycle front brake to the right hand side, and although I have used an aux rear brake hand leaver on the left on motorcycles, its not intuitive for me to apply it there to lower a wheelie or to lower the rear wheel on a jump from that leaver.. That split second of hesitation endlessly gets me in trouble. I will keep working on it!

 

[Ken Shopken]

I also can't stand any run on, especially in the lower assist modes and did all I could to program it out of my UART Bafang motor. I do find it interesting though that one of the big selling features in the EU spec motor genre that Bosch and Shimano are programing it into their systems now and touting it as a feature that allows for better control in uphill technical terrain?

I used to use the method EMGX describes when I had my first couple of TSDZ2 bikes with mechanical disc brake that were compatible with the levers that came with the kit also and it worked well enough but now that I use hydraulic brakes that method doesn't work for me any more. Although I have a throttle onboard I never use it over the same pedaling technique of reading the trail ahead and some artful crank timing along with dialing in instant engagement as possible via programming and a high engagement hub I can make it all work at least as well as I've been able to the last 40 yrs. of riding mtb.

I have only experienced one Bosch unit on a Trek bike and it was pretty intuitive to pedal input and cut.. Hopefully when ToSeven programming goes open source someone can figure it out.

I can see the throttle as being pretty useful when crossing sections of rock and root areas to avoid pedal, motor and derailer strikes, if more progression can be added. The stock settings are ridiculous for this type of gentle crossing unless you are in too tall of a gear for the motor to go go go..

That reminds me- I need to construct a good skid plate to protect the motors case and stupidly exposed wiring that exists the bottom of the case. I have already hit it pretty hard on rocks and logs, as well as a few pretty hard hits from front tire kick-up of sticks and rocks. I cannot ride the trails that I want to ride with it because of this issue.

 

[PedalUma]

The DMO1 has those exposure issues. Over 100nm leads to all kinds of drive train problems. Some top MTBs have 250w.

 

[JRA]

I have only experienced one Bosch unit on a Trek bike and it was pretty intuitive to pedal input and cut.. Hopefully when ToSeven programming goes open source someone can figure it out.

I can see the throttle as being pretty useful when crossing sections of rock and root areas to avoid pedal, motor and derailer strikes, if more progression can be added. The stock settings are ridiculous for this type of gentle crossing unless you are in too tall of a gear for the motor to go go go..

That reminds me- I need to construct a good skid plate to protect the motors case and stupidly exposed wiring that exists the bottom of the case. I have already hit it pretty hard on rocks and logs, as well as a few pretty hard hits from front tire kick-up of sticks and rocks. I cannot ride the trails that I want to ride with it because of this issue.

Actually the run on feature is baked into their latest software upgrades at certain assist levels for certain motors, I've just seen it mentioned on several platforms.

Problem is that although I have alot of off road motorcycle riding experience I still use the left brakelever for my rear brake and pedal like I always have on a bicycle and so reaching for the throttle while maneuvering underway I don't take time to think about using it and just react with my feet instead. YMMV of course as I know many do depend on the throttle more than I do.

I used to bang my TSDZ2 on logs sometimes also and cringed every time. Only once did it effect me negatively and even then luckily it resolved itself and I was able to continue on my way. But a skid plate is a good idea especially if the motor hangs below the chainring.

 

[metanewbie]

This thread has made me strongly consider avoiding mid-drive as an option. I appreciate all the warnings.

 

[m@Robertson]

This thread has made me strongly consider avoiding mid-drive as an option. I appreciate all the warnings.

What it should do is put you off of the ToSeven motors. Not mid drives.

Just for example, the Bafang motors (BBS02 and BBSHD) are renowned for rock solid reliability, and an enormous amount of 3rd party support on Youtube and elsewhere, both from the aftermarket and a myriad of user groups. The Bafangs are, really, standing alone atop their own mountain as if you want a plug and play add-on motor used by perhaps millions of riders all over the world, there's really nobody else in that league. The closest will be the Tongshengs but they are a pretty distant third place in terms of market penetration. After Tongsheng you are wayyyy down in the weeds.

My take on new motor platforms is always to wait two years and let the pioneers take the arrows in the back. Which is exactly whats happening here with ToSeven, and is also happening to the Cyc Photon owners.

The ToSeven and Cyc motors have gotten so much publicity because the the Bafangs are a little unexciting after being in the market so many years. So everyone has high hopes that we'll get some fancy new tech but then reality sets in and we see there's something to be said for the stodgy but dependable path.

 

[metanewbie]

What it should do is put you off of the ToSeven motors. Not mid drives.

Just for example, the Bafang motors (BBS02 and BBSHD) are renowned for rock solid reliability, and an enormous amount of 3rd party support on Youtube and elsewhere, both from the aftermarket and a myriad of user groups. The Bafangs are, really, standing alone atop their own mountain as if you want a plug and play add-on motor used by perhaps millions of riders all over the world, there's really nobody else in that league. The closest will be the Tongshengs but they are a pretty distant third place in terms of market penetration. After Tongsheng you are wayyyy down in the weeds.

My take on new motor platforms is always to wait two years and let the pioneers take the arrows in the back. Which is exactly whats happening here with ToSeven, and is also happening to the Cyc Photon owners.

The ToSeven and Cyc motors have gotten so much publicity because the the Bafangs are a little unexciting after being in the market so many years. So everyone has high hopes that we'll get some fancy new tech but then reality sets in and we see there's something to be said for the stodgy but dependable path.

Fair point. Bafangs are great. Cadence feels like a moped, not a bicycle. Preference, I know.

 

[m@Robertson]

Also, the problems being discussed here on the ToSeven motor programming are all long since sussed out on the BBSxx platform. I prefer my take which results in a pretty refined cyclist-centric ride

BBSHD Programming For The Pedaling Cyclist (2023 Update)

Explore enhanced BBSHD programming for pedal assist settings that don't let the bike run away from you, and throttle settings gentle on the drivetrain.

talesontwowheels.com

But Jon Sully took an entirely different approach, which he documents in detail. Not my cup of tea personally but this illustrates how much refinement has gone into the platform over a period of years. None of that has happened on the ToSeven platform yet.

Sully's BBSHD Programming (for people that like pedaling) | Jon Sully

How to program a Bafang BBSHD to ride WITH the motor!

jonsully.net

 

[m@Robertson]

Fair point. Bafangs are great. Cadence feels like a moped, not a bicycle. Preference, I know.

As a cyclist, I specifically attacked that issue and I think I solved it via the link above. Jon Sully is also a cyclist and he chose entirely different motor behavior.

The Bafang programming is flat out awful. Its impossible for it to not run away from you. But if you take a stick and beat on it, you can totally change the character of that motor to something you barely recognize.

My flat land config for instance, on pedal assist, gives PEAK assist at around 400-450w. On a motor still capable of pouring on 1750w - using the same set of settings - via throttle.

 

[m@Robertson]

Good stuff.. My current Sram cluster is coming apart with loose rivets.. The DM01 is too much for it. I will give the Sunrace solid steel a go. I appreciate the cheaper chain too.

Things have changed still further since I wrote that post in August. I had not yet installed the 11s Microshift pie plate. Since then it has become a staple. Its a head-and-shoulders upgrade over the Sunrace. Much wider range, costs less and every cog is steel (except the big 46T which is fine). Zero issues with the 11s Linkglide chain and SRAM derailleur, which I extended to be able to handle the big cogs with a Wolftooth Roadlink that isn't supposed to work if you read the product literature, but in fact works great.

The Sunrace has steel spiders but the Microshift is 1-piece steel cogs. I get a lot of traffic on this page and I keep the hardware sections updated as I come across new winners. I updated last on October 11 with pics of that Microshift among other things.

How To Build a Mid Drive Ebike That Doesn’t Break

Mid drives up the ante on the required competence of the builder. Read this so your bike lasts without things breaking or wearing out early.

talesontwowheels.com

 

[PedalUma]

My latest ToSeven build is almost done. I will show photos Friday night. I just need to chop down some wire lengths to make it clean. It is my nicest build so far. I have been working at an all electric bike shop 50 hours per week since May and have not have time for many conversions. If you want to check out the place see Petaluma Motor Wheel. Much of the programing can be done through the display, except updates. I had to create a dongle end for that because the original is a girl on girl connection to the controller and does not plug in.