History of the Bafang BBSHD Over the Years

[Retrorockit]

I have 6 years experience with a BBSHD. I pedal almost all the time. I get as much or as little exercise as I want by turning down the assist, or shifting up a gear or 2 and spinning or practicing proper pedaling technique. But 1500W and a throttle allows me to run for my life if needed, out run changing weather situations, and fight 20-25mph headwinds. At the end of a 50 mile ride I may throttle the last couple of miles home, or after a couple drinks. It's powerful.reliable, and almost silent. I think versatile would describe it well. If you don't like the throttle-don't use it, if you don't need the extra power-don't turn up the assist. I started with an 18Ah battery, then 24Ah, now on my third one 28Ah. Speed, power, range, dependability (nice when you're 20 miles form home at night and it's raining). Would I trade all of that for the torque sensing illusion????
TS increases the assist as you pedal harder. the BBSHD doesn't, unless you turn up the assist level. Who is actually doing more work?

 

[Whataboutmike]

I've owned and maintained a few Bbshd motors for about 7-8 years, solid motor's that for me came with a few flaws in their early day's, Bafangs original stator had a weak spot and the rotor shaft would snap off at the shoulder ( happened to my first bbshd ) , the newer versions had a higher and more solid shaft avoiding the shoulder weak spot. Other changes in the Bbshd history were the controller versions and the myths/fake voltage versions, so originally the controllers firmware were 30 amps, then along came the restricted 28 amp versions for 52v batteries giving more or less the same performance as a 48v 30 amp set-up. The myth/fake selling titles were the Bbshd having 52v rated controllers, the Bbshd controller was already capable of running higher voltage ( 60v ) but the company never made specific versions other than the stock 48v. For me one of the main selling points of the motor was how much easier and less complicated it was to maintain, stripping down the motor requires basic abilities and tools, replacing parts very easy, my only gripe was the secret source...the nylon gear grease! Mobil 28 became so sort after! That brings me to perhaps the most controversial component within the motor, the nylon gear! Over the years this so called weak spot in the motor has divided opinions with so many, the reason for this and its nick name, the peanut butter gear because it melted under high levels of abuse, lead to the metal version which was just to loud, that then lead to the Peek gear which seemed to satisfy those high powered non-stock controller users. I personally have no issues with the nylon gear and I'm still using the original one all these years later with hardly any degradation, lucky me! We also saw the brilliant display from Egg, the Eggrider v2, this allowed users to switch and program the motor on the go, I think its still the only display that has this feature. I don't think the E-bike market would be where it is now if not for Bafang making one of, if not the best mid drive motor out there, their former engineers going onto make other rival companies. Bafang now are trying to push into the Emtb market dominated by Bosch and Shimano, I think this is why we haven't had much luck with torque version conversion kits from them, they also tried the properiatery battery versions and made the disliked M series Can-bus models that I believe are moving away from being programmable or at least making it more difficult to do. I hope we get a good solid Torque version bbshd but it looks like Toseven maybe our best option once reliability is confirmed. Adding onto this history, Bafang have by a long shot the biggest social media presence with countless YouTubers showcasing their builds and how too videos.