Before buying all these motors I would have appreciated the info I'm about to give here and that's why I'm posting this. I own a couple of TSDZ2 (all broken by now, see below), two BBS02 and 1 BBSHD mounted on touring, mtb and city bikes.
TS=TongSheng
02=BBS02
HD=BBSHD
Shared traits
++ The whole concept is great: keep your fave bike, add a motor and when time has passed it by you simply remove that old motor and install the flashy new one you want. Your friend with an integrated motor is stuck. Throwing away the frame and all is worse for the environment too.
++ Both are rather quiet and look innocuous too. Individual units vary - my BBS02's and HD are ever so slightly quieter than any of my TSDZ2's. Both are quieter than any pre-2019 Bosch unit and much quieter than a 2014 Yamaha.
++ None of them rust. Just ignore those rumours. I commuted through salt-sprinkled winter roads and there's no rust whatsoever.
++ Both are offered with 5-6V light cables and both work well with any modest ebike lights, max 0.5A. For TS it is more or less standard, though some old displays lack support for it. The cables are always flimsy and exposed under the unit. The china lights offered as bundled with the kits are ok. (For weight-weeneing and/or a more refined light beam that's also legal in Germany, get something like a Busch+Müller EYC E or similar. Any stronger lights will draw too much current, but this way you'll never get stuck without and can always get along with decent lights. You will need to do some simple soldering.)
+- For commuting I'd normally recommend a more reliable and cheaper (also with less maintenance) hub motor BUT if you seek a smallish motor that won't turn your back wheel into a 100kg megawatt monster all while still running happily at speeds over 40 kmph, then keep reading. Correctly programmed these motors can help you along at really high speeds without transforming your bicycle into a moped.
+- If you mount your motor swung up against the downtube both models still manage water drain but know that they are going to collect a ton of mud and stuff up on the outer casing. But who in their right mind would prefer to have the motor hanging like a big turd just in front of the rear wheel, wholly unprotected and unbecoming?
+- Use a stable bike frame that can handle the extra weight and speed! MTB's will do good and suspension really pairs well with any motor. For fast commuting I use a titanium touring frame. But I'd stay away from any noodly race bike frame.
+- Stock cranks are of the cheap China kind but work alright while not being unreasonably heavy. Neither solves the q-factor issues. (Interestingly enough if you happen to have a Bafang right side and a TS left side crank you're kind of good, even though you'll have just a bit of shift to the right still going on it's still much better than going all Bafang or Tongsheng both sides.)
+- Both takes some time to install, especially if you got the Bafang with gear & brake sensors. If you're somewwhat handy it's not a complicated process although it can be daunting to remove squeaks and slight movements should you get them.
+- The chainline is about the same on both: in no way ideal but perfectly manageable.
-- Q-factor is also the same: seriously bad and tilted to the right side. This shift can be managed by ordering cranks with right side q of 0 and left q around 14-18 mm. When you measure do it with the stock cranks fully mounted because the square tapers are not precision made and may trick you by letting one crank mount higher than the other. Q will be horrible at well over 210 mm (68mm bb), well into fat bike territory. Obese bike territory, really. Fore reference: road bikes have a q around 150 mm, mtb bb's usually 170-175 mm.
-- IMPORTANT! Your knees may not like the resulting wide pedal stance. I never knew it could hurt your knees cycling around with your legs spread like a kalinka dancer, but now I do, because these motors messed my knees up. Apparently it's not that uncommon, judging by my google-fu exercises on proper bike fit. I can only use my TSDZ2, BBS02 and BBSHD for fake sunday cycling, more or less pedaling without force and never to get a good workout. The pedal stance is just horrible and thouroughly un-ergonomic in typical chinese fashion.
-- Chinese manufacturers of add-on motors seem loath to admit the inherent shortcomings of pushing a threadless, loose-fit motor shaft through a bicycle bottom bracket. Done properly you can fit these motors securely but staving off any creaking even when pushing hard on the pedals demands expertise and devotion of epic proportions.
-- Neither come with proper instructions or support; if you're new to this you should be prepared to do some forum lurking.
TSDZ2
*Be aware that without thorough maintenance the motor has a limited lifespan due to some weak mechanical spots. If you push hard you're likely to immediately break the torque sensor which has undersized knobs and grooves made from cheap metal. I did this and then resorted to never ever pushing a pedal with more than about 60 kg of force.
Trouble is that even if you adhere to this careful strategy sooner or later the central main shaft/spindle in the bottom bracket will break. It is made of sub-par metal that fatigues over time and for some reason the engineers decided to put three little grooves (cut-outs) in it, allowing for circlips to hold the shaft in place. The leftmost groove is placed outside of the left bearing. If you push hard or stand on the pedals most of the force put stress, movement and material fatigue in exactly this spot. One day your left pedal simply drops off without any warning. I hope your eventual balls and teeth aren't in vulnerable positions when it happens. I lived through the experience twice, but you couldn't tell because my voice wasn't that deep to begin with. More info here. Sensitive viewers are warned: explicit pictures of spindles broken right off. The horror!
Sometimes you can get away with a new torque sensor unit about USD 80-90, but the bearing system may brake and that damages the casing leaving the whole TSDZ2 unit unuseable. My unit's never lasted more than a year of almost daily but careful use. I found it a surprisingly difficult job to replace the torque sensor which may or may not be due to incomptence but I think I should mention it. However, if you're handy you can service your motor by swapping in new bearings and torque unit before anything breaks. Mine lasted about 5000 km of careful use.
*On a recumbent, where one doesn't stand on the pedals, the fragile central shaft should last just fine.
*The infamous and very googleable "nylon gear" can't handle high torque and also wears out. I bought a spare metal cog but never needed it. Nylon makes the motor much quieter so I'd recommend you simply replace the cheap little cog when the motor is due for the torque/spindle service.
*The torque control system is almost as good as the EU brands. Smooth, responsive and pleasant. The riding experience is on another level compared to the BBS; less fiddling around with buttons and it feels more bionic and natural. One criticism would be that maximum torque sensing is rather low. That is to say, if you push somewhat hard on the pedals you're maxed out already - no point standing up to try and get more out of the motor.
*No need for brake sensors since if you stop pedaling the motor also stops. Gear sensing would have been nice for even snappier gear changes without motor torque applied, but it's not offered so just fahgettaboutit.
*Stock cadence is about a slow as the Yamaha Powerdrive (2014), which is to say the motor drops power around 70 rpm and just gives up after 80. Good for lazy sunday excursions but totally inadequate for sporty cycling. (If you want to push a high tempo you need high cadences not only to maximise performance, but also to avoid putting too much strain on your knees - the TSDZ2's low cadence contributed to my knees going from okay to kinda bad. As a point of reference professional cyclists do 90-120 rpm.)
*I hear the flexible open source firmware made by some smart dudes hanging around this place is fabulous, but at the time of writing you need the KT-LCD3 display. The extra, extra smart dude Casainho explains the stuff here and talks about the wireless variant here. I'd guess you should go for it since this firmware also solves the cadence issues and allows 52V batteries. Open source firmware link.
*An easier solution is to buy a 36V motor and simply run it with a 48V battery. I used to open my units and switch either the motor or the controller out but I now know there's no need; just mix! The controllers all take 48V. Note that for a 52V battery, with even better cadence, you need a 52V controller or flash a stock controller yourself. 52V is sweet for an avid cyclist: the motor becomes really peppy and responsive even on higher cadences.
*It's perfectly doable to add an outer chainring for a front double. The larger chainwheel can only be used with the chain on the smaller half of the cassette or else the chainline whacks out, but this is okay since that's where top speeds are to be found. (I made my own tight chainring setup and can post pictures for any interested parties.) However, since upping the motor rpm with more voltage I find the larger chainring is largely unnecessary. Top speed with 11-32 cassette and stock chainring is around 40kmph unmodified. With a 48V battery & 36V motor combo you can add 1/3 to that and be out of the woods. Or commute.
*The mounting system would have you rotating the motor down and back using metal thingies clamping on to your chainstays just behind the bottom bracket. This will chafe the frame. I would recommend opting out and instead take good care to fasten the unit using only the bottom bracket screw nut thingie. It's not of high quality and mine kept loosening up, so I added a drop of construction glue to secure them. If you rotate the motor up towards the downtube it helps to add some support there (e.g. piece of wood locked with PL-400 construction glue) to secure the position, save your bike frame and allow for any gear or brake cables to pass in between the motor and frame (under the bottom bracket).
*Swapping from a Shimano Ultegra bottom bracket to the bearings in TSDZ2 is like trading in your Ortlieb panniers for paper bags from the supermarket. You can expect more sponge-like flexing and some mild cracking sensations. Changing pedaling direction reliably produces some not-so-smooth hickups that doesn't really affect performance but hurts your inner perfectionist's soul. The motor adds little resistance but the feeling isn't nice. Also if you push too hard you'll break the torque sensor, no matter if the motor's powered.
*Both stock pedal cranks have about 10 mm q. Not ideal for the right side, to say the least. Not ideal from any angle really.
*If your frame has wide and beefy chainstays allowing for tyres over 35 mm you can expect the TSDZ2 gear housing to push up against your right chainstay unless you put one of them plastic bb spacers in on the right side before tightening everything up. This pushes the right crank even further out, but the only alternative is to start cutting into the chainstay, which we don't do because we're sensible people.
*Top speed of max 45 kmph can be set on both VLCD5 and XH18 without any extra cable or such. To go faster you need to set the wheel size to smaller and trick the system, sacrificing real speed and distance displayed.
BBS02
*Quality is rather good. In my home we use two BBS02 and one BBSHD and one of the 02's been used extensively for two years now. Hickups have been confined to programming/software issues. Reports of busted controllers are easy to find but all-in-all any common quality issues seems to have been solved by now.
*Good cadence even for active cycling. Instead, if you drop cadence too much the motor turns itself off. Like, way before any other motor drops its power. You can get caught unassisted if for example there was no time to gear down before you stopped for red. The throttle can save you (but could potentially also risk busting the MOSFETS) if you're fine with throttling a bicycle.
*Absolutely horrendous factory controller programming. Also be aware the recommended settings you can find online and implement are often tailored for an ebiker's mindset with an emphasis on constant throttle use and lazy legs. The way these work is by letting the throttle (or PAS) sort of control your speed - not only actual motor power. That's right, at a certain RPM the motor's power is tailored off. Sounds insane on any other vehicle? That's because it is. You basically get set speeds and may air-pedal along for show. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate this kind of shit. (I'll post what I think is good BBS02 controller settings for cycling minded nerds in a separate post following this one.)
*Programming comes with some tinkering. My 2019 unit from PSWPower still has the infamous "throttle can only do on or off" issue. ("Stop delay value" may be the culprit since it may cause trouble if programmed to a value below 10, so try that first if you get the same issue.) I have similar problems with my mtb using a HD. On my commuter BBS02 the throttle has been removed - I run PAS only and need only a snobby cyclist's attitude.
*It is absolutely worth it to get brake and gear sensors for convenient cycling. Sadly, most of them are of low quality, unreliable and messy to install. The gear sensor from Czech Republic, conveniently called "gearsensor" from (you guessed it) gearsensor.com is good, while the China ones are shite and never worked out for me. The gear sensor adds considerable resistance to the gear wire, necessitating a flawless gear game for 10+ speed systems. (You're basically forever close to the awful un-adjustable situation where the chain won't go up nor down when promted - until you change the cable set, clean everything, re-do everything and smite the evil like forever.) The brake sensor can do the job if you get in the habit of touching the brakes while changing gears; for electronic shifting sadly that's your only option.
*I personally recommend getting a BBS version with headlight connectors if you're going to use it for more than offroad duties because it's a godsend to always have at least decent lights on hand even if you forgot your high lumen set at home.
*One can live with the PAS for commuting but it is in no way comparable to a torque sensing system. The incentive for working harder is almost gone and the whole experience is clonky and less responsive. Power comes with a fair amount of delay because without a torque sensor the bike gets uncomfortably jerky otherwise, plus the simple system has still to protect itself from blowing all the circuits if you feed lots of current without moving (slow starts). With PAS at least it's not totally in a scooter-motorcycle domain. (On my touring commuter I eventually got rid of the throttle altogether. Wouldn't want to do that on my MTB.)
*Mounting is reasonably secure and allows the motor to be pushed up against the downtube for better ground clearance. However, be prepared to tighten it up now and then. The creaking sound it makes when you work the pedals hard enough for the motor to squirm a bit is unconcerting and not to the benefit of the frame material.
*Cranks can be tough to mount securely on this motor so be thorough. I have no facts to back this up but it seems to me Bafang cut low profile JIS which means cranks risk bottoming out. Maybe the spindles are manufactured to a sloppy standard overall because they have a bit of a bad reputation for messing up even high quality cranks. I used loctite blue (considered dumbass get-crank-stuck practise on any normal square taper) and tightened to the cranks' stated limit with a torque wrench. Still one came off and got ruined. My pulse rises just from thinking about it.
*The bottom bracket bearings both flex and crack a little less than TSDZ2's but don't expect them to perform like real cycling bb's of good quality. Cycling with the motor off doesn't add much resistance, but I wouldn't describe it as rewarding.
*Both stock pedal cranks have almost zero q. Good for the right side. I'd say you need to swap at least the left one out but this depends on wether you care about cycling with both pedals shifted to the right, with your body bent sideways like some gmo banana. If you don't then at least have the decency not to mention any of this to your physiotherapist friend at dinner or it's on you if that friend chokes on his fork.
*Lekkie cranks are great but notoriously hard to mount securely. They perfectly even out the pedal stance but the q-factor will be huuuge and still potentially mess with your knees over time.
*Lekkie chain rings are good and creates a slightly improved chainline while offering a choice of tooth count. Note that any chainring smaller than 42 does NOT improve the chainline because it can't reach to wrap around the motor.
*Display choices are plenty. Now that the Cycle Analyst 3 isn't that exepnsive I think I would have rather bought that one, but I don't actually own it so I can't add much info except it can do more than the others. Most break down within two years.
A note on displays
The sw102 (Eggrider for bluetooth programming capability) is super nice with a perfect size if you prefer a more normal looking bike. But note the lack of remote (annoying if you have drop bars, having to reach all the time) and that you can't adjust maximum speed without a reprogramming USB cable. Top speed maximum setting is only 40 kmph. To go faster one must set the wrong wheel diameter size. The buttons are flimsy and when they break you need a new display. Again.
My DCP-14 from EM3EV goes to 99 kmph. Those guys aren't kidding. Really should come with a flyer helmet. The remote allows convenient mounting on a drop bar with the buttons easily accessible inside the STI brifters, but if you do this you invite water and need to very carefully seal the unit first. You'd think the remote can be sourced as spare part but instead you can expect the buttons to break and you're back to buying a new disply. Again.
Thanks for your attention and please just shoot me down if you found any unacceptably dumb shit.
#bbs02 vs tsdz2 which is best buy chose mid-drive kit#
TS=TongSheng
02=BBS02
HD=BBSHD
Shared traits
++ The whole concept is great: keep your fave bike, add a motor and when time has passed it by you simply remove that old motor and install the flashy new one you want. Your friend with an integrated motor is stuck. Throwing away the frame and all is worse for the environment too.
++ Both are rather quiet and look innocuous too. Individual units vary - my BBS02's and HD are ever so slightly quieter than any of my TSDZ2's. Both are quieter than any pre-2019 Bosch unit and much quieter than a 2014 Yamaha.
++ None of them rust. Just ignore those rumours. I commuted through salt-sprinkled winter roads and there's no rust whatsoever.
++ Both are offered with 5-6V light cables and both work well with any modest ebike lights, max 0.5A. For TS it is more or less standard, though some old displays lack support for it. The cables are always flimsy and exposed under the unit. The china lights offered as bundled with the kits are ok. (For weight-weeneing and/or a more refined light beam that's also legal in Germany, get something like a Busch+Müller EYC E or similar. Any stronger lights will draw too much current, but this way you'll never get stuck without and can always get along with decent lights. You will need to do some simple soldering.)
+- For commuting I'd normally recommend a more reliable and cheaper (also with less maintenance) hub motor BUT if you seek a smallish motor that won't turn your back wheel into a 100kg megawatt monster all while still running happily at speeds over 40 kmph, then keep reading. Correctly programmed these motors can help you along at really high speeds without transforming your bicycle into a moped.
+- If you mount your motor swung up against the downtube both models still manage water drain but know that they are going to collect a ton of mud and stuff up on the outer casing. But who in their right mind would prefer to have the motor hanging like a big turd just in front of the rear wheel, wholly unprotected and unbecoming?
+- Use a stable bike frame that can handle the extra weight and speed! MTB's will do good and suspension really pairs well with any motor. For fast commuting I use a titanium touring frame. But I'd stay away from any noodly race bike frame.
+- Stock cranks are of the cheap China kind but work alright while not being unreasonably heavy. Neither solves the q-factor issues. (Interestingly enough if you happen to have a Bafang right side and a TS left side crank you're kind of good, even though you'll have just a bit of shift to the right still going on it's still much better than going all Bafang or Tongsheng both sides.)
+- Both takes some time to install, especially if you got the Bafang with gear & brake sensors. If you're somewwhat handy it's not a complicated process although it can be daunting to remove squeaks and slight movements should you get them.
+- The chainline is about the same on both: in no way ideal but perfectly manageable.
-- Q-factor is also the same: seriously bad and tilted to the right side. This shift can be managed by ordering cranks with right side q of 0 and left q around 14-18 mm. When you measure do it with the stock cranks fully mounted because the square tapers are not precision made and may trick you by letting one crank mount higher than the other. Q will be horrible at well over 210 mm (68mm bb), well into fat bike territory. Obese bike territory, really. Fore reference: road bikes have a q around 150 mm, mtb bb's usually 170-175 mm.
-- IMPORTANT! Your knees may not like the resulting wide pedal stance. I never knew it could hurt your knees cycling around with your legs spread like a kalinka dancer, but now I do, because these motors messed my knees up. Apparently it's not that uncommon, judging by my google-fu exercises on proper bike fit. I can only use my TSDZ2, BBS02 and BBSHD for fake sunday cycling, more or less pedaling without force and never to get a good workout. The pedal stance is just horrible and thouroughly un-ergonomic in typical chinese fashion.
-- Chinese manufacturers of add-on motors seem loath to admit the inherent shortcomings of pushing a threadless, loose-fit motor shaft through a bicycle bottom bracket. Done properly you can fit these motors securely but staving off any creaking even when pushing hard on the pedals demands expertise and devotion of epic proportions.
-- Neither come with proper instructions or support; if you're new to this you should be prepared to do some forum lurking.
TSDZ2
*Be aware that without thorough maintenance the motor has a limited lifespan due to some weak mechanical spots. If you push hard you're likely to immediately break the torque sensor which has undersized knobs and grooves made from cheap metal. I did this and then resorted to never ever pushing a pedal with more than about 60 kg of force.
Trouble is that even if you adhere to this careful strategy sooner or later the central main shaft/spindle in the bottom bracket will break. It is made of sub-par metal that fatigues over time and for some reason the engineers decided to put three little grooves (cut-outs) in it, allowing for circlips to hold the shaft in place. The leftmost groove is placed outside of the left bearing. If you push hard or stand on the pedals most of the force put stress, movement and material fatigue in exactly this spot. One day your left pedal simply drops off without any warning. I hope your eventual balls and teeth aren't in vulnerable positions when it happens. I lived through the experience twice, but you couldn't tell because my voice wasn't that deep to begin with. More info here. Sensitive viewers are warned: explicit pictures of spindles broken right off. The horror!
Sometimes you can get away with a new torque sensor unit about USD 80-90, but the bearing system may brake and that damages the casing leaving the whole TSDZ2 unit unuseable. My unit's never lasted more than a year of almost daily but careful use. I found it a surprisingly difficult job to replace the torque sensor which may or may not be due to incomptence but I think I should mention it. However, if you're handy you can service your motor by swapping in new bearings and torque unit before anything breaks. Mine lasted about 5000 km of careful use.
*On a recumbent, where one doesn't stand on the pedals, the fragile central shaft should last just fine.
*The infamous and very googleable "nylon gear" can't handle high torque and also wears out. I bought a spare metal cog but never needed it. Nylon makes the motor much quieter so I'd recommend you simply replace the cheap little cog when the motor is due for the torque/spindle service.
*The torque control system is almost as good as the EU brands. Smooth, responsive and pleasant. The riding experience is on another level compared to the BBS; less fiddling around with buttons and it feels more bionic and natural. One criticism would be that maximum torque sensing is rather low. That is to say, if you push somewhat hard on the pedals you're maxed out already - no point standing up to try and get more out of the motor.
*No need for brake sensors since if you stop pedaling the motor also stops. Gear sensing would have been nice for even snappier gear changes without motor torque applied, but it's not offered so just fahgettaboutit.
*Stock cadence is about a slow as the Yamaha Powerdrive (2014), which is to say the motor drops power around 70 rpm and just gives up after 80. Good for lazy sunday excursions but totally inadequate for sporty cycling. (If you want to push a high tempo you need high cadences not only to maximise performance, but also to avoid putting too much strain on your knees - the TSDZ2's low cadence contributed to my knees going from okay to kinda bad. As a point of reference professional cyclists do 90-120 rpm.)
*I hear the flexible open source firmware made by some smart dudes hanging around this place is fabulous, but at the time of writing you need the KT-LCD3 display. The extra, extra smart dude Casainho explains the stuff here and talks about the wireless variant here. I'd guess you should go for it since this firmware also solves the cadence issues and allows 52V batteries. Open source firmware link.
*An easier solution is to buy a 36V motor and simply run it with a 48V battery. I used to open my units and switch either the motor or the controller out but I now know there's no need; just mix! The controllers all take 48V. Note that for a 52V battery, with even better cadence, you need a 52V controller or flash a stock controller yourself. 52V is sweet for an avid cyclist: the motor becomes really peppy and responsive even on higher cadences.
*It's perfectly doable to add an outer chainring for a front double. The larger chainwheel can only be used with the chain on the smaller half of the cassette or else the chainline whacks out, but this is okay since that's where top speeds are to be found. (I made my own tight chainring setup and can post pictures for any interested parties.) However, since upping the motor rpm with more voltage I find the larger chainring is largely unnecessary. Top speed with 11-32 cassette and stock chainring is around 40kmph unmodified. With a 48V battery & 36V motor combo you can add 1/3 to that and be out of the woods. Or commute.
*The mounting system would have you rotating the motor down and back using metal thingies clamping on to your chainstays just behind the bottom bracket. This will chafe the frame. I would recommend opting out and instead take good care to fasten the unit using only the bottom bracket screw nut thingie. It's not of high quality and mine kept loosening up, so I added a drop of construction glue to secure them. If you rotate the motor up towards the downtube it helps to add some support there (e.g. piece of wood locked with PL-400 construction glue) to secure the position, save your bike frame and allow for any gear or brake cables to pass in between the motor and frame (under the bottom bracket).
*Swapping from a Shimano Ultegra bottom bracket to the bearings in TSDZ2 is like trading in your Ortlieb panniers for paper bags from the supermarket. You can expect more sponge-like flexing and some mild cracking sensations. Changing pedaling direction reliably produces some not-so-smooth hickups that doesn't really affect performance but hurts your inner perfectionist's soul. The motor adds little resistance but the feeling isn't nice. Also if you push too hard you'll break the torque sensor, no matter if the motor's powered.
*Both stock pedal cranks have about 10 mm q. Not ideal for the right side, to say the least. Not ideal from any angle really.
*If your frame has wide and beefy chainstays allowing for tyres over 35 mm you can expect the TSDZ2 gear housing to push up against your right chainstay unless you put one of them plastic bb spacers in on the right side before tightening everything up. This pushes the right crank even further out, but the only alternative is to start cutting into the chainstay, which we don't do because we're sensible people.
*Top speed of max 45 kmph can be set on both VLCD5 and XH18 without any extra cable or such. To go faster you need to set the wheel size to smaller and trick the system, sacrificing real speed and distance displayed.
BBS02
*Quality is rather good. In my home we use two BBS02 and one BBSHD and one of the 02's been used extensively for two years now. Hickups have been confined to programming/software issues. Reports of busted controllers are easy to find but all-in-all any common quality issues seems to have been solved by now.
*Good cadence even for active cycling. Instead, if you drop cadence too much the motor turns itself off. Like, way before any other motor drops its power. You can get caught unassisted if for example there was no time to gear down before you stopped for red. The throttle can save you (but could potentially also risk busting the MOSFETS) if you're fine with throttling a bicycle.
*Absolutely horrendous factory controller programming. Also be aware the recommended settings you can find online and implement are often tailored for an ebiker's mindset with an emphasis on constant throttle use and lazy legs. The way these work is by letting the throttle (or PAS) sort of control your speed - not only actual motor power. That's right, at a certain RPM the motor's power is tailored off. Sounds insane on any other vehicle? That's because it is. You basically get set speeds and may air-pedal along for show. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate this kind of shit. (I'll post what I think is good BBS02 controller settings for cycling minded nerds in a separate post following this one.)
*Programming comes with some tinkering. My 2019 unit from PSWPower still has the infamous "throttle can only do on or off" issue. ("Stop delay value" may be the culprit since it may cause trouble if programmed to a value below 10, so try that first if you get the same issue.) I have similar problems with my mtb using a HD. On my commuter BBS02 the throttle has been removed - I run PAS only and need only a snobby cyclist's attitude.
*It is absolutely worth it to get brake and gear sensors for convenient cycling. Sadly, most of them are of low quality, unreliable and messy to install. The gear sensor from Czech Republic, conveniently called "gearsensor" from (you guessed it) gearsensor.com is good, while the China ones are shite and never worked out for me. The gear sensor adds considerable resistance to the gear wire, necessitating a flawless gear game for 10+ speed systems. (You're basically forever close to the awful un-adjustable situation where the chain won't go up nor down when promted - until you change the cable set, clean everything, re-do everything and smite the evil like forever.) The brake sensor can do the job if you get in the habit of touching the brakes while changing gears; for electronic shifting sadly that's your only option.
*I personally recommend getting a BBS version with headlight connectors if you're going to use it for more than offroad duties because it's a godsend to always have at least decent lights on hand even if you forgot your high lumen set at home.
*One can live with the PAS for commuting but it is in no way comparable to a torque sensing system. The incentive for working harder is almost gone and the whole experience is clonky and less responsive. Power comes with a fair amount of delay because without a torque sensor the bike gets uncomfortably jerky otherwise, plus the simple system has still to protect itself from blowing all the circuits if you feed lots of current without moving (slow starts). With PAS at least it's not totally in a scooter-motorcycle domain. (On my touring commuter I eventually got rid of the throttle altogether. Wouldn't want to do that on my MTB.)
*Mounting is reasonably secure and allows the motor to be pushed up against the downtube for better ground clearance. However, be prepared to tighten it up now and then. The creaking sound it makes when you work the pedals hard enough for the motor to squirm a bit is unconcerting and not to the benefit of the frame material.
*Cranks can be tough to mount securely on this motor so be thorough. I have no facts to back this up but it seems to me Bafang cut low profile JIS which means cranks risk bottoming out. Maybe the spindles are manufactured to a sloppy standard overall because they have a bit of a bad reputation for messing up even high quality cranks. I used loctite blue (considered dumbass get-crank-stuck practise on any normal square taper) and tightened to the cranks' stated limit with a torque wrench. Still one came off and got ruined. My pulse rises just from thinking about it.
*The bottom bracket bearings both flex and crack a little less than TSDZ2's but don't expect them to perform like real cycling bb's of good quality. Cycling with the motor off doesn't add much resistance, but I wouldn't describe it as rewarding.
*Both stock pedal cranks have almost zero q. Good for the right side. I'd say you need to swap at least the left one out but this depends on wether you care about cycling with both pedals shifted to the right, with your body bent sideways like some gmo banana. If you don't then at least have the decency not to mention any of this to your physiotherapist friend at dinner or it's on you if that friend chokes on his fork.
*Lekkie cranks are great but notoriously hard to mount securely. They perfectly even out the pedal stance but the q-factor will be huuuge and still potentially mess with your knees over time.
*Lekkie chain rings are good and creates a slightly improved chainline while offering a choice of tooth count. Note that any chainring smaller than 42 does NOT improve the chainline because it can't reach to wrap around the motor.
*Display choices are plenty. Now that the Cycle Analyst 3 isn't that exepnsive I think I would have rather bought that one, but I don't actually own it so I can't add much info except it can do more than the others. Most break down within two years.
A note on displays
The sw102 (Eggrider for bluetooth programming capability) is super nice with a perfect size if you prefer a more normal looking bike. But note the lack of remote (annoying if you have drop bars, having to reach all the time) and that you can't adjust maximum speed without a reprogramming USB cable. Top speed maximum setting is only 40 kmph. To go faster one must set the wrong wheel diameter size. The buttons are flimsy and when they break you need a new display. Again.
My DCP-14 from EM3EV goes to 99 kmph. Those guys aren't kidding. Really should come with a flyer helmet. The remote allows convenient mounting on a drop bar with the buttons easily accessible inside the STI brifters, but if you do this you invite water and need to very carefully seal the unit first. You'd think the remote can be sourced as spare part but instead you can expect the buttons to break and you're back to buying a new disply. Again.
Thanks for your attention and please just shoot me down if you found any unacceptably dumb shit.
#bbs02 vs tsdz2 which is best buy chose mid-drive kit#
:lol: 
