Sully's BBSHD Programming

[jonsully]

Howdy! I've spent the last month or so working on my own BBSHD programming config and finally wrote it all up. Wanted to write about it and post it here since I hadn't personally seen anybody taking a similar approach through the years of BBSHD history on many sites. It's a long read, but I'm super happy with how my motor runs now. Cheers!

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

 

[wdr99]

Wow, I’m glad I ran into your post. I’m always looking for new ideas for BBSHD programming and this is a really neat one. So thanks for that.

I’ve always adjusted current this is a new approach for me.
My question is, I always thought that Speed % referred to road speed, so 50 % of 24 mph max on display would be 12mph, but it looks like I have this wrong? It’s instead the max of the motor speed?

Thanks,
Bill

 

[jonsully]

Hey glad to help! Speed% is absolutely motor speed, not road speed. I'm not sure how that got so confused in the BBSHD history, but aside from multiple sources online agreeing on this by now, I can very much confirm myself as I've been riding this profile every day and rarely leave PAS 2 but have all kinds of different speed depending on what gear I'm in!

 

[ccihon]

Great info - I may try these settings. I have my BBSHD on a recumbent trike, but I am a larger guy also, so the weight seems comparable, and I also am working on eliminating ghost pedal and "partnering" with this motor as co-pilots. I also use 9 PAS modes, so can reserve some of those you leave as unused for settings that allow the higher speeds often used here - it is interesting that you have found that Speed% is not road speed but rather crank speed? I just checked my settings, and see that nothing but level 0 is under 85%!

I lived most of my life in Ohio, some central Ohio - but if you head south or east the terrain is certainly different!

 

[jonsully]

Tell me about it... TOSRV's southern leg is not like Columbus

Yeah there's some interesting stuff with the Speed% — having it set to 85% is going to have the motor target a really fast cadence! If you have a low Current Decay + a low Keep Current, you may still be able to 'partner' with it instead of ghost pedaling behind it, but my understanding of that approach is that it's more gray area and harder to understand than just setting a lower Speed% a top Current Decay and high Keep Current. My impression of the former is that it's set to a high cadence but the low CD and KC just makes that cadence taper off early? And hopefully meet you at your human cadence? My impression of the latter (my programming) is that it doesn't taper off cadence at all until you're at your target cadence level, then it just helps you stay there.

Curious to hear your impressions if you give it a try!

 

[wdr99]

Hey glad to help! Speed% is absolutely motor speed, not road speed. I'm not sure how that got so confused in the BBSHD history, but aside from multiple sources online agreeing on this by now, I can very much confirm myself as I've been riding this profile every day and rarely leave PAS 2 but have all kinds of different speed depending on what gear I'm in!

Yeah, thanks for the clarification. I haven’t been reading up on these things much since I first started programming these motors, and have really been trudging along fiddling with current % and the PAS settings like current decay. But your program has really turned things on its ear for me.

Tonight I experimented with gear and PAS combinations to understand how they work together. Fantastic, no ghost, and more importantly this puts me at the effort level I need to get my heart rate right where I want it. The only anomaly I have to study more is that in the highest gears I didn’t get up to that “happy” cadence, it may be my human watts weren’t sufficient, for all I know. Not sure why yet, but in the low and middle gears it’s exactly like you describe. My town is pretty hilly so it’s kind of cool having the motor work a little harder on my behalf without switching PAS.

Thanks again, this is kind of a revolution of a day. I bumped into your post completely by accident, I was actually researching Grin stuff. I’m not even sure how I saw it.

Bill

 

[jonsully]

Wow, great! So glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback

If you're not getting up to happy cadence in the highest gears I wonder if your particular rig and current incline are just maxing out the power output of the motor? Even on the flat, if I get my cargo rig up to 7th gear it's going to continuously put out considerable wattage. I don't ever try 8th. Heavy weighted rigs use a lot of juice to get moving but even once they're moving, the heavier you are, the more likely you have a lot of things that would cause wind resistance. As we ramp up speed, so too do we ramp up wind resistance, which becomes a constant force the motor has to overcome. Etc.

Do you have a screen that shows real-time wattage? If you're not hitting wattage max, I suppose it's also possible you're hitting your actual global speed limit? Interesting either way.

Nonetheless, glad the config has given your motor a whole new personality!

 

[ccihon]

I also tried your approach for my trike - works well! I modified PAS levels 4-7 to match what you did, but kept the upper and lower ranges for an "economy" setting along with a full power range, I did tweak the "Pedal Assist" screen also.

The mid ranges definitely allow for a more natural "pedal along" feel, and the approach is much smoother than what I had been using, where each level could drive the cranks to 100% - I think that approach is often used as there is confusion on crank speed vs. road speed. Also, I think many of the sample BBSHD program suggestions are from those trying to achieve maximum power - maybe for MTB and off-road use.

I program mine using the Android app "Speeed" which works great - I did run into an issue trying to save a backup of these settings to my phone - this worked before but maybe a recent app issue or setting on my phone I need to tweak. I tried the web app you suggest on my mac to create an ".el" file of the setting used, but when selecting "download" It downloads a json file - maybe would function differently when connected via serial/usb? Anyway, thanks for the suggestions - I will stick with these settings for a while and see how they suite my riding and terrain.

 

[jonsully]

Glad it worked for you! I agree that many folks just want maximum power (MTB or off-road, I'm not sure either, I'm neither). Happy to hear you got a pedal-along system

I haven't actually tried the download/upload component of the programming web-app but if it's giving back json I'd presume it's just for use with re-uploading to the same web-app — that you can't exchange config files from the web app to / from the Android app and/or the desktop apps that've come around over time. That said, depending on your comfortability with manipulating text data, both the .el format and .json format are just plain text and you could probably figure out how to map the values of one into the other.