Wayne’s Dengfu Carbon Fibre FS 27.5” with Bafang M600 (throttle also)

[waynebergman]

HI Gizzygone, the torque pedal assist works fine, can not compare it to the other drives as all my other experiences are with older versions of shimano motors etc but the issues for smoothness can best be described from the text I will paste below that are more related to working the system with the throttle to help with jerkyness at high settings on the pas - but read it over carefully and you can get a feel how the system works and does't in my opinion.....text from another M600 thread.....
Hey Kite_rider....
Regarding the programing I think the one main thing that would really help especially if you are running a throttle is if the M600 would work like the HD1000 in the way you can have max throttle overide any low power setting you are running for you pedal assist. If you dont have a throttle you will not get smooth anything when it comes to the higher pedal assist settings, so the tips below only really appy if you have a throttle and preferable a usable twist throttle. The trigger stuff from Bafang is junk.

If the throttle was able to give max power even with low pedal assist setting you could noodle around very smoothly and in a controlled fashion when using pedal assist set to a lower level and then if you hit the throttle you get the power you are wanting and could smoothly tap into the systems max power that is on hand.But the drive is not programed like the HD1000 so the problem comes when you think you will need the bigger power for a stretch of trail or hill climb then you dial up your pedal assist level to max then it is less than smooth. One work around if you have a throttle is dial up the pedal assist power level and get used to nursing the throttle a very low level when riding. This low throttle input overides the pedal assist levels and lets you give human pedal input with out jumpy acceeleration and then hit the throttle with your bursts of power when you need it.This works because as soon as amps flow when turning on the throttle even at very low levels this completly overides the pedal assist setttings as far a power from the torque sensing. So even if you hit the pedals hard with the power level set at 5 , if you have your throttle just giving a little bit of power it dumbs down the pedal assist and completly overides the pedal assist input, only human power will go through the system until the throttle getts dialed up higher. This kind of works but it would still be better if you could have the pedal assist set to a lower power level knowing you have full power at hand with the throttle when needed then you would NOT need to nurse the throttle at very low levels until you need the full throttle. NOt sure if this makes any sense but one more good reason to have a smooth throttle on this system. The trigger throttle I got on mine was junk, kind of like an on off switch, a decent twist throttle is a must in my opinion.
ON my thread I have documented the switching out of my stock Bafang throttle to a hacked Luna twist and I highly recomend this mod. See towards the end of page two on this thread if you are interested at all ... viewtopic.php?f=28&t=96461&start=25

 

[Tom]

That’s the dengfu I was considering: I believe it comes with the ultra motor, though, not the 600.

Going back to your bike: can you compare how the 600 responds to pedaling, compared to a big-name motor (like Bosch or Yamaha?).

The throttle is a nice touch: but I’m wondering how good the torque sensing functions work.

I haven't ridden a Bosch but before I returned my X1 I test rode a Specialized Turbo Levo which sealed the X1's fate. The Brose motor was noticeably more refined than the M600. Luna claims to have "tuned" the torque sensing on the M600 so not sure how it compares to the stock M600. I wouldn't say it was horrible, just not up to par with the competition. I just picked up a closeout BH Easy Motion Rebel Lite with Yamaha PW motor for $777 and I'd say the torque sensing is more refined than I recall my X1. That said you might want to get Kepler's perspective. He has a similar M600 build and rides with a few folks that have Euro spec motors. Also, you might want to check Luna's forum on electricbike.com in particular the knowledge base support threads for the X1 and BABE, both of which have the M600.

I'm not sure how similar the controller on the M600 is to the Ultra, but the Ultra isn't exactly known to be the smoothest of motors either. This article seems to imply the sampling rate of the stock controller is the achilles heel:

https://wattwagons.com/blogs/news/archon-x1-controller

 

[Gizzygone]

Thanks Tom: impeccable timing: I’m in the middle of reading a 17 page thread on the other forum and just came across your posts about shipping it back!

At this point I’ve narrowed my choices down to an x-1 and the Haibike AllMtn 2.0. The Haibike is a 2019 leftover at a decent price. Felt good on a test ride: although the cockpit was a bit cluttered (front/rear derailleur shifters, display/controller, dropped post). I’m also really not a fan of the exposed battery (yes; I love the practicality of being able to quickly remove it when transporting, but I want the discretion of a built in battery in the down tube)

The Levo is so tempting: but at almost double the price? I can’t justify it (especially with the reliability concerns).

And the dengfu is appealing too: but with my luck something will go wrong and I’ll be up a creek without support. Plus they’re shipping 2-3 months out.


The PAS is my biggest concern with the X-1: plus I’m curious how the geometry compares to the Haibike.

 

[leelorr]

Gizzygone,

I was in the same boat as you last month: Deciding between the Luna X1, a 2019 Haibike, or something else.
All the posts on the internet about Haibike possibly pulling out of the USA scared me (Haibike was bought by another company recently, and now shows NO USA dealers or contacts on their web site). Then I came across some reviews of the fairly new company "Commencal" and how great the reviews say their bikes are. They are based in the Alps and their business model is "Direct to Consumer". The have USA headquarters in Denver, Colorado, sell every part for their bikes (down to the bushings!), and provide support here in the USA and on line. I just ordered one of their left over 2019 models at this link:

https://www.commencalusa.com/meta-power-essential-650b-2019-c2x26304870

It is an amazing bike, and seems to be equipped better than any other bike I could find for anywhere near the price (Lyrik front fork, etc). I had the bike a few days after ordering it and love it.

You may want to take a look.

 

[Tom]

I think I'd still lean toward the X1 with the quieter gear if power and battery capacity was more important. As leelorr notes there are some nice closeouts to consider if you're looking at FS euro spec bikes but I'll PM so as not to clutter up Wayne's thread.

 

[waynebergman]

HI Tom, please no worries at all about cluttering up the thread. Its good to get comparisons on the different drives especially when comparing to the M600, give us all a place to learn........wayne

 

[speedmd]

The Bafangs can be programmed reasonably easily with a simple cable, while the others to my knowledge you are stuck with what you get. It's apples and oranges if your looking for a powerful setup. If your at all interested in hacking even more watts out of it, the ultra looks to be in a different class at the moment and has a large number of folks here doing some interesting upgrades and always willing to help. Having worked through some of the early teething issues on the early bbs system, its hard to consider the more expensive proprietary setups that lock you out of most every easily possible hack or upgrade.

 

[Tom]

Sadly Bafang went another direction with the M600. You are stuck with what you get and it cannot be programmed without dealer programming. At least with Bosch, Yamaha, Shimano, Brose etc. you get app support to tune things somewhat. Don't even think the M600 comes with bluetooth so no app support without a third party solution like eggrider.

 

[Tom]

Wayne, there are a few BH full suspension ebikes that might be compelling to someone on a tight budget. BH decided to exit the ebike market in North America and their largest US dealer is clearing out remaining inventory. Apparently comes with 5 year BH warranty although seems it will be supported thru Spain. Lenny's is discounting pretty much all their BH bikes by 50% or more but you need to call for best price. The Atom Lynx 6 looks on par with an entry level Turbo Levo. They've advertised it as low as $2299 + shipping:

https://www.crazylennysebikes.com/shop/bh-lynx-6/

A few other models as well. Only mention the one above as it's the stealthiest looking but there are other BH bikes that might interest someone. I've also heard Haibike is retrenching from North America and Lenny's was discounting some of their bikes by 50% as well.

 

[Gizzygone]

Thanks Tom for your suggestions. I sent you another PM reply regarding the BH bikes: I’m unfamiliar with them and can’t find much info about them.

Anyways: I’m reading lots of reports that the M600 isn’t as refined as the Brose/Yamaha alternatives? Is there really a 1/8-1/4 stroke delay before power is on? Is there really surging after you stop pedaling? All of these things sound like they could be dangerous on a technicality trail!

 

[speedmd]

Sadly Bafang went another direction with the M600.

Sad to hear that. Not paid any attention to them as the HD took most of the air out of my interest until the Ultra hit the street.

Wondering, Wayne, if you would even consider the M600 now that the Ultra is here. I never really considered a factory ebike but have to admit they have come a long way in the last few years.

Some on programing the ultra in this link https://electricbike-blog.com/2017/11/23/i-void-warranties-hacking-the-bafang-ultra-max-mid-drive-ebike-drive/ and several other good links here on ES.

BH is one of the oldest bike manufacturers in the world. At the moment, the ebike industry reminds me of the car industry before the great depression. IMO, most will fold. Even riskier, is that many places are cracking down on their use never mind the current pandemic.

I would pick systems that have abundant systems in use so you could at least be supported for parts on the used market and have more folks that develop work arounds to the proprietary components. None of these complex systems are demonstrating super degrees of long term reliability.

 

[waynebergman]

HI Speedmd, yes I am still a big believer in the M600. My long winded reply at the top of page 12 in this thread tells the story on how to get smoothness out of the system. I have that now and its working well. Regarding the ultra I do like the idea of the lighter weight I am running on my M600 and many of the ULtra frames have the motor angled way to horizontal taking away ground clearance, not to say they are all like that however. The Ultra may be a real nice motor buy I have no experience with it. Also for 50 lb bike and leaning towards a lower powered bike for maintenance reasons I still feel the M600 with a decent throttle is the way to go. 50lbs and 900 watts with the throttle is golden (unless the rider is over 200lbs I guess then maybe a different drive).........wayne
Oh and Tom, that link here https://www.crazylennysebikes.com/shop/bh-lynx-6/ is an ugly duggling for sure, looks like a wal mart special, and 36 volts OUCH I would not ride that thing to a dog fight. I think how that bike is priced is all its worth JUst my opinion however

 

[speedmd]

Great the hear Wayne your still happy with the B-Fng M drive. I feel much the same of my BBS02 on my old Santa Cruz that is sub 50 pounds with the lighter battery setup. Still playing with the idea of going back to a standard pedal drive and making a new rear triangle with a high powered direct (left side) drive motor mounted on it. My modded GNG just breaks too many chains and rings and can not keep the freewheeling components working long at all. To be expected at 8kw for most any amount of time driving through the standard bike components. I Keep looking for something like a joby jm1 at a reasonable cost. BTW, it would be throttle only. Interesting post you added at the top of the page. Thanks.

 

[Tom]

36 volts OUCH I would not ride that thing to a dog fight. I think how that bike is priced is all its worth

I used to drink the kool aid that euro spec motors didn't have adequate power. That BH has a brose motor with 90 Nm of torque similar to what's in a Specialized Turbo Levo, just without magnesium casing. On technical terrain the brose motor might outperform the M600. Sometimes you're better off bringing a cat when grace and refinement is a bigger advantage. Does it matter the battery is 36V? All of the euro spec mid drives are 36V based. They are 250W nominal but really 500W+ peak. It's probably fairer to compare torque and peak power to the M600, rather than nominal watts or voltage. My biggest limitation when I do a ride with big hills is battery. I'm typically not in full assist anyway to conserve battery, plus I'm out there to get exercise and enjoy the outdoors, not necessarily get to the top first. Looks are subjective. I don't find that BH particularly ugly. Nowhere near as sexy as the X1 for sure.

 

[waynebergman]

Hi 'Tom, yes points taken. Sorry for being a snob regarding my take on the looks of the bike. I just think if someone goes comercial with a build it might as well be awesome. Home builds are totally differnt and are actually kind of cool when they show the make do approach, sometimes the uglier home builds show personallity , anyways I degress....... the 36 volt will be like short shifting a 2 stroke in my opinion. Actaully I wish my bike was a 52 volt system for this reason but 48 volt is a min in my books. 36 volts will only take you up to a certain speed in any one gear were a higher voltage system should let you get a few more MPH out of each gear before needing to shift. My opinion anyways, I have not done a scientific test but this just makes sense to me.

 

[Tom]

Isn't power just volts x amps? Not sure if the euro spec controllers feed more amps? My understanding is Luna is doubling the current with the ludi controller. Seems like it would have similar power as doubling the voltage. X1 users seem underwhelmed with ludi since the gearing is optimized for off road. Even the non-ludi version spins out in the mid 20s. I've heard ludi feels less refined since any shortcomings are magnified x2.

Anyway, not trying to dog the X1 or M600. I would have stuck with it if they had offered the silent gear last year. It's got a lot going for it and an absolutely beautiful bike in matte carbon.

I hear ya on styling, I'm not a fan of loud color schemes. I have to say after picking up a couple BH ebikes on closeout (for friends and family) the styling cues grew on me. Here's a few pics of the $777 BH closeouts I snagged before they sold out:

 

[waynebergman]

HI Tom, Watts equals your amps x volts . Power as you state comes from your Watts but the TOP OUT Speed per gear(providing you have enough amps for the situation) comes from volts. So in some circumstances like a super steep big hill one might not be able to reach the max speed of the motor because of a heavy rider or not enough amps to push those volts,in this case total watts is determining factor but I am talking day to day riding and this will mean most of the time you will be short shifting a 36 volt system over a 48 or 52 volt system because of available top speed in a given gear. Taking this example to the extreme say you had 1 volt and 1,000 amps you may have a bike with a top speed of one MPH or something rediculus. YOu still have 1000 watts but with exampled system it would propabbly work like an on off switch, you got torque but you have to keep shifting to make use of your power. Hope this makes sense and I may be wrong - I have been wrong many times before ....wayne

 

[speedmd]

When increasing the voltage in these mid drives, you end up with too high a cadence to make pas usable. Your sort of are locked in with the voltage unless your not interested in running in the motors efficiency sweet spot or letting it run without adding much leg power. 36v leaves you with a pedestrian class bike. May have tons of benefits, in terms of smoother - less abrupt motor assist power blending, but a different class of machine. Adding current does not change the cadence unless your getting bogged down on hills as Wayne is describing. It will not slow as much with the added torque from the extra amps.

 

[Gizzygone]

My brain isn’t working today: what does this mean? Ludi mode ruins torque PAS?

 

[waynebergman]

Good point speedmd on the motor reduction, good thing I have a throttle but your are right in regards to the PAS part of the equation but I think I still have a valid point on the short shifting especially if you have and use a throttle.

 

[Tom]

My brain isn’t working today: what does this mean? Ludi mode ruins torque PAS?

No, just that doubling the power might magnify any shortcomings in terms of refinement. I'm guessing Luna tuned the torque sensing on ludi to blend in the extra juice so it's not simply a doubling of power.

As far as euro spec vs. M600, just depends on what you want. If you want the most refined torque sensing you'll be happier with the latest gen Brose, Yamaha/Giant, Shimano or Bosch motor. I'd test ride one of each (assuming you still can) at your LBS before making a decision. If you find power sufficient go with the motor you like best. If you find power lacking then a X1 might be a better choice. The M600 torque sensing isn't that bad, no more than it "smashes" less powerful 250W/36V motors which are more than adequate for most eMTBers.

 

[Animalector]

I've ridden Bosch, Yamaha, brose and Shimano and on mid setting "trail" mode I cannot tell the difference between any of them and the M500. Torque sensing is smooth and responsive enough to navigate through tight technical obstacles or ride up stair cases.

On boost mode they all feel similar in that the torque sensing has little impact. On boost mode all bikes behave like its a pedal powered throttle. You push the pedals it goes..

I haven't yet experienced the newest Bosch motor or the latest brose motor that has the super sensitive but all powerfull mode... Or whatever they call their smart mode.

Typically I ride around in mode 2 out of 5 for a more natural feel. 3 still feels natural but noticeably faster speed. True super legs. Modes 4 and 5 are fast and great fun, but as I am usually riding with non ebikes I end up out of touch with the others.

On mode 1, my bike feels like an analogue bike, but with some "oomph" on climbs..

 

[speedmd]

Good point speedmd on the motor reduction, good thing I have a throttle but your are right in regards to the PAS part of the equation but I think I still have a valid point on the short shifting especially if you have and use a throttle.

Your spot on Wayne. Running it easier - short shifting will allow you to better add rider power to the system and also stay in high efficiency zone. You can see from a typical brushless motor plot below, that the efficiency sweet spot has a RPM band width that is much broader at lower torque levels.

 

[waxed]

That’s the dengfu I was considering: I believe it comes with the ultra motor, though, not the 600.

Going back to your bike: can you compare how the 600 responds to pedaling, compared to a big-name motor (like Bosch or Yamaha?).

The throttle is a nice touch: but I’m wondering how good the torque sensing functions work.

I haven't ridden a Bosch but before I returned my X1 I test rode a Specialized Turbo Levo which sealed the X1's fate. The Brose motor was noticeably more refined than the M600. Luna claims to have "tuned" the torque sensing on the M600 so not sure how it compares to the stock M600. I wouldn't say it was horrible, just not up to par with the competition. I just picked up a closeout BH Easy Motion Rebel Lite with Yamaha PW motor for $777 and I'd say the torque sensing is more refined than I recall my X1. That said you might want to get Kepler's perspective. He has a similar M600 build and rides with a few folks that have Euro spec motors. Also, you might want to check Luna's forum on electricbike.com in particular the knowledge base support threads for the X1 and BABE, both of which have the M600.

I'm not sure how similar the controller on the M600 is to the Ultra, but the Ultra isn't exactly known to be the smoothest of motors either. This article seems to imply the sampling rate of the stock controller is the achilles heel:

https://wattwagons.com/blogs/news/archon-x1-controller

Tom, I just had a look a the Wattwagons web page on Archon X1

the Torque graph shows the Bafang 750W lower torque than the OEM500W
yet the power chart has The Bafang 750W above the OEM and no massive fluctuations (which should correspond somewhat)
also Bafang 100W average Torque is barely above OEM500W
that is way off the mark
false information on those graphs

also the 50% fluctuations in the Bafang 750W torque seem unrealistic too
the sampling rate of the X1 is supposedly double that of the Bafang, however I don't see how that has that much of a bearing on the smoothness of the controller
5kHz is certainly fast enough for this sort of control, if there is that much variance on Torque output then there has to be a massive problem with the control algorithm tuning
regardless a 50% fluctuation in assistance Torque like that would be very noticeable indeed
anyway where are all the Bafang owners complaining of this??
The 2 x M600 I have tested both simply do not show this problem

all "this smoke and mirrors" advertising definitely makes me skeptical....

 

[Tom]

Yes the scale seems off. I noticed that too but wasn't too worried (I'm more of a big picture guy). This is essentially a re-badged Exess controller and from what I've read it delivers a much smoother experience with no lag (which has been a complaint I've seen from more than a few Ultra owners). I believe WW is using data from Exess or the German company that manufactures the controller and something may have gotten lost in translation. Having been privy to development of a new bike from WW for the past month I can say Pushkar (the individual running the company) is a first class guy who oozes integrity and is a straight shooter, so I have no concerns this controller will deliver.