Bafang BBSHD 52v 1000w 28a Controller?

alfantastic

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I'm seeing vendors selling Bafang BBSHD 52v 1000w 28a replacement controllers. Are these just a misrepresentation of the regular BBSHD 48v 1000w 30a controllers, or actually a new controller from Bafang?
 
Well, there have been a few people asking questions about their new "52v" BBSHD systems, so my guess is it's a new controller.

However, it might be possible that Bafang has simply made the firmware to do this available to their dealers, so they're reprogramming the old 48v units to the new 52v firmware.


But since the questions have tended to be problems such as not working as desired with a 48v battery, I'm not sure they've got the firmware quite right yet, if they are supposed to work with both 13s and 14s. If they're meant for 14s only, then it's probably expected behavior.
 
Thanks for the reply amberwolf. I'm not too fussed if these suspected new controllers may be firmware capped at 28 amps. I'm just wondering if they can stll talk with the regular Bafang programming software via the usual cable, so that the LVC can be changed?

Has anyone used a programming cable and software with a 52v 28a controller, to change any parameters?
 
Ok, I'm assuming not many peeps are running and programming these 52v 28a controllers, by the lack of replies.

Just one more question, which hopefully someone knows the answer to. Are these 52v 28a controllers officially leaving the Bafang factory with the different firmware, or are vendors buying regular controllers and flashing the firmware themselves?
 
Yeah, I guessed that once the firmware is flashed to limit the max amps, then the programming cable and software won't let the user raise it above that. But were you able to change all the other parameters ginekolog?
 
I have one of these and I assume its to keep the output the same when on 52v? I cannot set over 28a in software but I planned to mod it anyway.

I replaced the stock shunts (5 mOhm) with 3 mOhm and it provides 45a+ as expected (verified via BMS)
 
Hey all!

So I have a few "old" BBSHDs that run at a full 30A. No surprise but these oldies-but-goodies are a riot and are scary fast hill slayers at full power. However, I just got a shipment of the "new" BBSHD from my local supplier here in San Francisco, California eBike. While stamped 48V 1000W they are fitted with the 28A controller. While annoyed, to me, a theoretical 7% loss at full power is not the end of the world for my use case (bike tours in SF) and I could live with it.

BUT... Curiously, as far as I can tell from testing these don't really work with my 48V batteries (17ah 13s from EM3EV, great batteries) and 500c (aka Mighty Mini) displays. That is, they show erratic behavior when used for a sustained period of time and the display isn't even close to reading accurately (it does OK on the "old" 30A HDs), showing no juice at around a 48v charge. Again, not the end of the world as I typically rely on voltage anyway.

BUT... After relatively short test rides of 3-6 miles exclusively using pedal assist (at MAXed out settings, so full 28A and 100% power in PAS) my power seems to start tapering off dramatically. Meaning at full blast, I can get the bikes up to about 33mph w/ a 42t lekkie and high gear (14t) in the first few mins but I was hobbling back at about 13mph at full power with about 48V left (maybe drawing 300w max) after a pretty hilly 6 mi ride. This is generally consistent with my other tests on different bikes with the 28A / 48V setup. Curiously, I threw the same battery on another bike with 30A controller (all setting same except max amps and exact same componentry) minutes after and without additional charging and bike was back in scary fast beast mode. Oh, and battery was showing about a 60% charge on the 500c display.

Now, I can only deduct a few possibilities: 1) I am wondering if the display reads no juice that if this somehow caps the power output to protect the controller. This seems like a stretch from experience, as none of us trust the juice reading from Bafang displays, but can't rule it out with this phantom 28A setup. 2) That somehow the 28A controller because it's a native 52V setup (As I learned in this thread-thanks!) somehow doesn't like a 48V, the likes of which shows performance loss over sustained output. Also odd. Any ideas?

It seems now that there are only a few options:

1) Ideally, obtain the firmware from the "old" BBSHDs and then flash the "new" HDs to bring them to proper working 30A setup --- any tips would be amazing.
2) Somehow tweak the display. Maybe there is a setting in programming or display settings I'm not aware of?
3) Lobby my dealer to take them back or send me new "old" 30A controllers (not ideal, no win situation as it requires time-intensive rebuilding of a handful of bikes).

Thanks for your thoughts and for reading!
 
Hello,
I just got a BBSHD from ebay and it was sold as a 52V.
When it arrived I noticed that Bafang marked it as 48V on the motor itself so I thought that the 52V was some kind of sales trick. I got a 48V battery from a local dealer but before mounting it I posted the seller asking why they are advertizing i 52V that is in fact a 48V (I assumed based on the motor reading)?
They guy said it was native 52V but Bafang had not cases (motor blocks?) that was marked like that.
They had a complain towards Bafang. I was assured it was native 52V and I replaced the battery to 52V to be on the safe side. Yet to test the build.

Now - if you dont have 48V batteries laying around - what is the downside in that 52V update with corresponding 52V battery?
Why would i like the 48V 30A over the 52V 28A?
I hear testamonies as above that the "new 52V" loose a lot of power when running on 48V so that I think can be confirmed. Also the new 2020 48V fails when loaded with fully charged 52V batteries.
 
sfbiketours said:
Hey all!

So I have a few "old" BBSHDs that run at a full 30A. No surprise but these oldies-but-goodies are a riot and are scary fast hill slayers at full power. However, I just got a shipment of the "new" BBSHD from my local supplier here in San Francisco, California eBike. While stamped 48V 1000W they are fitted with the 28A controller. While annoyed, to me, a theoretical 7% loss at full power is not the end of the world for my use case (bike tours in SF) and I could live with it.

BUT... Curiously, as far as I can tell from testing these don't really work with my 48V batteries (17ah 13s from EM3EV, great batteries) and 500c (aka Mighty Mini) displays. That is, they show erratic behavior when used for a sustained period of time and the display isn't even close to reading accurately (it does OK on the "old" 30A HDs), showing no juice at around a 48v charge. Again, not the end of the world as I typically rely on voltage anyway.

BUT... After relatively short test rides of 3-6 miles exclusively using pedal assist (at MAXed out settings, so full 28A and 100% power in PAS) my power seems to start tapering off dramatically. Meaning at full blast, I can get the bikes up to about 33mph w/ a 42t lekkie and high gear (14t) in the first few mins but I was hobbling back at about 13mph at full power with about 48V left (maybe drawing 300w max) after a pretty hilly 6 mi ride. This is generally consistent with my other tests on different bikes with the 28A / 48V setup. Curiously, I threw the same battery on another bike with 30A controller (all setting same except max amps and exact same componentry) minutes after and without additional charging and bike was back in scary fast beast mode. Oh, and battery was showing about a 60% charge on the 500c display.

Now, I can only deduct a few possibilities: 1) I am wondering if the display reads no juice that if this somehow caps the power output to protect the controller. This seems like a stretch from experience, as none of us trust the juice reading from Bafang displays, but can't rule it out with this phantom 28A setup. 2) That somehow the 28A controller because it's a native 52V setup (As I learned in this thread-thanks!) somehow doesn't like a 48V, the likes of which shows performance loss over sustained output. Also odd. Any ideas?

It seems now that there are only a few options:

1) Ideally, obtain the firmware from the "old" BBSHDs and then flash the "new" HDs to bring them to proper working 30A setup --- any tips would be amazing.
2) Somehow tweak the display. Maybe there is a setting in programming or display settings I'm not aware of?
3) Lobby my dealer to take them back or send me new "old" 30A controllers (not ideal, no win situation as it requires time-intensive rebuilding of a handful of bikes).

Thanks for your thoughts and for reading!

I have this problem too! I am running a 48v 17ah battery on a new june 2020 BBSHD which has the 52v 28a firmware. My exact problem is that when riding, initially, the power is solid 1300W or so, but at only 48v, it already drops to 400-500W output at MAX assist level! I don't know what to do...
 
Unfortunately this is a matter of the laws of physics. This is typical with any type of electrical component like this. This same phenomenon can be seen when using incandescent light bulbs. If you run a higher amount of voltage through a lower voltage bulb, the bulb will still work well, assuming that you don't overpower it to the point that it burns/melts the filament. But when you reverse this scenario, and supply a lower voltage than the bulb is rated for, (and this phenomenon can be demonstrated clearly when using a significantly lesser amount of voltage. Higher voltage components have higher resistance, which the higher energy of the higher voltage supply, higher voltage battery in your case, overcomes. The lower the supply voltage gets, the less it's ability to overcome the resistance inherent to any electrical component. Resistors and insulators are basically the same thing depending on the voltage they're subjected to. Insulators, which are intended to completely block any electrical flow, will eventually become resistors as the voltage supplied to them increases, allowing current to pass through them. Likewise, resistors will eventually become insulators as the voltage supplied to them is lowered.), The bulb's performance will be greatly diminished, eventually to the point of not functioning at all.

A little further specificity. So as you decrease supply voltage to a filament (incandescent type light bulb) that filament, which started out as a resistor, slowly becomes more and more insulative, restricting current flow more and more, and at some point when the voltage gets low enough, it becomes a full out insulator, not allowing any current flow.

So hopefully this kind of gives you an idea as to what's going on inside your motor, causing it to produce less power as the voltage of your battery drops. This phenomenon by which insulators change into resistors and vise versa, in response to changes in voltage supply has a technical term, but I can't remember it for the life of me, and a quick google search didn't help, but I'm sure I'll eventually remember or rediscover it.
 
noonedoesnt said:
I have this problem too! I am running a 48v 17ah battery on a new june 2020 BBSHD which has the 52v 28a firmware. My exact problem is that when riding, initially, the power is solid 1300W or so, but at only 48v, it already drops to 400-500W output at MAX assist level! I don't know what to do...

Unfortunately this is a matter of the laws of physics. This is typical with any type of electrical component like this. This same phenomenon can be seen when using incandescent light bulbs. If you run a higher amount of voltage through a lower voltage bulb, the bulb will still work well, assuming that you don't overpower it to the point that it burns/melts the filament. But when you reverse this scenario, and supply a lower voltage than the bulb is rated for, (and this phenomenon can be demonstrated clearly when using a significantly lesser amount of voltage. Higher voltage components have higher resistance, which the higher energy of the higher voltage supply, higher voltage battery in your case, overcomes. The lower the supply voltage gets, the less it's ability to overcome the resistance inherent to any electrical component. Resistors and insulators are basically the same thing depending on the voltage they're subjected to. Insulators, which are intended to completely block any electrical flow, will eventually become resistors as the voltage supplied to them increases, allowing current to pass through them. Likewise, resistors will eventually become insulators as the voltage supplied to them is lowered.), The bulb's performance will be greatly diminished, eventually to the point of not functioning at all.

A little further specificity. So as you decrease supply voltage to a filament (incandescent type light bulb) that filament, which started out as a resistor, slowly becomes more and more insulative, restricting current flow more and more, and at some point when the voltage gets low enough, it becomes a full out insulator, not allowing any current flow.

So hopefully this kind of gives you an idea as to what's going on inside your motor, causing it to produce less power as the voltage of your battery drops. This phenomenon by which insulators change into resistors and vise versa, in response to changes in voltage supply has a technical term, but I can't remember it for the life of me, and a quick google search didn't help, but I'm sure I'll eventually remember or rediscover it.
 
This doesn't really apply to brushless motors the same way it does to light bulbs and simple resistive devices, because the controller is a kind of DC-DC that converts the battery voltage / current to what is necessary to make the motor work, *and* the motor is also inductive, not simply resistive. The power itself will remain approximately constant, minus converter efficiencies.

There is some *speed* loss at a lower voltage, for the same setup otherwise, but it isn't the issue described (and is easily compensated for by changing sprockets on one end or the other).

The voltage differences in these cases are insufficient to see the kind of difference in power output that a simple resistive function would cause.

The probable issue reported with power dropping from 1300w down to less than half that is probably overheating in the drive casing, most likely from riding in the wrong gear, or not shifting down for startups or hills, etc., forcing the motor to have to work too hard at too slow a motor RPM. Then the system lowers the available power to try to let the motor cool off.

The other probable issue, if it's not the above, is the battery itself isn't good enough to sustain the higher power level, and is sagging so much in voltage when it drops down to it's average voltage (vs when it's near full), that the controller may begin operating in a lower power mode to prevent battery damage.
 
yeah, between a full charge and half charge you could be talking 6 volts or so, so 200 watts? maybe 300 with increased sag as the cells deplete. something def seems amiss

what's the advantage to these 52v native setups nowadays? i always ran the regular 48v with both 48 and 52v packs just fine...
 
amberwolf said:
This doesn't really apply to brushless motors the same way it does to light bulbs and simple resistive devices, because the controller is a kind of DC-DC that converts the battery voltage / current to what is necessary to make the motor work, *and* the motor is also inductive, not simply resistive. The power itself will remain approximately constant, minus converter efficiencies.

There is some *speed* loss at a lower voltage, for the same setup otherwise, but it isn't the issue described (and is easily compensated for by changing sprockets on one end or the other).

The voltage differences in these cases are insufficient to see the kind of difference in power output that a simple resistive function would cause.

The probable issue reported with power dropping from 1300w down to less than half that is probably overheating in the drive casing, most likely from riding in the wrong gear, or not shifting down for startups or hills, etc., forcing the motor to have to work too hard at too slow a motor RPM. Then the system lowers the available power to try to let the motor cool off.

The other probable issue, if it's not the above, is the battery itself isn't good enough to sustain the higher power level, and is sagging so much in voltage when it drops down to it's average voltage (vs when it's near full), that the controller may begin operating in a lower power mode to prevent battery damage.

]This doesn't really apply to brushless motors the same way it does to light bulbs and simple resistive devices said:
The controller itself is resistive, and contributes to this phenomenon. The other causes you suggested are not possible according to the specific details/component combinations supplied by the original posters.

] the motor is also inductive said:
I I'm not sure I understand the significance of this. The magnets on the rotor themselves create resistance to the flow of current, leading to the exact phenomenon I'm speaking of. The fact that the motor is inductive is irrelevant. The magnets on the rotor resist that induction, resisting current flow. This goes to the basic fundamentals of how an electric motor works. As well, although there is a difference between different materials, all materials are resistive.
 
It's definitely something internal to the controller wether firmware or hardware I can't say. I know it's not a battery issue because I have a 48v 3 battery 42ah setup. It splits the load evenly between all the batteries. Meaning even at 30a each is only getting a 10a load and the voltage drop is only about 1.2-1.4v. With the 28a controller it had the same sluggishness issues at 48v everyone else mentioned. I got a 30a controller and now it's WAY different. There where no programing changes that could be made to change the 28a either. I'm thinking of taking it out of the case and checking to see if there's anything noticably different. I suspect though it is most likely something in the firmware related to the 52v voltage cutoff.
 
steve-- - You don´t understand a thing. Better go learning than playing smart. You definitely have no clue how BLDC motor - controller combo works...
The problem is definitely in firmware, it is hard-coded to 48 or 52V and user can not change it. Other strange thing came out when I was trying to program new 52V motor - if You use PAS levels like 7-10-14-19-27-37-52-72-100 like I do to have natural increase of power through the steps, first four PAS levels will just not work. Anything below 20 gives You no power. So by trial and error and some calculations I have found that if I change it to 27-30-33-38-44-53-64-80-100 it works like I was used to. I can only imagine that this could be an effort to change the behaviour of commonly used programming which usually starts at relatively high setting for the first PAS level.
 
Yes , its firmware limitation, but "user" can change it from 28A to 33A if not further.
 
I remember seeing a chart that showed a comparison of what various dealers had setup in terms of different parameters pro's and con's of each features that were enabled on the dealers specific FW for the BBSHD. I believe i saw this on the EggRider documentation somewhere but it's been over a year now. So in essence at least some of the dealers have the ability to change out parameters on the FW with the kits they sell. I got a 52v kit from EM3EV and I get peak power that's around 1640W according to my EggRider's v2 log. I haven't figured out how to display what the amp draw is but I would assume it's right around the 28a mark at those peak levels.
 
My firmware was locked to 28A. I flashed the firmware and now run it @30A and have better all round performance. Another bonus it that when using a 48v battery the % gauge on the display seems to be calibrated now.
 
Maugerville said:
My firmware was locked to 28A. I flashed the firmware and now run it @30A and have better all round performance. Another bonus it that when using a 48v battery the % gauge on the display seems to be calibrated now.
Can you please provide a link to the different BBSHD firmwares? I'm assuming the new 52v controller is the same controller as before with just new firmware, there's no other difference ??

A friend of mine bought a new BBSHD with what I assume was the new 52v firmware...it was sold as a 52v motor. When I tried adjusting some of the settings with the programming cable and software it read the existing settings but didn't flash any changes. In fact it then came back with a error code and we couldn't connect to it again, and it wouldn't work.

Cheers.
 
jtrappett said:
A friend of mine bought a new BBSHD with what I assume was the new 52v firmware...it was sold as a 52v motor. When I tried adjusting some of the settings with the programming cable and software it read the existing settings but didn't flash any changes. In fact it then came back with a error code and we couldn't connect to it again, and it wouldn't work.

Were you able to find a remedy for this? Just put a new controller on a BBSHD I got in 2019 and am getting error code 10 upon startup with no ability to operate the motor.
 
He actually got the motor replaced but I'm quite certain a firmware flash would have fixed it.
 
Can you please provide a link to the different BBSHD firmwares? I'm assuming the new 52v controller is the same controller as before with just new firmware, there's no other difference ??

A friend of mine bought a new BBSHD with what I assume was the new 52v firmware...it was sold as a 52v motor. When I tried adjusting some of the settings with the programming cable and software it read the existing settings but didn't flash any changes. In fact it then came back with a error code and we couldn't connect to it again, and it wouldn't work.

Cheers.
Not exactly sure if programming had any effects on all of the parameters but I was able to adjust the current settings on PAS levels and make the 0 and 1 PAS level as a zero assist mode with 52V 28A controller and Speeed app. Using throttle only since cadence sensor had some sort of intermittent failure.
 
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