afzal said:
Do you get a natural cycling feel when using cadence based PAS (as opposed to using torque controlled one) ?, During uphill & start, does the cadence based PAS assist provide a comfortable riding experience ?
For me, personally, on startups, because my trike plus me weigh over 500lbs, the answer is no, because my knees and right ankle aren't able to do normal pedalling under loads, so a torque sensor would work better for that (I'm slowly and intermittently working on a solution to do that in my Nano Tidbits thread).
But for most people that can pedal normally, it does work well, as long as they are shifting into the correct gearing for the pedalling for the conditions they're under at that moment.
For uphills, as long as I am already moving, then yes, it works perfectly fine, because I have enough motor power to compensate for my legs' lack of that.
To me, it is much more natural than a throttle, and far more controllable than the on/off full-power style of PAS control (which I've used on other bikes like my Fusin Test Bike that had a medium-large geared hub in the rear wheel), even when the assist level is selectable via buttons from the display. (having to change that level all the time while riding in traffic is distracting, unnatural, and sometimes actively dangerous for me).
A combination of torque and cadence works "best" for more situations, but is more complicated, and the Cycle Analyst doesn't use the torque sensor in the way necessary to make it most natural and easiest to use. That's what I want to change with my Nano addon if I ever get that done.
The torque and cadence sensors together with the CA work great once you get teh cranks moving, so if you're in a low enough gear at startup, then it does work like having bionic legs, basically like you describe, and you can setup the balance between human input and motor output just about any way you want.
My only problem with it is at startup from a complete stop, and only because of my knees/ankle plus the very heavy weight of my cargo trike and loads plus me.
But there are torque sensors like the Erider BB type that provide a simple throttle signal that can directly control any typical controller, even if it has no PAS input (if it does have one, then it's cadence output can connect to that if you like, but I don't know how the setup would work unless the controller is fine-tunable). Using the Erider BB with the CA, though, would let you tune it however you wanted, with the Erider as the throttle input and not the torque sensor input. (still using the Erider cadence output to the PAS cadence input). Then the CA throttle output to the controller throttle output.
I have never used the Erider BB, but it seems like a more universal solution than the Thun or TDCM that I have used so far (which don't output a standard throttle signal and have to go thru the torque sensor input on the CA).