History of the Bafang BBSHD Over the Years

jonsully

jonsully

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The Bafang BBSHD has been out a while — going on 7 or 8 years now? I'm curious for the community's wisdom on the progression of this motor over time and the trends in the market / industry that has guided it. For instance, somewhere along the way the Bafang configuration software was released and folks started programming motors themselves. Penoff rebuilt a copy of the software (v2.0), then Blitip did too (v2.2). Several years later (2022) Daniel announced a fully rewritten open-source firmware for the BBSHD (with its own config tool). But there have been so many other ideas and concepts along the way — various firmware versions shipped from Bafang, Luna Cycles building all sorts of accessories (a metal replacement for the nylon gear? What was that about?) and controllers, all sorts of mounting devices... etc. The accessories market for the BBSHD seems quite large, but also... out of stock! There are many products or pieces that seem to have fallen out of fashion. Why? What happened?

I'm hoping to trace out the history of the BBSHD and its product / programming ecosystem over the last 7 or 8 years in this thread. If you have knowledge on why a certain product/accessory/programming-knowledge came to be, how its uptake into the market went, and what happened to it / with it since, would you contribute here?

As a newcomer into this space in 2023 it's been difficult to try to understand the timeline of all the BBSHD stuff and it'd be neat to have a single thread for folks to understand the history.
 
Cadence sensing works great for lots of folks depending on what kind of riding you're after and which firmware/settings you're running :)
 
I've also found that to be the implication as I've read through so many historical threads over the years. I find that so interesting. I'm a traditional cyclist and my goal with the BBSHD has always been for it to help me get to, and stay at, a comfortable cadence, but that I want to be pedaling the whole time and still mechanically connected (no runaway cadence / ghost pedaling). The idea for the throttle folks is essentially to have a lesser powered motor-bike then, no? No pedaling, but still using the gears to a mechanical advantage and/or to maximize speed, but essentially always maximizing the motor power?
 
Look at something like the High Voltage upgrade, where with a 72 volt battery and a new controller you can get 5000 watts out of the BBSHD. Pretty hard to keep up with that by pedalling. Not my cup of tea, but it shows the capability of the motor.
 
Probably not my thing, but as this thread is hopefully for the sake of gathering history, do you know when / why HV put out that upgrade? How long it's been around or anything further about it?
 
Agree. It's just that even as a cyclist who loves to pedal it would be good to have a torque bike that is also capable of extended throttle driving, for instance for commuting or running errands where one might not want to get the least bit sweaty. My Photon will go just fine on throttle, but due to the motor design and heat buildup not for long. I have a dream... that one day Bafang will make a torque version of the BBSHD. Or maybe CYC will make a model with a motor capable of long throttling.

biphaeboh said:
Many of the bbshd users are throttle jockeys and have no use for pedalling let alone torque sensing.
Click to expand...
 
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raylo32 said:
Agree. It's just that even as a cyclist who loves to pedal it would be good to have a torque bike that is also capable of extended throttle driving, for instance for commuting or running errands where one might not want to get the least bit sweaty. My Photon will go just fine on throttle, but due to the motor design and heat buildup not for long. I have a dream... that one day Bafang will make a torque version of the BBSHD. Or maybe CYC will make a model with a motor capable of long throttling.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit confused; if you are commuting or running errands, aren't you on a paved or at least gravel surface that's relatively flat? So you don't need to do a lot of throttle, a little should get the bike going to 15+ MPH, no? Are you talking about going 25 MPH for over an hour or something?

Others say the BSSHD is super tough and can throttle just fine until the battery dies. Are you saying the Photon is more of a 'finesse it' mid-drive that needs more moderation or it will overheat? That motor is so small you'd think the surface area for cooler air exchange would make up for any lack of fins or other heat-dissapating issues compared with the BSSHD. Maybe not. The real question I have is: has the Photon EVER overheated, or threatened to overheat on pavement, as opposed to steep uphill climbs offroad where it was putting out a lot torque at a relatively low rpm. If it overheats on pavement then that's no better than a cheap motor. And I'll pass on it.
 
I am talking about going high throttle for extended times like the BBS guys do. It isn't a high priority for me and I wouldn't do it often but it would be fun and practical once in a while. Otherwise, I am a fast pedelec guy and Photon works perfect for that. At the speeds I can pedal without being spun out Photon does not overheat. But Photon is an outrunner motor so I don't know how long you could pull the watts needed to cruise steady state 20-30 MPH on throttle. My priority is torque sensing pedelec but I want BBS and Photon to have a baby and do it all.

richj8990 said:
I'm a bit confused; if you are commuting or running errands, aren't you on a paved or at least gravel surface that's relatively flat? So you don't need to do a lot of throttle, a little should get the bike going to 15+ MPH, no? Are you talking about going 25 MPH for over an hour or something?

Others say the BSSHD is super tough and can throttle just fine until the battery dies. Are you saying the Photon is more of a 'finesse it' mid-drive that needs more moderation or it will overheat? That motor is so small you'd think the surface area for cooler air exchange would make up for any lack of fins or other heat-dissapating issues compared with the BSSHD. Maybe not. The real question I have is: has the Photon EVER overheated, or threatened to overheat on pavement, as opposed to steep uphill climbs offroad where it was putting out a lot torque at a relatively low rpm. If it overheats on pavement then that's no better than a cheap motor. And I'll pass on it.
Click to expand...
 
jonsully said:
Good thoughts, friends :) but I might steer us back to the topic of the OP / thread :D
Click to expand...
Forgive just one more divergence? I read you are a cyclist and are pedelec-centric. So am I and I have gone out of my way to work the BBSHD so its optimized for pedaling and, at the same time, de-fanging it insofar as its negative effect of all that power on the drivetrain.

I wrote this article about a Bullitt I did a frame-up build on, but within it (tee'd up directly via the link) is what I consider to be my current ideal settings for both a flat-land and a steep-hill-climbing cargo bike. (both are Bullitts).

talesontwowheels.com

Larry vs Harry Bullitt Hill Hauler, Back-to-Front Part 2

This continues the walk-through of my hill-climber Bullitt, starting with the mid drive motor installation and taking a close look at its BBSHD configuration.
talesontwowheels.com talesontwowheels.com

The flat-land bike uses a 52T front chainring and peak-and-sustained pedal assist output is about 450w - and this is a 30a HD running on a 52v battery. The hill climber changes really only one setting and it outputs about 950w on PAS9, which I use when climbing walls with bags o' gravel in the cargo box. Startup is super gentle on the drivetrain and I typically get about 3000 miles out of a chain.

As to the evolution of the BBSHD motor, how much, really, has there been? It seems like all of the change to that platform has been Bafang throwing monkey wrenches in the works and the DIY community figuring out how to undo their effect. Nothing, really about internal improvements. I did notice about a year ago that I bought two different motors from two sources, and on one the inner thrust bearing race didn't exist. Instead, the race was now integral to the axle. So if you wear out that race you can't just go put on a new thrust bearing. I am in no way an expert or even well informed about HD evolution but it still seems that change to these motors is purely self-inflicted software wounds from Bafang, or some kind of cheaping-out on manufacture.
 
raylo32 said:
It is still missing the one and only thing that I would call progress... a torque sensor. LOL.
Click to expand...

One step forward, 3 steps back if you even consider this a bbshd. I'm sure companies like High Voltage will come out with offerings to fix the locked down software and battery limitation, but then we are back to a bbshd with nothing really notable changed except the torque sensor, and a worse mount :confused:. Toseven has been working on their bbshd like motor the Dm-01, torque sensing and support for 16s stock but still has issues like a square tapered BB and I presume chain line / fitment issues for some frames. Shows promise right now though with how recently they came out, torque sensor programming needs finer tuning but that seems to be top priority which is good.


As someone with a high power bbshd I highly disagree with the notion most bbshd users wouldn't care about adding one. I would say a lot probably don't have it as top priority compared to power (as if you want high power there's not much else) but still something they would want. Case in point, I myself do find it fun to go full throttle but a good 75% of my riding is around town under 250w, even on the blue trails I'm sticking to 250w pas with light assistance with the throttle when I rarely need just a little extra boost in power. Would definitely want one but I wouldn't sacrifice the throttle power to get it.
 
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We are seeing torque sensing as one of the main selling features of the new Photon and Toseven motors. Surprised that Bafang hasn't exploited that market niche.
 
biphaeboh said:
We are seeing torque sensing as one of the main selling features of the new Photon and Toseven motors. Surprised that Bafang hasn't exploited that market niche.
Click to expand...

I think they have more or less gone over to the custom e-bike frame market and left the older standard 68/73mm frame kit conversions on autopilot. There are other more off-brand Chinese companies now copying the BBSxx, so it's trickle-down not trickle-forward:

www.l-faster.com

750W E-Bike Mid-Drive Motor Kit (Integrated) |

48V 750W electric bicycle middle drive conversion kit, the same design as 8FUN, can make your own logo.
www.l-faster.com
 
biphaeboh said:
We are seeing torque sensing as one of the main selling features of the new Photon and Toseven motors. Surprised that Bafang hasn't exploited that market niche.
Click to expand...
I think the word 'niche' is key there. Bafang is the volume player. Niches, to them, are sideshows in the West (whose market is a tiny fraction of what they sell in Asia). For them the Western opportunity is getting into mainstream, manufactured bikes and not DTC/DIY.

Look at how hard they have tried to discourage customization over the years. And the use of 52v batteries. And so on. Even their hub motors... the new fat ones have proprietary-ish plugs that make them incompatible with pretty much everything aftermarket ... to answer what need?
 
biphaeboh said:
We are seeing torque sensing as one of the main selling features of the new Photon and Toseven motors. Surprised that Bafang hasn't exploited that market niche.
Click to expand...
Bafang has ... Maybe ... Sort of ... Quietly? There have been sightings of a Bafang-branded BBSHD-ish torque-sensing motor, in a M625-looking case. But, like the other poster's sentiments above, I'd speculate that Bafang may not be interested in marketing them through the D.I.Y. channels. Well - maybe if you're willing to purchase in advance several containers full of 'em and possibly the related proprietary batteries.

I think High Voltage is set to receive one for eval:


If the Toseven DM01 turns out to be usable, I'd probably look at it as a torque-sensing BBSHD alternative:

 
raylo32 said:
It is still missing the one and only thing that I would call progress... a torque sensor. LOL.
Click to expand...
For commuting on hills throttle can be enough since you won't be able to keep up with the BBSHD anyway in a granny gear. That way you save your leg power for the flats with the motor off while being able to keep better balance on hills since fast pedalling makes harder to keep the balance anyway. Since there is limited chance to use inertia when climbing and any pedalling has inherently uneven torque output then for hill climbing continously spinning mid drive might be better.
Torque sensor can also feel a bit weird when climbing at least with TSDZ2. Pure pedalling on the flats with occasional pulse and glide technique is the only option with BBSHD since cadence sensors can be too dangerous due to unwanted acceleration especially when forgetting to disable the pass or trying to engage the brake cutoffs lightly enough to avoid braking.
 
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Some here ask: "Why does Bafang not improve on it's products, even as faults are well known, easy to fix and may hurt sales?" I think this is a very unique Chinese problem.
If you look at the management style of a Chinese company, this is a microcosmos of the society and what is important to it.
In China everything is about dominating other humans. Their emperor, who is the role model for the Chinese human, can make any person vanish over night. Guilty or innocent right or wrong, the one on top does as he pleases. Control is anything that matters.
Anything, how ridiculous it may be, is secret.
Now transfer this into a company like Bafang. Today they sure spend more money on making their controllers non programable to others, than into making them reliable. I bet the Chinese police is still searching for the person that released the old configuration software into the wild.
Then, Bafang produce "harmless" things with a lot of internal software.
Some might know, anything software is basically under the command of the Chinese military. Some may thing this is a conspiracy theory, but any software of interest can and will be modified on the will of the military secret service. If you buy a smartphone from China, you can be 100% sure there is a backdoor for the SS. Just like in your network router, made in China. The US defense departement just realized that even seemingly secondary installations, which are using Chinese components, can remotely cut off water, electricity and communication of some US military bases in the US! Now, how do you get control over such interfaces you where able to plant into critical infrastucture? Look at anything Bluetooth. The more cheap products you sell in a country, the higher the chance one of the millions of contacts hit's something of interest. Like someone hiting the lottery next week...
If your e-bikes display comes near another gadget with a compatible system, they can connect. This makes any software of a moving object highly critical and interesting, if you have bad intentions. I think most here will agree, that the Chinese leadership has no good intentions at all. Now, keep in mind, all spy software implementations have to be paid for by the company producing what ever product they make.
Finally get the curve to product development. In such an invironment, mechanical improvement of a product is secondary and dangerous. Some state bureau may classify this as a major product change, requiering a new certification. Not to mention hardly non existing patent protection.
Anything is about doing things right, for a mighty state apparatus that does not publish rules you can follow. One of the dictators best tools in the box.
If you do not change anything, you can't go wrong. You wait until someone else did it and stay away from the fire.
So leaving a motor the primitive way it is, there is no fear some state agency may have the costly idea to have something expensive developed for it and installed. So no Mk II BBSxyz.
So as a Chinese manager you better live with the existing quality problems, earning a safe profit, instead of running into problems you may not control.
A Chinese company doing the same like one in European or the US, has very different problems, as it basically sees it's customers as "the enemy".
Doesn't this harm the Chinese economy in global competition? Maybe this is why their products are cheap, but never world class.
 
Since the title is the "history" of the BBSHD, then September of 2015 is the first time I saw one when Bafang had a demo bike in their booth. Luna Cycle test-rode one and said they'd buy every one that they could.
www.electricbike.com

Interbike 2015, ElectricBike.com in Las Vegas again!

The three biggest bicycle conventions each year are the Taipei Cycle Show in Taiwan (held in March), Eurobike in Germany (August), and Interbike in Las Vegas Nevada (September). These are the trade…
www.electricbike.com
 
A good read I just finished a moment ago.

Why Hub Motors - Learn

Learn why we chose to keep our focus primarily on hub motor drive systems over mid-drive conversions.
ebikes.ca ebikes.ca
"The BBS01 design (which Bafang cloned from Sunstar) was neatly integrated as a self contained bottom bracket replacement without all the external mounting hardware, chains, pulleys etc normally associated with mid-motors."

Sunstar Announces Filing of Patent Infringement Action in Germany Against Bafang

web.archive.org web.archive.org
 
Another new piece in the history here — Bafang launched the M635 within the last year and units are starting to get out to the public. Appears to support both cadence-sensing and torque-sensing, though details remain scarce.
 
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