Is it me or is it the bike?

GaRRy · Jun 5, 2013

Taff

Sorry not respnded before but been thinking/experimenting with this since you originally posted and you are correct under certain circumstances changing mode seems to make no obvious difference. Not really noticable where I live as no really serious hills and certaily none I really struggle to get up.

Can think of a few reasons this might be the case.

1) Travelling that slowly that motor is close to stalling and so struggles to provide any more power (bit like hitting tha car accelerator in to low a gear).

2) Motor is already giving maximum power it is capable of. Remember power is also related to your effort and so torque sensor/ controller may already be telling motor to use it self to maximum based on your own effort.

3) How precisely does the torque sensor actually work. Is it based on presure on the pedal ?. In which case peddaling slowly and pushing hard as opposed to spinning could also be causing the motor to already be maxed out.

Watching with interest and if I come up with anything else I will let you know.

melb-ourne · Jun 5, 2013

My question is this:
If I'm going up a hill slowly on Economy mode and switch up to a higher power setting should I always get an increase in assistance regardless of cadence?

YES.

Strange problem..could be the torque sensor

Try posting in the Australia forum...biggest thread in the world for neo emotion... we might have answer for you
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2074530

Deleted member 4366 · Jun 5, 2013

I, m sure all this 0.7:1 and 3:1 is a load of ball cocks. You'd need special software in the controller to do that, and I couldn't feel anything special when I rode Neos. They felt the same as mine that has a speed sensor, so I'd be surprised if they use the torque sensor for much more than a switch.

Controllers normally work on speed control, so any setting, whether with PAS, torque sensor or throttle has a target speed. The controller wil feed in power to try and achieve that speed. The greater the difference between your actual speed and the target speed, the more power the controller gives subject to current limits. I suspect that when you're going slowly up a hill, your current is already maxed out, so increasing the target speed has no effect.

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trex · Jun 5, 2013

d8veh said:
I, m sure all this 0.7:1 and 3:1 is a load of ball cocks. You'd need special software in the controller to do that, and I couldn't feel anything special when I rode Neos. They felt the same as mine that has a speed sensor, so I'd be surprised if they use the torque sensor for much more than a switch.

Controllers normally work on speed control, so any setting, whether with PAS, torque sensor or throttle has a target speed. The controller wil feed in power to try and achieve that speed. The greater the difference between your actual speed and the target speed, the more power the controller gives subject to current limits. I suspect that when you're going slowly up a hill, your current is already maxed out, so increasing the target speed has no effect.

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Sorry to be off topic but do you mean that a throttle is more useful than the Neo torque sensor?

Deleted member 4366 · Jun 5, 2013

Taff said:
So if I increased my cadence uphill would (then) the current not be maxed out and give me more help?

I'm pretty sure cadence has little or no effect. Bosch and Panasonic appear to use some aspects of cadence in their controller power algorithms, but their controllers work completely differently, being optimized for crank drives.

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Deleted member 4366 · Jun 5, 2013

trex said:
Sorry to be off topic but do you mean that a throttle is more useful than the Neo torque sensor?

It depends what you want to do. Many manufacturers are jumping on the torque sensor band-wagon without fully understanding what they want to achieve. For a hub-motored bike a normal PAS with three or 5 levels and a throttle is all you need. A torque sensor can give aore natural riding experience and can give a quicker controller response, but few manufacturers have developef the controller software to achieve that. Many have just added a torque sensor to the controllers that previously used PAS sensors, which doesn't get any benefit.

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kemi · Jun 5, 2013

Taff said:
Hi guys and gals,

My problem (bike's?) is that I can't seem to get a higher power when I want (within limits of course). If I'm going up a steepish hill slowly on Economy mode; then decide I want a bit more power I can go up to any of the 3 higher settings but I cannot detect any increase in power. Eco gives 0.7:1 assistance; top setting is 3:1 assistance.

My question is this:
If I'm going up a hill slowly on Economy mode and switch up to a higher power setting should I always get an increase in assistance regardless of cadence?

Taff

I may have the same problem, on my route I have 2 places were the climb is to steep for my bike. So I change to a low gear(45t x 19t) and push real hard at the start of the climb and that will get me over, but not without a drop in speed below 25 Km/h. The reason in my case is that the hub motor(goSwiss drive 250W) isn't powerful enough, so my guess is that it also holds true in your case. Before I hit the climb I also set the bike to max assist.

ghouluk · Jun 5, 2013

ok, so my neo cross was a bit of a disaster from start to finish....broken spokes, broken batteries..eventually i swapped it for a neo xtreme, which is absolutely brilliant.

here are my thoughts based on a couple of weeks and a couple of hundred miles in the cross, and similar in the xtrem.

firstly you're absolutely right about the assistance, there is no noticable increase if you up the assistance level, particularly if you are in top gear - after some experimentation, my thinking is that you're exceeding the maximum on the torque sensor, and its feeding maximum to the motor, so it makes no difference....if you switch down the gears, you're putting less pressure on the pedals, hence generating less torque, hence you feel a difference in the power when you switch up the levels.

secondly my neo cross (a 2012 model) was extremely susceptible to this phenomena, and also to running out of battery really quickly, despite running on eco all the time. the xtrem is way less like this, and gives way more range - its also quite a bit slower on the top end but accelerates way quicker (as you'd expect with the wheel and tyre size and style)

I also think that the bh is a great bike as a whole, but is put together in a low quality way with less than ideal components (eg wheel builds are slack on tightening spokes, forks are rubbish quality) the newer bike goes a way to correcting this, but still isn't great.

finally on cadence, i agree it doesn't make any difference, its down to how hard you push the pedal down, not regularity, speed or evenness - i also reckon that it takes 1 or 2 readings per rotation (or maybe reads the highest continuously or something) which is ideal for me with my foot problems, but probably doesn't help to support a "real cycling" experience as per the bosch drives i tried....

either way, what i know now is that i do feel a difference in switching power outputs when climbing (though its still nothing like 0.7 - 3 x or whatever is claimed) and i now get 50 miles out of a battery instead of 10km (with switching on and off as required in both cases)

not sure this is helpful, but its definitely part of the design if not by design in my opinion

cheers

Rob

ghouluk · Jun 5, 2013

as a ps....what happens if you change down a gear or two and then up the assist?

the motor on the neo is awesome - i weigh a hundred and too many kg, and it happily takes me up steep steep climbs, you've just got to get in the right gear to keep the torque high enough to power the motor, and giving torque often enough to keep it powered without fall off

ghouluk · Jun 5, 2013

Taff said:
My Neo cross is a new model and seems very well built to me. I've had 56 miles with a lot of climbing and still a little power left; maybe they improved the models 2012 - 2013? Or maybe you were unlucky?

i think a bit of both - it was a (ab)used ex-demo as well.

This is what I must try. I have avoided doing this as I don't want to race uphill.

I love the bike. If it is as it is I am more than happy with it. However I would like to have the extra power when I need it on very steep climbs.

nods, thats kind of how i felt about the cross, the good points made up for the bad, at least until it failed completely.

interested to see how you go on with down gear tests.

103Alex1 · Jun 6, 2013

d8veh said:
I, m sure all this 0.7:1 and 3:1 is a load of ball cocks. You'd need special software in the controller to do that, and I couldn't feel anything special when I rode Neos. They felt the same as mine that has a speed sensor, so I'd be surprised if they use the torque sensor for much more than a switch.

From everything reported on this bike, it sounds very much like this is likely.

d8veh said:
Controllers normally work on speed control, so any setting, whether with PAS, torque sensor or throttle has a target speed. The controller wil feed in power to try and achieve that speed. The greater the difference between your actual speed and the target speed, the more power the controller gives subject to current limits. I suspect that when you're going slowly up a hill, your current is already maxed out, so increasing the target speed has no effect.

Higher power assist mode is presumably akin to more throttle. You feel this mainly in a greater rate of acceleration but as bike is restricted it often doesn't take that long to reach cutoff speed so I do wonder how noticeable it would be.

Even with a 500W motor, on a very steep climb capable of stalling the motor out, rider has to do enough hard pedalling for the motor not to stall. Using more throttle as an analogy for higher PAS level, adding more throttle beyond a certain point makes no difference at all to speed or ease of climb. Presumably this is because current limit has already been reached using less throttle (equating to lower PAS). So selecting higher power assist level would have no net benefit ? In other words, with Neo, if using Eco in very hilly area is capable of triggering max current on climbs then there's no practical difference between the power assist levels in those conditions. You'd get no more speed, no more assistance and use no more battery by doing so.

In terms of how it operates, how does the Neo fare on very steep hill starts from stationary (>20%) ? One thing I noticed is that crank drive bike with torque sensor is exceptionally good at starting on these gradients - in 1st / 2nd gear there's instantaneous power delivery sufficient to start climbing easily with no concern about delay or stall. With hub motor setup this is nowhere near as straightforward (especially without PAS) as throttle will not start the climb and a minimum speed seems to be needed before the hub motor motor can actually help in practice. I presume on the Neo the torque sensor must operate to switch on power assist as a speed sensor in those conditions would make very steep hill starts problematic otherwise ?

It does sound like there's nowhere near the variation in power delivery between assist modes on Taff's bike in hilly conditions as there would be with (for example) a Bosch, Impulse or Panasonic.

ghouluk · Jun 6, 2013

the neos i've had both start quite aggressively compared to the bosch or impulse i tried (caveats (1)i've only tested the other bikes, rather than live with them (2) my foot problems were making the drive uneven)

one of the things about the neo is as soon as you press on the pedals to start it kicks the drive in (seems to me at almost maximum for the initial push, but that might just be my interpretation) - we have a couple of back roads where a t junction meets the side of a hill where this is very noticable (and useful)

Of course my definition of a steep hill may be different to taffs

Jonah · Jun 6, 2013

I don't know if this is stating the obvious (and other replies probably say this already) but perhaps it's just that you are going too slowly at the point you changed assist level. If you were travelling faster (like the bike shop owner perhaps), the difference would be noticeable. I certainly found on the hub bikes I have ridden (and this is the problem with all 'legal' hub bikes I know of) that if you drop below a certain speed - say 6mph (this may vary between motors) the motor provides severely limited assistance up steep hills. It makes no difference what gear you're in or what assist level you set, if you drop below the critical speed, the motor cannot deliver it's power. If you want to cycle slowly up steep hills you really need a crank drive motor. If you want to speed up hills, and can provide the required rider input, hub motors will probably be faster.

ghouluk · Jun 6, 2013

thats interesting, id be interested to hear what other neo owners say about this, as this isn't my interpretation of how the power is delivered on the neo - straight off the line the neo delivers power from the motor (ie press the brake, then the pedal then release the brake, and you get the motor in) and i have to say i've never noticed a motor drop out at low speed...will try and test...intrigued now

jackhandy · Jun 6, 2013

My limited experience of the Neo Cross & Extrem bear out what Jonah says:

The power comes in with quite a rush, both from standstill & on the move; and it's quite noticeable when you reach 15.5, mph & cruise - You feel the kick-in-the-bum every time you drop below cut-off speed.

This is also true of the Kudos Arriba, which uses the bafang CST motor also, as well.

To my mind, it gives a more sporty feel to the bikes when compared to the Bosch-driven ones, which are so silky-smooth, that you don't feel the kick.
O
Well-discussed attribute of hub motors is that they produce buckets of grunt down to about 8 mph, but this is wasted as heat much below this speed: The Arriva is said to put out down to about 4 mph, but I'll know for sure after Bristol, when I should have one to play with on my 'orrible test rides down here in the Alps

I don't know if the Neos provide the same low-down grunt.

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