First post with bafanging problem

[meyou]

I’m a life long cyclist from Cheshire, England. I built an ebike using a bafang 1000w, 52v mid drive which has been trouble free for about four years fitted to a camarra mountain bike.
i recently got curious about programming the controller as there were a few setting I have wanted to change. So I bought the cable and downloaded the software as well as ins the required drive onto pc.
all appeared to go well, the motor connected to the pc via the luna programme, I read data from motor made a few small changes and wrote them to motor. This is where it all went wrong; the luna software said it was still connected but the motor specs disappeared and all four read write buttons along the bottom greyed out. Despite my efforts I cannot get the software to work again; I’ve reinstalled the driver, downloaded another copy of programme and bought another cable. The programme says it’s connected but buttons still greyed out and not motor info showing. The worst thing is the motor no longer works via pedal or throttle although the display and lights are ok.
I haven’t a clue what to do now to resolve the problem but only hope someone on the forum with far superior knowledge and experience than me can provide some much needed advice.
kevin

 

[ElHegpah]

Some thoughts to contemplate while buying and installing your new controller.

1. Anything, anything at all, goes wrong while updating firmware, you are screwed.

2. Bafang frequently makes minor changes to controllers with no notice.

3. The Luna people are total clowns.

 

[m@Robertson]

...all appeared to go well, the motor connected to the pc via the luna programme, I read data from motor made a few small changes and wrote them to motor. This is where it all went wrong; the luna software said it was still connected but the motor specs disappeared and all four read write buttons along the bottom greyed out. Despite my efforts I cannot get the software to work again; I’ve reinstalled the driver, downloaded another copy of programme and bought another cable. The programme says it’s connected but buttons still greyed out and not motor info showing. The worst thing is the motor no longer works via pedal or throttle although the display and lights are ok.

Your experience is very unusual. Usually this is a painless process. Its not a problem with your programming tool. Four years is nowhere near enough time to have an issue using the tool you are describing. But it DOES sound as if your controller has bricked itself. However maybe not. It could be a communications failure of some sort. More on that further on.

You are not actually 'programming' anything, although thats the commonly used term. What you are doing is accessing a suite of settings that are well-known. The software you used is nothing more than a GUI that lets you pick some different choices from a known available range. Where this can go wrong is if your motor has genuinely customized or even completely custom firmware. I know, for instance, that there is an open-source Bafang firmware replacement out in the wild that has quite a few different settings you can take advantage of. But that also entails a lot more risk as you are digging into the motor at a much lower level to replace the firmware (rather than just change a few options) and whatever it is you ae using to add the options has no idea it is working with something totally different.

Or maybe it was just a random glitch... thats frankly a lot more likely as to truly get custom firmware into a motor there has to be a lot of deliberate effort to make that happen. It sure as hell isn't done by connecting a cable and changing some info in some drop-downs.

The Luna tool you used cannot be blamed unless you had some kind of weird corruption of the download. Just for starters its not Luna software.
It is an open source program released to the community many years ago by a guy named Stefan Penov. Pretty much the whole world uses it, with only recent exceptions cropping up in the last few years. The only thing Luna did was plant their own logo, which a lot of vendors do who pass around the identical software. I link to the original Penov download in the article below, along with a follow-up version that is notable for the fact that the (different) author included a graph that explains what many of the settings do visually (I would not use the software to do updates as this revised version forces some changes I don't like and I think he has no business monkeying with).

BBSHD Programming For The Pedaling Cyclist (2023 Update)

Explore enhanced BBSHD programming for pedal assist settings that don't let the bike run away from you, and throttle settings gentle on the drivetrain.

talesontwowheels.com

An exception to the above would be if you are using a Luna Black Box instead of the Penov PC software. The Black Box is a very handy, standalone tool that connects directly to your display. Its bombproof, unless your controller's firmware is the bomb itself. It too is nothing more than a window into the same settings interface everyone uses (EggRider and Speeed are just two examples, where Speeed is an app for your phone and you plug the cable into your phone instead of a PC and that goes directly into your display).

Since the Penov software is obviously a problem, it can't hurt to keep trying but use a different tool. I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope, but if you have an Android phone, you can download the free Speeed app (thats with three e's), add a USB-C adapter to your existing cable and see if you can get further using that entirely different tool.

If that doesn't work, give up and buy a new controller. The Luna controllers have the fewest undesirable surprises inside, I've found.

 

[Pinhead]

I’m a life long cyclist from Cheshire, England. I built an ebike using a bafang 1000w, 52v mid drive which has been trouble free for about four years fitted to a camarra mountain bike.
i recently got curious about programming the controller as there were a few setting I have wanted to change. So I bought the cable and downloaded the software as well as ins the required drive onto pc.
all appeared to go well, the motor connected to the pc via the luna programme, I read data from motor made a few small changes and wrote them to motor. This is where it all went wrong; the luna software said it was still connected but the motor specs disappeared and all four read write buttons along the bottom greyed out. Despite my efforts I cannot get the software to work again; I’ve reinstalled the driver, downloaded another copy of programme and bought another cable. The programme says it’s connected but buttons still greyed out and not motor info showing. The worst thing is the motor no longer works via pedal or throttle although the display and lights are ok.
I haven’t a clue what to do now to resolve the problem but only hope someone on the forum with far superior knowledge and experience than me can provide some much needed advice.
kevin

1000w England 100% illegal, we talk about hoping the police clamp down on illegal bikes on this and other forums.

 

[HumanPerson]

1000w England 100% illegal, we talk about hoping the police clamp down on illegal bikes on this and other forums.

we also talk about illegal ebikes and alot of other stuff as well

 

[meyou]

Your experience is very unusual. Usually this is a painless process. Its not a problem with your programming tool. Four years is nowhere near enough time to have an issue using the tool you are describing. But it DOES sound as if your controller has bricked itself. However maybe not. It could be a communications failure of some sort. More on that further on.

You are not actually 'programming' anything, although thats the commonly used term. What you are doing is accessing a suite of settings that are well-known. The software you used is nothing more than a GUI that lets you pick some different choices from a known available range. Where this can go wrong is if your motor has genuinely customized or even completely custom firmware. I know, for instance, that there is an open-source Bafang firmware replacement out in the wild that has quite a few different settings you can take advantage of. But that also entails a lot more risk as you are digging into the motor at a much lower level to replace the firmware (rather than just change a few options) and whatever it is you ae using to add the options has no idea it is working with something totally different.

Or maybe it was just a random glitch... thats frankly a lot more likely as to truly get custom firmware into a motor there has to be a lot of deliberate effort to make that happen. It sure as hell isn't done by connecting a cable and changing some info in some drop-downs.

The Luna tool you used cannot be blamed unless you had some kind of weird corruption of the download. Just for starters its not Luna software.
It is an open source program released to the community many years ago by a guy named Stefan Penov. Pretty much the whole world uses it, with only recent exceptions cropping up in the last few years. The only thing Luna did was plant their own logo, which a lot of vendors do who pass around the identical software. I link to the original Penov download in the article below, along with a follow-up version that is notable for the fact that the (different) author included a graph that explains what many of the settings do visually (I would not use the software to do updates as this revised version forces some changes I don't like and I think he has no business monkeying with).

BBSHD Programming For The Pedaling Cyclist (2023 Update)

Explore enhanced BBSHD programming for pedal assist settings that don't let the bike run away from you, and throttle settings gentle on the drivetrain.

talesontwowheels.com

An exception to the above would be if you are using a Luna Black Box instead of the Penov PC software. The Black Box is a very handy, standalone tool that connects directly to your display. Its bombproof, unless your controller's firmware is the bomb itself. It too is nothing more than a window into the same settings interface everyone uses (EggRider and Speeed are just two examples, where Speeed is an app for your phone and you plug the cable into your phone instead of a PC and that goes directly into your display).

Since the Penov software is obviously a problem, it can't hurt to keep trying but use a different tool. I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope, but if you have an Android phone, you can download the free Speeed app (thats with three e's), add a USB-C adapter to your existing cable and see if you can get further using that entirely different tool.

If that doesn't work, give up and buy a new controller. The Luna controllers have the fewest undesirable surprises inside, I've found.

Thank you for this in depth and interesting reply. I don’t have android but will try and borrow one to give it a try.

 

[meyou]

1000w England 100% illegal, we talk about hoping the police clamp down on illegal bikes on this and other forums.

You may but I’m sure many others do not!