I've just tried that. Instead of going all the way up to 255 I set the max to 25 and subsequently also the mid (previously 128) to 12, so it'll go from 0 > 25 > 0 > ... verified via the serial monitor.
This is actually interesting, once powered from USB on PC it works just as expected. Powered through that aforementioned USB hub it goes crazy right away. Like epilepsy inducing crazy. There's probably more wrong with this. 