It is amazing. Everyone asks about regen. Even if they know next to nothing about electric bikes, EVERYONE asks a question about it in some form. I suppose it is just so novel that electric vehicles can "make fuel". I'm very interested in getting regen going for a couple of reasons. The main one is to save my brakes. I have no illusions about getting a lot of free charging or massively extending range. Regen just doesn't make that much energy. But I do want to save my brakes, and brake more quietly on the long downhills I have on my commute.
The first question is how to set this up. My controller has this feature. It has a pair of white wires with one pin connectors that plug together to "enable" regen. Then the ebrake connector which has 2 pins needs to go to the brake switch that actually fires off the regen and disables the power to the wheel at the same time.
One question is what voltage this controller will regen to. Many will only go to about 60 volts. To go higher requires modifications to hardware. So I need to check on that.
Good news! - My Controller is rated for regen to 75V with NO R12 mod which is exactly enough. I need to try that soon then! I probably do need to load new parameters into the controller but I have the gear to do that, which is software and a special serial cable from a PC.
One question is how to handle the regen control (ebrake input). Put a switch on the brake handle, or the rear Vbrake itself, or mount a pushbutton or control lever to actuate it.
My favorite is probably to mount something on the rear Vbrake itself. The question then is how to do it clean, simple and reliable.
Before I do anything fancy on the Vbrake I will set up a quick test and try it out.
One other concern is torque arms. I have two, plus NordLock washers, but I do need to watch this and make sure it is not working back and forth. Regen causes forces on the torque arms opposite the direction of motor power, and forces in both directions can work things loose and that is a major problem. There are two levels of regen selected at programming time. I will keep the regen at the lower level and verify things are not getting loose or working back and forth.
For the initial test some kind of simple thumb button near the throttle would be good. This would allow the left hand to be free to work the front brake. Ideally the control would be below the right hand bar and in a position where the right hand fingers are still on the rear brake handle. Then one can control all three at once. Have to see what I can cobble together.
One other thought. Should the kill switch actuate the regen? Or just kill power to the controller?? That will be on the left hand side when I get to it. More later..
So many choices...