Bafang mid-drive as generator?

[sadhak]

I understand that there is a freewheel or clutch between the motor and the pedals, so that I can't turn the motor with the pedals.

If I turn the motor, will I generate power?

Any other knowledge about this concept?

Thanks,
sadhak

[amberwolf]

If you mechanically modify the drive so you can turn it from the pedals, and you alter the controller (software or hardware if necessary) so that it can support "regen", or replace it with one that does, or replace the controller with a 3-phase rectifier (output goes to battery) (or add this to the phase wires of the existing controller), then theoretically, yes, it can be a generator.

How well it will work for your (unstated) application would depend on the details of the application vs the final setup you end up with's capabilities.

If by "any other knowledge about this concept" you mean about a motor as a pedal-driven generator, in the various forms possible, there's been quite a few threads and posts about that sort of thing over the years, but no single topic subject line used for them all, so you might have to just look for threads with "generator" in the first post or title to find some of them. (there may also be threads that use a different word that that won't find).

[Triketech]

The motor will operate as a generator with proper mods with clutch and motor driver software.
Its been done before but not very efficiently.