While I was responding to a thread over on DIYEC, I had a sudden thought about how to get linear (or at least analog) regen braking on controllers that only have on/off style regen braking control. It may have been thought of and tried before, but in a half hour-ish of searching I haven't found it here on ES, at least. Probably used the wrong keywords.
I'm sure it doesn't work with all controllers, and it might not work with any of them. I'll try it out once I have the time to do it, and get my Fusin motor's freewheel disabled correctly or receive the one from Dogman. I'll probably use the 2QD, since I already have it apart with it's power stage removed and setup as external to it's control board.
Basically, it just uses a PWM circuit controlled by the brake lever so that the harder you squeeze the lever the higher the dutycycle is. That PWM signal would be fed to the brake input of the controller. Then the brake would be pulsed and only regen as much as you like. The controller would be set for a max regen of whatever max you normally want to have, and left that way.
The device would basically be like a very small motor controller but with no power-output stage. You could in fact use a small brushed scooter controller for this, and simply remove it's power output stage, tapping directly onto the gate output signal from it's control chip to provide the braking output PWM. The brake lever's pot or hall would go to the throttle input of the scooter controller. Any of the zillion other types of DIY PWM controllers would also work, just leaving off any power stage, and using something to buffer the PWM output signal to ensure it is within the voltage range of the brake input on your motor controller.
The brake lever itself would need to have either a linear hall (like a throttle) or pot setup on it, since it seems most (perhaps all) of the pre-made ebrake levers have switching halls (like motors) from the factory. There are a few threads about doing this, including this one I found in my search today:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9950&start=0
It would not affect your mechanical brakes, which would still engage the same way they used to.
Just setup the hall or pot you use to control the amount of regen so that it engages regen before engaging the mechanical brakes, so most of your deceleration is always going into regen rather than wasted as heat in the discs/rims/pads, but when you slam the brakes on you'll still get full regen as well as full mechanical braking.
How well this would work depends on how well your controller can handle pulsing the brake line. If it has any kind of integration/ramping on it's brake input, this will probably not work, or at least not well.
I'm sure it doesn't work with all controllers, and it might not work with any of them. I'll try it out once I have the time to do it, and get my Fusin motor's freewheel disabled correctly or receive the one from Dogman. I'll probably use the 2QD, since I already have it apart with it's power stage removed and setup as external to it's control board.
Basically, it just uses a PWM circuit controlled by the brake lever so that the harder you squeeze the lever the higher the dutycycle is. That PWM signal would be fed to the brake input of the controller. Then the brake would be pulsed and only regen as much as you like. The controller would be set for a max regen of whatever max you normally want to have, and left that way.
The device would basically be like a very small motor controller but with no power-output stage. You could in fact use a small brushed scooter controller for this, and simply remove it's power output stage, tapping directly onto the gate output signal from it's control chip to provide the braking output PWM. The brake lever's pot or hall would go to the throttle input of the scooter controller. Any of the zillion other types of DIY PWM controllers would also work, just leaving off any power stage, and using something to buffer the PWM output signal to ensure it is within the voltage range of the brake input on your motor controller.
The brake lever itself would need to have either a linear hall (like a throttle) or pot setup on it, since it seems most (perhaps all) of the pre-made ebrake levers have switching halls (like motors) from the factory. There are a few threads about doing this, including this one I found in my search today:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9950&start=0
It would not affect your mechanical brakes, which would still engage the same way they used to.
Just setup the hall or pot you use to control the amount of regen so that it engages regen before engaging the mechanical brakes, so most of your deceleration is always going into regen rather than wasted as heat in the discs/rims/pads, but when you slam the brakes on you'll still get full regen as well as full mechanical braking.
How well this would work depends on how well your controller can handle pulsing the brake line. If it has any kind of integration/ramping on it's brake input, this will probably not work, or at least not well.