donn said:
Mine's apparently an Infineon KH6xx, whatever that means, and configurable (? "EBS force", range 0-200, set to 80.) Don't know if it would be responsive to voltage variation. There's also "EBS limit voltage" (77.0V) and "Slip charge" (Disabled.)
Slip charge, also called slip regen, means that if you roll off the throttle rather than letting it snap back to zero, it will actively brake to try to keep you at the new speed the throttle is at. Snapping it to zero just cuts throttle without braking. I don't know if yours would be proportional regen when doing that, but I expect it is not, and only does on/off braking at the level of EBS Force you've setup.
EBS force is just how much regen braking you get when you engage the ebrake signal line "on". 80 is less than half of it's capability if it's max is 200 (assuming 0 is none). But you can't change this on the fly with those controllers; you can only do it when stopped and probalby with teh controller not powered by the battery (only by the programming cable), and then power cycle the controller to make it take effect.
EBS limit voltage means if your pack voltage is presently higher than that, it won't do any regen so it doesn't overcharge your battery.
Your variable voltage range response tells me there is or was an intention in that direction. Seems to me it could be a little tricky, trying to cram a lot of control into a small lever travel before physical brake contact.
This particular type of function has existed for a few years in some controllers, but not all of them. Even Grin's controllers don't always have it. The generation just before what I got back in 2013 had it, but then the one I got happened to be from the next batch and it didn't, which was really disappointing at the time. The one after that did have it, and so does the one I got a pair of to setup on the trike to replace the generics presetnly on there.
Many more advanced controllers have (and have had for a long time) this kind of function. Sevcon, some Kelly, ASI (and thus Phaserunner), DIY stuff like Lebowski, probably some Curtis, and other big name brands used in OEM vehicle production that I can't recall ATM. Many of these controllers have to be "tuned" for the motor being used, though, or they don't operate properly, and that can be quite a complicated process, and/or require expensive hardware and software to do (Sevcon, for instance).
I forget what controller the Vectrix used, but it had a custom throttle that was sort of like a slip regen, except that throttle was everything "forward" of the stop detent, and braking was everyting "bakward" of that.
Those more advanced controllers actually have completely separate variable-voltage ebrake inputs, and don't rely on the "hack" method implemented in these "generic" controllers, which uses the ebrake input like normal, as a switch to activate braking, and then have the MCU read the throttle signal as a brake amount.
THe narrow travel of ebrake before mechanical brake is easy to fix--use two levers.
In my case I have no mechanical rear brake, so the lefthand lever is ebrake-only. The right lever is just the front disc brake.
Or, use a second lever "face" in front of the mechanical brake lever, that is kinda like the little lever in a set of visegrips, except on the outside. It'd be spring loaded return, and/or use a spring-loaded cable pull to a sensor elsewhere.
Not part of what you were saying but: As far as the narrow range of signal on the generics like Grinfineon goes, that's irrelevant to the amount of control you have, because you can scale any control input into that range. That's what the Cycle Analyst v3 does with teh throttle and braking; you can map whatever ranges you need for each, IIRC. You could custom make whatever electronics you wanted to to do this same scaling if you like. Or do a switching arrangment like I prbably will, to use a completely separate voltage source and range for the braking vs the throttle.
