John in CR
100 TW
Balmorhea said:John in CR said:Balmorhea said:But when you spin the axle and it costs more to fix it than to get another motor, that feels not so good.
Reversing torque does that to pedals, to cranks, and to the axle nuts of hub motors. Using a freewheel rather than a fixed gear prevents it for pedals and cranks, and using forward-only drive prevents it for hub motors.
If your axle budges at all (loosening axle nuts, clicking when you hit regen, etc.) then you don't have proper torque arms and/or the flat area of the axle isn't of sufficient design.
You'd think so. But cranks mounted on square tapers don't "budge", and neither do pedals that have been tightened upon mounting. But both can move enough under reversing torque to back the fasteners off, and then everything goes sideways.
The remedy, if you must use fixed gearing, is to check and tighten these things often. I'm willing to bet that not one in ten people running regen braking do that.
You can prevent the problem by using clamping dropouts. I'm willing to bet that not one in a hundred people using regen do that.
It's not a plane where a preflight checklist is a mandatory safety precaution. You are obviously the 1 in 100 that likes doing all that crap on bicycles. The rest of us want the convenience of a car, not fiddling with brakes all the time, checking that nuts are tight etc. The way you advise people regarding ebikes is the polar opposite the way I do, whether in person or online, and mine is to build it right the first time which without fail includes to properly attach the motor axle to the bike, so they can enjoy absolute reliability.