Battery Vehicle Society

Hi Guys and Gals,

I'm new to this forum.

Just wanted to know if anyone knows of any power controllers that do regenerative braking to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is decellerating? Are they expensive? How efficient are they? Does anyone use them?

Cheers,
Andy

I'm currently experimenting with a Kelly controllers regen. I haven't got it working variably yet, whilst working it feels very positive. Very much like strong engine braking.
It seems to put a fair amount of juice back towards the batteries, but I'm not able to use it much untill I get it sorted. THere seems to be some gliches with the units software and I'm waiting for a replacement.

Many of Kelly's controllers have regen, and they generally ask $100 more for the feature...worth it IMO (if it works correctly)

Steve

with AC traction, particularly induction motor, you inherently get regeneration.

Have you checked out ZAPI? Most of their controllers have the option for regen braking.
http://www.electrofit-zapi.com

Hi Andy

I enjoy Regen Braking every day in my berlingo, I very rarely use my brakes to stop these days ...........it just seems such a waste of energy

It really makes me cry when you get a numpty in a ICE vehicle suddenly doing something daft in front of me and makes me have to use the brakes to scrub some speed off .

ChrisB

Regen is a bit of a tricky subject.

I've seen claims of 25% increase in range in back to back tests with and without regen. I've also seen results of less than 5% advantage and that driver got more range in the first place! It all has to do with driving style. It's better to conserve momentum than it is to try and re-capture the energy.

That said, it's always nicer to have regen than not and in hilly areas it's very useful particularly for people who don't know (or haven't been taught) how to use brakes properly.

With amateur built vehicles you have to be careful. I've seen two crashes and heard of a couple of others caused by regen. Simulating engine braking is fine, but using regen instead of the main brakes can be dangerous. On several occasions I've asked people what their attitude would be if I was to crawl under their vehicle and cut their rear brake lines (FWD vehicle), since that's effectively what heavy regen would be doing. OEM vehicles like the GM EV1 use the ABS brake controller to apply the rear brakes in proportion to the regen on the front and will seamlessly blend between regen and mechanical braking if the batteries hit their high voltage limit.

Despite what some people will tell you regen is NOT equivilent to ABS. Whilst it is true that the wheels cannot stop rotating (or they wouldn't be generating), you CAN have the situation where the wheels are rotating at 1mph whilst the vehicle is doing 60mph.

hi i have regen on my sevcon powerpak controller.you can see the juice being put back in through the paktrakr monitor when you lift off the gas.ive just got my car on the road. its a converted daewoo matiz with 72 volt lead acid power and a d&d sepex motor.dont know if it will give much extra range or not.time will tell.