Well I'm 100% whole after the hack.
This is a very long post, just a heads up, more electric stuff that many might not care about.
Update about regen braking, most direct drive motors and their controllers work in regen mode back feeding to a lithium battery regardless of having or not having a built in BMS. A internally geared motor hub or mid motor with a Sprag type clutch won't work to provide regen (unless the clutch is modified to lock it up) the drive train can't use a free wheel on the rear wheel either. The motor has to drive forward and reverse to use as a motor and a generator. Direct drive motors work in both direction so they are ideal. Motors which are internally geard but modified as I described, can only work for regen braking if all the drive gears are straight cut, helical gears won't take the force of the motor driving as a generator or for that a motor used to reverse a cycle or go cart etc. too much thrust force on these small helical to stand up driving in reverse direction as a generator but excellent as a motor.
I have found no reason or coherent reason that the multi battery parallel balancer won't work on regen if one selects a motor and controller designed within the parameters as descibed above. Several factory bikes run the dual battery setup using a parallel balancer with no problem and lithium Ion packs with BMS and of the same voltage. Radio control guys use flat packs a lot with parallel pack power, without BMS, but they balance periodically to stabile pack voltage. Scooter guys run with or without BMS, flat pack or 1860 lithium packs. Most of these are dual motors and many dual battery packs with BMS or manual balancing. Some are using parallel battery pack balancers also others hardwiring their packs in parallel, but always running matching voltage. So none of this is theory. I'd say the RC guys know more about lithium battery power, both theory and actual design and ultra powerful high performance use than any. Scooters really very knowledgeable too. In general most ebike guys just buy what a company sells and most sales material is just that or non existent.
Guys like Tony01 know because they design, build and ride a lot. I appreciate his input ...all input 'cause I sure don't know it all, just learning.
Learning to actually build and ride an electric isn't intuitive and though not really complicated, it's strange. One thing that I know is significant, is that riding hilly or mountainous terrain with regen braking creates a lot of heat both ascending and descending, in both diections. Component life will be very short if one doesn't noth learn & remember this. Just coasting down a hill you don't cool with regen the motor just gets much hotter with the heat already high from the climb up the hill. Cooling only occurs on the flats, wherever they are encountered, so significant reduction of speed is necessary to cool down on flat sections. Staying cool is really vital, especially using regen in hills.
So I'm temporarily rigging up my analysis meter to get a grip on real time system performance of the Ol' Crow and will rig up a permanent mount for GPS and the analist later.
Long post, sorry...
Rick C.
