Be careful with EABS on some controllers

[John in CR]

Apparently the Chinese are making some controllers with something they call E-ABS, Electric Anti-lock Brake System, but it may not be regen. Make sure what you think is regen actually sends current to the battery and not just a instantaneous spike in current. What you want to see is the reverse sag of regen. This EABS thing is just a form of plug braking. Sure it feels nice and smooth and works all the way down to a stop, but that braking force is turned into heat in the controller, motor, and phase wires. It is easy to blow controllers and burn up motors with this system. It is meant only for very low power slow ebikes where the braking energy is low.

John

[Drunkskunk]

Good to know, I was woundering what the hell they were actualy doing to make "ABS" on some of the mystery box controllers.

[John in CR]

Good to know, I was woundering what the hell they were actualy doing to make "ABS" on some of the mystery box controllers.

I argued back and forth with my supplier saying that EABS had to be regen, which is by nature ABS. I just couldn't believe they were running plug braking with no exterior resistor to dissipate the heat. It is more sophisticated than the DIY some have used on the board, because it is switched on an off using the fets and not just a solid short of the phases. This EABS thing has led the Chinese to believe that regen is bad, and is hard on the controller, so regen is rarely used over there. That's probably due to the low power batteries they use more than anything else.

The problematic result is the lack of innovation related to regen. How can we still not have variable force regen other than with expensive controllers? Of course there's also the caveman-like throttle control we still suffer too.

John

[Lessss]

Some of the fewer fet controllers can blow even with true regen. I replaced 50 controllers for bike I sell because the original controllers were blowing fets due to the regen. I couldn't risk customers blowing controllers simply from stopping.
The original controllers were Santrol I believe.