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regenerative breaking capability


stevenvo

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Beside Solowheel, I haven't seen any EUC provider officially advertise about their wheel can save energy by recharging the battery during braking and downhill riding. And I assume if the wheel can't regenerate energy, in the case of going downhill or breaking it will have to spend more energy to compensate and maintain its balance. I'm open to discussion and learn if your wheel has this feature. Probably a good way to save energy and thus reduce the battery size / wheel size / weight... 

Edit 1: Attach the screenshot from SW website. I own an Inmotion V5F+ and not sure how much regenerative (if any) my wheel has. Anyone loves to share the thoughts?

 

2016-11-15_00-16-38.png

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I've ridden 'hundreds' of miles in the mountains of Southern California. Gotway and Kingsong wheels. You absolutely recover energy. I can ride much farther in the mountains than I can on flat ground. It's substantial. You can look at your battery capacity at the top of a hill, and after riding a few miles down your battery level will be higher.

I'm pretty sure that even the cheapest wheels recover energy for the batteries.

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Absolutely they all do. The potential energy gained by being at the top of the hill has to go somewhere as you go down the hill. If the wheel is braking as you go down the hill then the potential energy is not all turning into kinetic energy. Some is going into friction (heat) but all the rest HAS to go back into the battery, otherwise you would be freewheeling down the hill. 

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ALL EUCs have regenerative braking: this is the fundamental design of gearless electric unicycles.

 

Unlike an I.nternal C.ombustion E.ngine automobile, our brake is the wheel reversing direction (engine/motor braking, just like Tesla will do by default), not metal brake clamps providing friction to a wheel for the wheel to stop.

By the first law of thermodynamics / conservation of energy law, energy lost must equal energy gained.

In the case of ICE cars, the loss in kinetic energy of the wheel by the brake being applied is mainly dissipated into the air as heat energy coming off the metal brakes. However, in our EUCs, when braking, the reversal of the motor rotation (engine/motor braking) must transfer most of the loss in kinetic energy back into the battery, as the roles of motor and battery reverse (I always think of grade school science exhibits where manually rotating a crank (motor) lights an attached light bulb (battery)). This phenomenon is called back-emf, I believe.

 

The SoloWheel claims just sound like marketing hype. I haven't seen any proof of one company making wheels that are more efficient than others in regards to regenerative braking capabilities.

 

(p.s. I don't profess to be an expert on all this; just my understanding of it.... if anyone wants to correct me~)

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