DIY or buy? Pack+ESC protection for long downhill runs?

[BenjaminF]

@Battery_Mooch

Any commercially great solutions out there?

maytech sold a rheostatic brake unit at one point. I’m pretty sure it just wired in parallel with the battery, but I dont know.

@Battery_Mooch

Or all they all just resistors with a FET allowing current to flow at a certain voltage?

May have been like this, may have been even worse haha.

“First Build” (BOTY2020 nominee) had something like this.

@RomainOnWheels

However, I could not find a board that looked safe enough for the steep slopes of Lausanne, where I live. These are the points that really frightened me, and that I needed to address:

• It is not possible to brake effectively at high speed for a long time, while going downhill. The braking power normally goes back to the battery, but what if the power is too high or the battery is full? Either the cells are damaged (no limits in the ESC configuration), or the braking torque decreases with speed (limited regen current and cell voltage).
• In the case a mosfet blows, a possible failure mode is shorting two phases of the motor, which leads to an unexpected strong braking effect and a hard fall.
• For sharp turns, you need lose trucks and soft bushings, but this may lead to speed wobble.

And finally, I simply wanted to train my electronics skills! So, I started this project that involved not only the usual DIY of mechanically making the board, but also the design of the PCBs themselves!

Seems like he was trying to solve the exact problem your friends are having

@RomainOnWheels thing you could weigh in on this issue?