Sylvester

I fitted a Woosh BBS01 kit to my old mountain bike about 3 years ago. It has been trouble-free and Woosh were very supportive. Only trouble is some of the cables are too long so look a bit untidy - I intend to shorten them. Not a criticism - better too long than too short.

So quite likely you and I both had sensors from the same dodgy batch - you will recall that I also bought my sensors via Eclipse.

I've left it out, I presume it's to fit a smaller-diameter handlebar. Or something.

My layout is similar to Kinninvie's. It works pretty well, but it's a bit of a stretch for my left thumb to reach the control buttons.

I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago. I bought a boxed toolkit from my local Halfords for about £30, which contained most of what I needed and the quality is ok. It also helps to google a few how-to videos on you-tube.

Yes, that makes sense.

The pull required on the brakes would depend on the state of the battery, so would be inconsistent and therefore unsafe. I think one needs a constant relationship between brake effort and retardation.

I meant why do you need a freewheel on a geared motor but not on a DD? Actually, answering my own question, maybe the drag of the high-revving geared motor would be more significant on the overrun (measured at the wheel) than that of a DD motor. Which would make a DD motor more efficient for regen braking than a non-freewheel geared motor.

How do DD motors manage without a freewheel?

The presence (or not) of a freewheel applies equally to geared and direct drive hub motors, and the durability of the gears is just a matter of appropriate design.

Why can't you have regen braking with a geared hub motor? I can't see that it makes any difference.

This is brake-by-wire: the rider is not directly connected to the brakes. It's then a relatively easy step to add ABS....

I'm thinking of a system with an electrically-operated friction brake working in parallel with the motor/generator. A control unit would take the brake demand signal (ie, load on the brake lever) and share it between the two retardation systems, favouring the motor/generator as much as possible. A lot easier said than done, I know, but it's basically how current F1 cars work.

If you happened to live at the top of a hill, and left home with a full battery, it's entirely possible that the battery would get saturated. So I was curious to know whether the motor would melt, or switch itself off, or whatever. Flecc's comment about Panasonic is interesting - they clearly think it's worth investigating. I wonder how one would control the level of retardation in proportion to the load on the brake lever?

If your assistance system features regenerative braking (Bionx or whatever), what happens if you use it on a long downhill? If you get to the point where the battery is fully recharged, do you lose retardation, or, if not, what happens to the heat you are dissipating? I'm just having a bit of a daydream about what would be involved in designing a seamless brake-by-wire system....