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....

Respect! Many years ago I worked for Bernie Ecclestone at the Brabham F1 team. In those days you could only buy white cable ties, but Bernie wanted black, and one does not argue with Bernie. So we boiled the white ones in black Dylon. Did the trick!

While you're waiting, you could make a start by cleaning your bike up and removing the pedals and bottom bracket. And buy lots of cable ties.

This morning I rode to Epsom to do a bit of shopping. The bike performed very well, especially on the long climb home up Ashley Road. There was quite a stiff breeze too. The way the PAS cuts in and out will take a bit of getting used to - I must get the hang of using the thumb throttle to get moving more quickly from a standstill in traffic. Gear changing was very smooth, so the brake switches must be working ok. I don't think the BBS01 system is nearly as intuitive as the Bosch. I rode a Bosch-equipped Scott the other week, it felt just like a normal bike except you didn't need need to pedal as hard. I've left the display settings at their default values for the moment. Having three assistance levels is fine and I don't feel constrained by the speed limiter. The bike, with rather a lot of cables:

I don't pretend to understand much of this, but presumably the fact that our bikes can be ridden (albeit clunkily) with the brake switches unplugged implies that the switches should be open-circuit in their as-installed state, and go to closed-circuit when the levers are pulled.

Michael, you're welcome to bring your bike over some time. We could try connecting my sensors to your system, or something.

Maybe you should have another go, with an arrangement like mine. It wasn't difficult to cobble up - I'm no craftsman.

Well, Eclipse (who supplied the hydraulic sensors) sent me a photo of how they normally mount them, and I tried to copy the concept of their arrangement. And in fact my original setup did work when the thumb throttle was in use, but not when the bike was being pedalled!

In the picture the yellow plunger is part way out, and the motor runs happily. Pulling on the brake lever a small amount allows the plunger to extend a bit further, which cuts the motor. I've set up the levers so that the power is cut before the brakes are generating any friction. I've got the bike up on a workstand so that I can play about with everything, and it all works fine.

When I "fired up" the bike for the first time the speed sensor wasn't working. After a lot of dicking about and and email correspondence with Tony at Woosh it became clear that the problem wasn't the speed sensor but the brake sensors (see earlier posts in this thread). So I removed the hydraulic-type sensors and replaced them with the sensors that came with the levers supplied with the BBS01 kit. This involved hacksawing the supplied brake levers so that the sensors could be removed, and modifying my home-made mounting brackets: So now everything works! Some of the wiring is rather untidy because the cables are mostly too long, and I'm far from being competent to shorten them, except maybe the power cables connecting the battery to the motor. I don't know why the hydraulic-type sensors didn't work - has anyone else had a similar problem? I haven't been for a proper ride yet - tomorrow, hopefully.

Very interesting, but it appears to hang rather low. I wonder if it would get damaged in a mountain bike application?