Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

Using an Alltrax controller.

Does everyone that has converted to lithium packs turned off brake regen completely? I am worried at "full" charge (90-95% SOC) that the first few braking could overcharge the pack. I don't see how you could put more energy back into the cart than was used, but I saw a few people having issues with regen.

I think default setting in Alltrax is 65 Amps for Max regen.

Also, turning off regen puts more work on the brakes.

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

I did not turn off the Regen. Unless you are going down a huge hill right after charging, you are not going to overcharge the pack using Regen. It does increase your range a bunch if you do lots of start/stops (which I do).

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

The Regenerative events don't last long enough to create an overcharge issue, a 60 amp battery Regen event for 1 minute would add less than 1Ah to the pack and the cart would have stopped after less than 20 sec at the regen current anyway.

If your BMS is properly setup the 'maximum charge voltage' for the pack is less than the 'Max cell voltage' setting multiplied by the number of cells you have in series.

Make sure you change the Alltrax setting for 'Over Voltage' to be slight less than your 'Max cell voltage' x 'number of cells'.

The Alltrax Controller will dynamic adjust the Regen brake force to stay below the 'Max Regen Battery Amps' and the 'Over Voltage' setting.

You can also play with the 'Maximum Regen Armature Amps', If you set that value higher than 'Max Regen Battery Amps', the braking effect increase will only be noticeable under low speed.

I love my Regen brake and would not have a cart without it.

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

I don't have Regen on my cart. OTOH.....since I want "quiet" for hunting....I don't want\need the "whine" as I'm coming down hills in the woods.

I guess that's why options like that are a wonderful thing!!

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

Thank you all for replying.


>>The Alltrax Controller will dynamic adjust the Regen brake force to stay below the 'Max Regen Battery Amps' and the 'Over Voltage' setting.

This is excellent insight.

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

BTW, Volt & Sergio, you guys have been extremely helpful in getting up to speed on these lithium carts with your many posts. I can't thank you enough.

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

Me too! Although I do not have much with my Executioner, I do have some.

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

I don't have regen, but my wife does. I have been interested in the conversation, even though I do not know much about how the regen works, other than just the basics. One poster mentioned disconnecting the regen and someone else mentioned that it could cause damage if they are not careful.

This may sound dumb for those of you that are knowledgeable on the subject, and maybe someone else has already asked this in the past, but I have one question. If the cart works very well without the regen when operated on a level surface, would it be possible to put a cutout toggle switch in line so that the driver could shut it off when they are cruising on level ground? It might act sort of like an overdrive. I imagine that if this was possible, someone else would have already done it, right?

Re: Turn Off Brake Regen Completely?
 

IMO Regen is no big deal and not a problem unless you have a fully charged pack and you start out down a steep hill. I drive on level ground and I let the Regen slow me down for turns rather than only using the brakes. This increases range slightly and reduces wear on the braking system. My cart is a Yamaha with Altrax controller - DC motor.