Author Topic: Regen braking on vec200  (Read 2476 times)

Offline R2pittman

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Regen braking on vec200
« on: January 28, 2025, 04:42:48 AM »
I have a quick question on writing the Regen brake setup on a solar car my students are building.  The problem Is that the motor ground is sperate from the brake circuit ground.  We run a 48v setup for the motor and a sperate 12v battery for the lights on the car. 

To wire the Regen do I feed the +12v wire to the vec200 and the negative to the black brake wire?

Thanks for any help.

Offline R2pittman

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2025, 05:39:45 PM »
Also I just checked and my vec200 did not have the yellow/white wire for the 12v brake line.  Is it supposed to?

Offline Bikemad

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2025, 11:14:57 PM »
The problem Is that the motor ground is seperate from the brake circuit ground.  We run a 48v setup for the motor and a sperate 12v battery for the lights on the car. 

To wire the Regen do I feed the +12v wire to the vec200 and the negative to the black brake wire?

Hi Ronnie,
Combining the ground connection for both the controller and the 12V system would be the obvious thing to do if you were using the +12V wire to activate the regenerative braking function on the VEC200 controller using the vehicle's 12V brake light feed.

Also I just checked and my vec200 did not have the yellow/white wire for the 12v brake line.  Is it supposed to?

The yellow&white +12V wire is shown as "optional" on the wiring diagram, so it looks like it might only have been fitted if it was requested as an optional extra when purchasing the controller.  :-\

If your controller's wiring does not have the required wire for the +12V regen operation, and you are not able to easily fit one yourself, you could alternatively use a standard 12V relay with the relay coil wires connected in parallel with the car's 12V brake lights, and simply connect the "N/O" and "Common" relay contacts (Typically pins 87 & 30) to the Blue&White +5V Brake wire and Black Ground wire.

This would automatically engage the regenerative braking when the brake lights were activated.

Alan
 

Offline R2pittman

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2025, 12:08:25 AM »
Great idea, I can handle the relay.  Thank you so much

Offline R2pittman

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2025, 01:57:56 AM »
One more question, I tried to raise three max current above 60a but three program would not let me.  Voltage is set to 60v.  Not sure what to do?

Offline Bikemad

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2025, 05:59:53 PM »
Hi Ronnie,

If you are using a 48V battery, the Nominal battery voltage should be set to 48V, which should allow a higher Battery drawn current setting to be entered.

The only parameter figures I have for the VEC200 were from a 72V version, which had the Battery drawn current set to 80A and the Maximum and Rated phase current set to 210A.

A lower battery voltage requires a higher current draw to produce the same power output, so I'm puzzled as to why your controller is not allowing values over 60A to be entered.

Alan
 

Offline R2pittman

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Re: Regen braking on vec200
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2025, 07:08:39 PM »
This is on the ebs side.  I can enter higher amps for the battery current.  I was hoping to get a little more breaking force or of the Regen brakes