Regen braking: confirmed!

[teknorc]

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that regenerating isn't happening while braking. There is stored energy in the vehicle to be recaptured. But unless the regeneration or conversion of the stored kinetic energy is 100% efficient, some other energy must be used to stop the car, especially if you are braking hard at high speed. If the conversion was 100% efficient we'd have a perpetual motion machine in our RC cars. Shorted motor resistance is one thing, but we all know how motor brakes can flip a car on it's lid. If shorting was that powerful you wouldn't be able to turn a brushless motor shaft by hand if all three wires were touching each other. This is why I think there is power being applied while braking.

Again, I'm not an electrical engineer, maybe at higher speeds, the shorting becomes more powerful and violent enough to flip the car, not sure. This still doesn't explain why a lot of people are experiencing better run times using mechanical brakes though. I'd like to know for sure from someone who can explain it as well. I've read up on full scale regenerative braking and they all have mechanical brakes to supplement the regenerative brakes for various reasons. One of the reasons cited was to more quickly bring the vehicle to a stop from higher speeds.

So, please, someone explain. If motor braking is indeed free, I have a couple things I want to try to get even more run time