Current Avinox MG Prototype Bikes Don't Support Battery Regen

[Ndanger]

I expect that if battery regeneration is light, reliable, reliable and uncomplicated to maintain it might be the useful in some scenarios. But non of these are likely.

 

[TorAtle]

the mere presence of chain tensioner disqualifies reverse tension on the belt/chain that is essential to battery regeneration

You could have 2 tensioners, one for each direction?

 

[slickrock]

You could have 2 tensioners, one for each direction?

That would be exactly what you don't want. The point is to have zero-tensioned slack on the chain/belt to drive power transfer. The top half of the chain loop is completely handled by pedal or motor slack take-up (for what little there is) and as long is there's forward momentum, there is zero-tensioned slack. Tensioner up top just wouldn't make sense.

On an a derailleur system, the derailleur takes the tensioner role for the bottom half of the chain, only, and takes up all that chain slack to support the dish-sized gear cluster in the the cassette. For dual suspension MTB/EMTB, this importantly does double duty by taking up chain growth that befalls nearly all the dual-suspension designs out there. For MTU systems (MGU/ECVT/PBW), you need that spring tensioner solely for the purpose of taking up chain slack due to the chain growth for dual suspension as it goes through its travel. If the bike had regen then forces at the generator would take up slack, fully extending the tensioner and pull the rear suspension back down, creating ridiculous anti-squat and chain snap. So the point it to remove all slack in the chain/belt loop so the drive/generator forces can operate symmetrically: all spring tensioners must be gone. Which IMO is actually a good thing. That's why I'm a fan of concentric-pivot designs for gearbox/IGH MTB and ECVT/MGU/PBW for EMTB - you can ditch the tensioner for good. And ditch Ochains and Sidekick hubs for good as well since there is no pedal kickback or chain whipping.

 

[sethimus]

there is a reason why there were so little mtbs with concentric pivots and the brands who built them were not successful