2021-10-27, 12:52 AM
It will go back into the battery however, it will flow via the internal diodes of the motor controller mosfets. They are not designed for high currents. Another issue is, if the wire from the controller to the battery failed somehow but the controller is still attached and you turned the wheel very quickly it would have nowhere for the voltage to go and could eventually trip the TVS diode and either damage components or cause a short (brake) making it very difficult to turn the wheel. This is probably really difficult to actually do.
You could potentially also add protection circuitry to dissipate the power.. but this is very non-standard so I would leave it up to you to figure out.
Anyway, I suggest you consider the friction of backdriving the motor. Unless you have a gearless solution (which is very unlikely as the electric motor would have to be huge) the added friction will be a real problem to overcome in manual steering. So I suggest you reconsider a way to engage/disengage the motor from the wheel.
You could potentially also add protection circuitry to dissipate the power.. but this is very non-standard so I would leave it up to you to figure out.
Anyway, I suggest you consider the friction of backdriving the motor. Unless you have a gearless solution (which is very unlikely as the electric motor would have to be huge) the added friction will be a real problem to overcome in manual steering. So I suggest you reconsider a way to engage/disengage the motor from the wheel.