break situation recommendations for front hub motor DIY ebike kits

[Beyizzer]

I have:
- a kona cinder cone mountain bike
- a pinty front wheel motor
- a 48v 17Ah Lithium Ion Reention Shark battery
- disc breaks on the back
- and v brakes on the front

I'm going through disc brakes like crazy. any recommendations? I've definitely gotten the hang of breaking a lot sooner, and not necessarily driving top speed on every single turn and street i go through, but sometimes I gotta take a route that's downhill with a red at the bottom, and i'm basically sanding them down to nothing in a matter of days. What's weird to me is the V Brakes don't need as much replacing, they don't seem to be useless as soon as the disc brakes.

[HarryS]

In a hard braking situation, the front tire provides most of the braking. Fronts should wear out first. Are you sure your front brakes are set up right? Cantilever or v-brakes? My first ebike, I couldn't get the cantilevers to ever stop. Parts were 20 years old and I was losing most of the cable pulling power to friction and flex. Switched to v-brakes.






You have a pretty simple controller on your direct drive Pinty motor that doesn't support regenerative braking. You could upgrade to one that does. Probably cost you almost as much as you paid for the kit, like $100 and it will need a lot of wiring. Then you have to make sure your front fork will support the added stress which is like twice as much with regenerative braking. Most people would add double torque arms. You should have them anyway.

[Robert62]

I have the same setup on one of my bikes. I think the issue is this: when you apply force to the handles, the disc brake is more sensitive and you are actually braking much harder with the rear than the front. Your natural instinct is to pull equally on both handles. Try preferentially using the front brake and only use the rear in a panic stop. Also you could switch to metal pads but there are other issues with these that you should read about.
Robert