Sunday the 11 of October training session.
Sunday was still more training in the bike ... we are all getting good at riding the bike :)
We did real-world testing of our new pedal generator, and it works great !!!
Now we just need to do some minor adjustments to improve it (gear ratios, permanent wiring etc…) and then it’s done.
Now we have to build another one in case this one fails.
So the next training session we will be doing more tests on our pedal generator. In case you haven’t already noticed from the pictures our bike has changed colour, Yes it has been painted ready for the race !
The bike is finally returning to “Blue Thunder”, the stickers with our sponsor’s names and the bike’s name will hopefully be placed on it this week.
Now (once the second of the two pedal generators is built and properly tested) we shall be working on the presentation of our bike (which is worth 50 % of our mark), so we have a lot of work ahead of us yet ...
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Emergency Stop Switch, 7hr+ Non-Stop runs, Redesigning the Pedal Generator
Saturday the 19 of September training session.
During the preceding fortnight we modified our frame, wiring and aerodynamic shell to fit an externally accessable High Voltage, High DC Current, Emergency Stop switch ... thanks again to our sponsor, AAEV for the key parts, guidance and assistance.
Saturday was an all day race scenario, 7 hours+, non stop. The bike’s performance was simply faultless throughout the day :)
The only down side to the day is we ate far too many doughnuts between us ... An example of too much of a good thing ...
Work on the project continued over the school holidays, the battery pack’s wiring was reviewed, redesigned, finalised and made permanent.
The bike’s aerodynamic shell was also re-conditioned and painted blue.
The pedal generator’s re-design and rebuild was finally completed and retested. Much better than sitting on the couch watching movies for two weeks :)
Ahem, Um, consumptio of large quantities of doughnuts as a form of 'meal', are no longer encouraged by our team ...
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
During the preceding fortnight we modified our frame, wiring and aerodynamic shell to fit an externally accessable High Voltage, High DC Current, Emergency Stop switch ... thanks again to our sponsor, AAEV for the key parts, guidance and assistance.
Saturday was an all day race scenario, 7 hours+, non stop. The bike’s performance was simply faultless throughout the day :)
The only down side to the day is we ate far too many doughnuts between us ... An example of too much of a good thing ...
Work on the project continued over the school holidays, the battery pack’s wiring was reviewed, redesigned, finalised and made permanent.
The bike’s aerodynamic shell was also re-conditioned and painted blue.
The pedal generator’s re-design and rebuild was finally completed and retested. Much better than sitting on the couch watching movies for two weeks :)
Ahem, Um, consumptio of large quantities of doughnuts as a form of 'meal', are no longer encouraged by our team ...
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Racetrack Routines & Procedures, minor Trouble-shooting, Yummy Sausages
Saturday the 5th of September training session.
Saturday was another day of testing the bike and refining our techniques.
We unfortunately had one fault involving an electrical short in one of the battery packs.
Fortunately we were able to trace and eradicate the fault in a matter of a few minutes. Our fault-finding and trouble-shooting is getting much better, as is our detailed knowledge of our design.
Other than that it wasn’t an incredibly eventful day ;)
We also focused on our pit stops, routines, procedures, safety and maintained track speed ... and a little less on the sausages (Thank you Tim !) :))
Also we plan to soon have have the bike running almost all of the day (approximately 8-9 hours, with only pit stops). Our job for the next two weeks is to fit the external Emergency Stop button.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Saturday was another day of testing the bike and refining our techniques.
We unfortunately had one fault involving an electrical short in one of the battery packs.
Fortunately we were able to trace and eradicate the fault in a matter of a few minutes. Our fault-finding and trouble-shooting is getting much better, as is our detailed knowledge of our design.
Other than that it wasn’t an incredibly eventful day ;)
We also focused on our pit stops, routines, procedures, safety and maintained track speed ... and a little less on the sausages (Thank you Tim !) :))
Also we plan to soon have have the bike running almost all of the day (approximately 8-9 hours, with only pit stops). Our job for the next two weeks is to fit the external Emergency Stop button.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Batteries, Rider Technique & Start again with our Pedal Generator ...
Sunday 23rd of August Training session.
Sunday we finished wiring the last of our proposed battery packs which means we are almost ready to do some serious performance testing and getting use to handling the bike and improving our riding technique on longer duration runs.
Besides that, we also tested our home made pedal generator during the week. We have discovered that it is, um, 'close to useless' ... it seems like the only thing we achieved was the spectacular destruction of electrical equipment.
We did learn some valuable safety lessons re proper testing procedures though ...
So with some more, targeted, guidance from AAEV, we've started again from scratch with the Pedal Generator design ...
We also fitted an internal, key operated, DC Electric Ignition switch to the bike and further modified our wiring loom to improve electrical safety. Thanks to our sponsor, AAEV, for the key parts, guidance and assistance.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Sunday we finished wiring the last of our proposed battery packs which means we are almost ready to do some serious performance testing and getting use to handling the bike and improving our riding technique on longer duration runs.
Besides that, we also tested our home made pedal generator during the week. We have discovered that it is, um, 'close to useless' ... it seems like the only thing we achieved was the spectacular destruction of electrical equipment.
We did learn some valuable safety lessons re proper testing procedures though ...
So with some more, targeted, guidance from AAEV, we've started again from scratch with the Pedal Generator design ...
We also fitted an internal, key operated, DC Electric Ignition switch to the bike and further modified our wiring loom to improve electrical safety. Thanks to our sponsor, AAEV, for the key parts, guidance and assistance.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Monday, November 9, 2009
More trouble-shooting, Nathan and learning to take 'the Line'
Sunday 2nd of August Training session.
Another bad start to the day ...
After having rebuilt the electrics of the bike last Tuesday, we accidentally wired our battery leads incorrectly leaving us with the wrong voltage !
This time we identified the fault and fixed in under an hour! (better than two weeks ago).
We have also decided to stop Nathan from testing the bike as it seems to break every time we let him test it ;)
Other than that we spent the day learning how to take the corners (the 'line') around the track (from the experienced riders) and getting used to riding the bike at high speed.
According to the rest of the team (they had nothing better to do than to watch me go round the track) I was the closest to rolling the bike (I thought it seemed a bit rough there).
This week we started building our pedal generator to help re-charge our batteries during the race. Our generous sponsor, AAEV, supports us with material resources and their direct assistance and guidance throughout these training sessions and has also provided us with the key parts needed (free), to build a Pedal Generator, but also explaining how to design and put it all together.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Another bad start to the day ...
After having rebuilt the electrics of the bike last Tuesday, we accidentally wired our battery leads incorrectly leaving us with the wrong voltage !
This time we identified the fault and fixed in under an hour! (better than two weeks ago).
We have also decided to stop Nathan from testing the bike as it seems to break every time we let him test it ;)
Other than that we spent the day learning how to take the corners (the 'line') around the track (from the experienced riders) and getting used to riding the bike at high speed.
According to the rest of the team (they had nothing better to do than to watch me go round the track) I was the closest to rolling the bike (I thought it seemed a bit rough there).
This week we started building our pedal generator to help re-charge our batteries during the race. Our generous sponsor, AAEV, supports us with material resources and their direct assistance and guidance throughout these training sessions and has also provided us with the key parts needed (free), to build a Pedal Generator, but also explaining how to design and put it all together.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Some fault-finding & trouble-shooting ...
19th July Training session.
The Sunday training & development session started with some minor, however, very disruptive electrical repairs (one and a half hours) that was found to be poor wire joining technique at the Pedalec sensor. This was found after someone who didn’t realise that the electric motor actually makes a big difference ! ... did 5 laps and then complained it was hard (???) (and the motor was apparently, verry ... verry ... quiet ...)
After working through logical trouble-shooting and fault-finding under AAEV's guidance, we managed to identify and resolve the fault. We continued conditioning our test & evaluation battery sets, which we started 3 weeks ago, late June.
While that was happening some of the other team members got to get some practice on two of the other recumbent bikes (HPV) that the school has. The day ended with two races, and I won one of them!!! , admittedly that’s because I was in the quicker of the two bikes and it is very hard to overtake anyone once they are in front of you :)
On Wednesday the 29th of July we had an Electrician (Tim, Liam's dad) come in to supervise us in going through to re-do, clean up and (permanently) fix up our wiring loom in the bike ... so that should hopefully stop any intermittent electrical issues from happening again.
Now that we've professionally and thoroughly installed a permanent, secured, insulated bike 'loom' (wiring) we've also now fitted our E-ABS Brake Levers, with inbuilt micro-switches.
We also finished the re-manufacturing of our battery boxes primarily for safety-handling, 'hot-swap' and for securely fitting into our frame ... we also installed our inline 'fast-blow' fuses and power-charge plugs, ready for the final battery fit-out.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
The Sunday training & development session started with some minor, however, very disruptive electrical repairs (one and a half hours) that was found to be poor wire joining technique at the Pedalec sensor. This was found after someone who didn’t realise that the electric motor actually makes a big difference ! ... did 5 laps and then complained it was hard (???) (and the motor was apparently, verry ... verry ... quiet ...)
After working through logical trouble-shooting and fault-finding under AAEV's guidance, we managed to identify and resolve the fault. We continued conditioning our test & evaluation battery sets, which we started 3 weeks ago, late June.
While that was happening some of the other team members got to get some practice on two of the other recumbent bikes (HPV) that the school has. The day ended with two races, and I won one of them!!! , admittedly that’s because I was in the quicker of the two bikes and it is very hard to overtake anyone once they are in front of you :)
On Wednesday the 29th of July we had an Electrician (Tim, Liam's dad) come in to supervise us in going through to re-do, clean up and (permanently) fix up our wiring loom in the bike ... so that should hopefully stop any intermittent electrical issues from happening again.
Now that we've professionally and thoroughly installed a permanent, secured, insulated bike 'loom' (wiring) we've also now fitted our E-ABS Brake Levers, with inbuilt micro-switches.
We also finished the re-manufacturing of our battery boxes primarily for safety-handling, 'hot-swap' and for securely fitting into our frame ... we also installed our inline 'fast-blow' fuses and power-charge plugs, ready for the final battery fit-out.
Team member 'Brains'(James)(Blue Thunder pilot)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
'Racetrack', ongoing fortnightly training & development sessions
June 28th training session.
The team started doing fortnightly (roughly), ongoing training and development sessions on a training racetrack, to simulate race conditions as closely as possible, under AAEV's detailed guidance, tuition and assistance. Each session would be either a Saturday or Sunday event, running typically from 9AM through to 4-5PM.
The 'pit', battery quarantine and charging area, and all equipment would be setup, including spares and maintenance-service equipment, as well as Solar Panels, Solar Regulator-Chargers, high end DC-AC Inverters, various Battery Chargers and test-testing equipment provided by AAEV, with the aim of progressively working out all procedural and operational issues, improving team efficiency and safety awareness under simulated ongoing race conditions, as well as realistic rider training and ongoing development and operation of the largely finalised design.
These sessions have been invaluable in skills, knowledge, procedural and safety, experiential development. In addition team members have continued with lunchtime, after hours and school holidays work between these key sessions.
This session was about primarily testing and evaluating various possible battery configurations and performance 'on the track'.
The team started doing fortnightly (roughly), ongoing training and development sessions on a training racetrack, to simulate race conditions as closely as possible, under AAEV's detailed guidance, tuition and assistance. Each session would be either a Saturday or Sunday event, running typically from 9AM through to 4-5PM.
The 'pit', battery quarantine and charging area, and all equipment would be setup, including spares and maintenance-service equipment, as well as Solar Panels, Solar Regulator-Chargers, high end DC-AC Inverters, various Battery Chargers and test-testing equipment provided by AAEV, with the aim of progressively working out all procedural and operational issues, improving team efficiency and safety awareness under simulated ongoing race conditions, as well as realistic rider training and ongoing development and operation of the largely finalised design.
These sessions have been invaluable in skills, knowledge, procedural and safety, experiential development. In addition team members have continued with lunchtime, after hours and school holidays work between these key sessions.
This session was about primarily testing and evaluating various possible battery configurations and performance 'on the track'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
