Race Day 3: 27 October 2009

Renner Springs - Tennant, trailer to Alice Springs

Tested Array and fixed MPPT's in the morning, they work! Also found that we had the multimeter set wrong for the battery current shunt, and current readings were way down. So this meant that, the array power was much more than we thought, but so was total power use.

We set off determined to make Tennant Creek before the control closed. Unfortunately Felino, the expert from the old NTU Desert Rose team, has to leave us today, so I was it! The only electronics/technical person in the team! I was now team strategist, and I had a race to run! We set off, using a constant battery current strategy. We were finally getting accurate current readings, and the motor power was awefull! We were only making 30 kph at over 1000W! The head wind didn't help much either. We decided to stop to check the rear brake. It was way out of line, and draging badly. After about 30 minutes or more we had the wheel running nicely, so off we went. Speed increase, but solar power was still low due to the haze, and we didn't get much charge the previous evening/morning. As the morning went on the solar power increased and we were able to drive at 50-60kph for a while untill we reached Tennant Creek at 2:30pm, after the official close. No officials were there, no leader board, only several confused and frustrated solar car teams and their observers. There were many other teams behind us too. We decided to trailer to Alice Springs get a fresh start there, and once again catch up with the crazy control closing time in this Global "Green" trailer race.

We arrived in Alice at 8:10pm, well after the supposed 5:10 dead line, but realistically, we are trailering, in a normal registered vehicle, on a public road. We can drive at what ever time of the day or night we damned well please, and we don't need official permission! After all, it's their crazy closing times that make it nessesary! We decided to go to the control stop the next morning, after fixing the radio PTT button, and array structure damage.

We stayed at the Winter Sun camp ground in Alice, same as Esteban. They had finally got their car fixed after a surge took out a whole heap of critical systems only 12km from Darwin. Day 4 will be the first time since then they will be able to race again! Good luck!

Cold night in Alice. Sleeping bag and polar fleece stuff!

Remember Aileron? photos to come