Solar Fern solar racing team

WSC 1993

2011-10-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

You Tube "World Solar Challenge 1993"

6 parts, it is a 1 hour docco made by GM about the 1993 WSC, the 3rd ever event.

Note 3 cars in part 6, from 7:08, first S0lar Kiwi, then later Tokai, and Ashiya! Yip, Solar Kiwi bet Tokai and Ashiya way back in 1993!

Day 4 - Wednessday 19 October

2011-10-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

Don't Stop Us Now!

Teams have been barrelling down the highway today, at least until near Glendambo for the 3 top teams. There is a strong tail wind which has been keeping speeds up, even though the cloud rolled in later in the day.

By the end of Day 4 Tokia had slowed considerably, and Nuon was catching up fast. Michigan would also have caught up more if it were not for some bodywork coming off their car in the wind, which cost them almost 40 minutes, but of course they still got the charge. Tokia is now just south of Pimba, the turnoff to Woomera, Nuon is just on the other side, 17km from Tokai. There is some speculation that Nuon may have stopped a few minutes after 5pm to make them look closer. We'll see if the gap increases after they start tomorrow. Michigan is at Glendambo ready to start at 8am sharp (arrived 4:30 - SA has daylight saving, but the race runs on NT time, no daylight saving, still 3.5 hours behind NZ). Tokai have 520km to go, and should manage that tomorrow even at a slower speed.

Aurora, Ashiya Sky Ace, and Twente continue to battle it out with the lead changing several times today. But there is still about 250km between them and the front pack.

Umicore and Twente have made gains today, while Aurora and Sunswift have slipped back and slowed down. Sunswift had some motor trouble today, Aurora are probably just saving energy. Istanbul Socrat and Stanford have picked up the pace today, while Apollo and Okinawa have slipped back.

From Umicore's blog "Umicore Solar Team today have only one goal: attack", and they did, flying past Sunswift, catching Aurora, and are now within 15km of Ashiya Sky Ace. They covered almost as much ground as Tokia today, only Nuna has been more agressive today. Umicore reckon their batteries are well charged from a conservative strategy to date.

The weather forcast for tomorrow is not good. Cloud and even a few showers right up to Coober Pedy later in the day. Also the wind may turn south west closer to Adelaide, which is more a side wind with a bit of head wind - sailing potential - at least south of Glendambo. The bad weather continues on Friday, with more southerlies, cloud and rain from North of Coober Pedy down. Forecast is for partly clearing weather on Saturday, but still some rain and probably plenty of cloud.

Tomorrow we find out who has good battery reserves!

Even based on the speeds up to now, it looks doubtful that any cars past Sunswift will make it all the way to Adelaide by the end of Friday, and with 2 more days of bad weather even they look doubtful.

A few more cars look capable of reaching Port Augusta by mid day Saturday. The officials may (should!) extend the closing time due to the delay at Tennant creek. Lets hope so! If they do I would hope Socrat, Stanford, Okinawa, and Apollo will make it.

As for the other teams - make the most of the good weather north of Coober pedy! It will only get worse! Once the batteries go down it will be on the trailer all the way to Adelaide.

For daily solar insolation check out http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/solar/index.jsp

For 4 day weather maps: http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/4day_col.shtml

For actual forecasts in SA: http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/forecasts/map.shtml

Solar Website . NL

2011-10-19T03:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.solarwebsite.nl

This is a very good website following the race, with bits from team blogs, weather and lots of interesting insights.

Go SolarWebsite!

Day 3: Smoke, Fire and Tennant Creek

2011-10-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

Day 3 was domniated by FIRE!

Large bush fires at Barrow Breek closed the Stuart Highway on day 2, about 4 hours before the end of the day. As a result all teams have been delayed about 4 hours to maintain race position, with all but the top 3 being delayed at Tennant creek. Many teams arrived at Tennant creek on day 2 after the road closure, and didn't set off until this morning according to the time they came in. More arrived this morning, also being delayed 4 hours before they could set off again. As a result most teams spent much of the day in Tennant creek charging their batteries, blogging, and seeing the sights.

One team that was charging was the Philippines team, and after 2 hours it seems at least one of their cells became overcharged and the battery pack caught fire! Fortunately they were working on the car at the time, and were able to save the car. By the start of day 4 they had repaired the battery pack and were ready to start racing again.

NT news reports that the hotel at Barrow creek has narrowly survived the fires - good news!

The smoke was a huge factor for teams travelling past Tennant creek, greatly reducing solar power. Michigan reported that the fire was lapping up against the edge of the road with smoke blowing across the road in places, so they had to drive on the other side of the road for a bit to pass the fire!

Tokia has taken a commanding lead now being the only one past Kulgera near the border at the end of the day. Nuon and Michigan are both at Kulgura control stop at the end of the day, about 40 minutes behind Tokai. Tokai has been travelling at around 105kph, and pulling ahead.

Aurora, Twente, and Ashiya Sky Ace have been battling it out for 4th, stopping within a few km of each other at the end of the day, about 50km from Alice. Sunswift is 7th and Umicore is 8th, both just past Alice.

In order: Socrat, Stanford, Okinawa, Apollo, Nanyang, and Sakarya (Saguar) have not trailered and are past Tennant creek, while Qazvni (Iran), Principia, MIT, Onda (Italy), Philippines, Chile, and Calgary, are waiting at Tennant creek, but have not trailered.

Bochum is in Tennant Creek, having trailered only 250km so far.

Teams also report smoke between Dunmarra and Tennant creek on day 2, greatly reducing solar power. Lots of blogs were updated while teams waited in Tennant creek!

The WSC facebook page is good

2011-10-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/WorldSolarChallenge/

Trailer Racing!

2011-10-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

13 out of 37 cars have trailered (or will have to) by the end of day 2.

Once a car trailers the time is no longer relevant, and it's all about how many km they drive in the time available. This is where trailering time becomes important, and where the race becomes a trailer race. A good trailering strategy will help a tail runner team get as much solar car road time as possible. Charging while trailering will allow higher solar speeds and less trailering.

I believe a more structured official approach to trailering will help make trailering safer and fairer by removing incentives to trailer too fast or too long. Such an official trailering strategy would involved compulsory trailering stages and fixed start times for cars not reaching specific control points by given times. Such a strategy would help keep the field together, and get slow cars well forward so they can drive long stretches without constantly getting behind. It would effectively create a number for shorter sub-races for slower teams.

Officials could make exceptions for faster cars that have been delayed through breakdown or weather.

For example:

Day1: Darwin to Katherine - 317km solar

Cars not reaching Katherine or having trailered to Katherine by end of Day 1:
Day 2: trailer to Tennant creek - 670km + any distance not covered on day 1.
Day 3-4: Tennent to Alice - 510km solar
Cars that reach Alice without further trailoring before the end of Day 4 can continue driving.
Otherwise.
Day 5: Trailer to Coober Pede - 680km
Day6-7: Coober Pede to Port Augusta by 5pm - 522km solar
Day 8: Sunday trailer to Adelaide. - 300km

Cars not reaching Tennant Creek by 14:00 on Day 3, trailered or not:
Day 3,4: Trailer to Alice, 510km + distance to Tennant at 14:00 Day 3.

Cars not reaching Alice by end of Day 4, trailered or not:
Day 5,6: Trailer to Glendambo - 932km + distance not covered to Alice, 2 days
Day 7: Glendambo to Port Augusta - 290km solar
Day 8: Sunday, trailer to Adelaide. - 300km

Trailering to Glendambo may seem a little harsh, but if a team wants to trailer to Coober Pede they had better start trailering before Alice, to reach Alice before sunset on day 4. The next day will be a long trailer drive from Alice to Coober Pede (680km). A team wanting to drive to Coober Pede should trailer the remaining distance to Alice by the end of day 4, so they can drive the solar car out of Alice at 8am Day 5.

Cars not reaching Coober Pede by end of day 5 on trailer, or 13:00 day 6 without trailering:
Day 6: Trailer to Coober Pede, Start when they arrive up to 13:00
otherwise trailer to Glendambo by end of day 6 (200km trailer)
Day 7: Glendambo to Port Augusta - 290km solar
Day 8: Sunday trailer to Adelaide. - 300km

Cars not reaching Glendambo by end of day 7, trailered or not:
Day8: Trailer direct to Adelaide. 590km + distance to Glendambo.

Obviously, the control closure times would be based on these trailering requirements.

Officials may still allow a solar car to proceed even if they miss one deadline, if they have not missed any previous deadlines.

This strategy does not allow for solar car driving on Sunday, ie a 7 day race. However I believe a better strategy would allow some driving on Sunday while still allowing time for team to reach the awards ceremony on Sunday night.

I believe a new official finish line should be opened in Port Augusta Friday morning (day 6), so that cars that cannot make it to Adelaide by the time the road closes for solar cars (Friday 5pm) can do a ceremonial finish in Port Augusta rather than wasting time in Adelaide. Solar cars could simply be parked in the tents in Adelaide on Sunday when they arrive on their trailer.

A team must drive about 390km each day to reach Port Augusta by the end of Day 7. They would pass Katherine (317) by the end of day 1, pass Tennent Creek (988) about an hour before 14:00 on day 3, reach Alice (1498) about an hour before the end of day 4, reach Coober Pede (2178) around 12:00 day 6, Glendambo (2430) about 10:00 Day 7, and finish in Port Augusta (2719) at 5pm Day 7.

By Dunmara check point, about 1/2 the field were on target to achieve this, and all the remaining cars that had not trailered were close. 25 cars reached Katherine before the end of Day 1, all these cars were on track to do 390km on day 1, 12 cars didn't make it before the end of the day.

A car with a 1kW array, given minimum average WSC sunshine (6.5 Kwh/m2 per day) and a 4.5kWh battery would have 50 kWh to use in 7 days, at an average cruise speed of about 50 kph, with minimal time for stops and no breakdowns. To complete the distance the car would need to achieve 18.4 Wh/km, or 920W at 50 kph.

Back in NZ and watching closely - end of Day 2.

2011-10-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

After 8 hours flying I'm back in NZ, and I'm now intently following the teams blogs and official websites.

I've still got more photos from the start of the race to upload, so watch facebook.com/solarfernracing

At the end of Day 2:

Very interesting racing this year, with a very tight top 3 bunch. The next 5 or so cars were well within striking distance if they were playing a more conservative strategy.

The big issue in this year's race is the fires south of Tennant Creek. I gather these extend all the way to Alice and even further south. Not only do these cause a significant loss of power from the smoke haze, but the road south of Tennant creek was actually closed to all traffic, cutting day 2 short for many teams. It seems there is the possibility of damage to the control stop at Barrow creek, and this has now been moved to Ti Tree, about 100km further on. I think Barrow Creek is the crazy small bar with all the money and other cool stuff on the walls - a real shame if that has been damaged!

The top 3 cars made it past Tennant Creek before the road closed, and stopped in Wauchope (said "walk-up"). The next 8 cars were stopped in Tennant Creek before the end of the day. Wauchope is 114km past Tennant Creek, about 12km past the Devils Marbles, and 17km before Wycliffe Well (UFO capital of Australia!). Solar Fern made it to the Devil's marbles at the end of Day 3 in 2007.

The top 3 are: Tokia, Nuon, and Michigan, all keeping together in a tight group.

At Tennant Creek the next 8 are: Aurora, Ashiya Sky Ace 5, Twente, Sunswift, Umicore, Socrat (Istanbull), Okinawa, and Stanford. Official times are on the wsc.org.au website. Of these the first 5 are within 40 minutes of each other, and 2-3 hours behind the top 3 cars, 160-200km behind before road closures.

It is quite possible that the top 3 had low batteries at the time of the road closure, while the others may have been more conservative and still have good batteries. Given the battery situation and the long distance still to come it is quite possible that the top cars may slow down and the next group could speed up and close the gap with little overall energy penalty, in fact, the more conservative strategy may be more efficient. The extra 160-200km represents around 2-3 kwh of battery capacity, so it is well within the battery capacity on the cars. The real race position of the top 8 cars at the time of road closure is still in the battery, not on the road.

However the road closures have really upset the strategy. With the cars stopped for most of the afternoon, and in the morning before their official restart, the cars that have used the most battery power to get out ahead, have gained the most from the full charge during the stoppage. The top 3 are now probably equal in battery with the next 5, so the extra 114km on the road represents a very real advantage. To add to that advantage the 160-200km spacing will be maintained by the officials when the cars at Tennant are started later than the cars at Wauchope. This all fair and correct, but the benefits of the conservative strategy of the cars at Tennant are now all wiped out, and the top cars now have a 2-3kwh advantage, which will be very hard for the next 5 to make up. They can no longer rely on the top 3 running low on batteries.

If the top 3 teams had bet on road closures to recharge their batteries, that has now paid off big time. This has all but decided the top 3 places.

Cars arriving at Tennant today before 2pm will be subject to a 3:52 delay to maintain fair race positions. Cars arriving after 2pm will probably have to wait for the car ahead of them to leave first. The 6 hours until 2pm so this will effect any cars within 6 hours of Tennant creek at the end of day 2, ie any car that got through Dunmara by the end of day 2, which is all the cars that have not yet trailered. These cars could slow down to save batteries and aim to arrive at Tennant Creek at 2pm, so their delay will be minimised as they wait for earlier cars to restart after their 3:52 delay. Many cars will reach full charge during the delay. Of course race officials may reduce the delay for cars arriving nearer 2pm anyway, so slowing down may not be an advantage after all.

Underway!

2011-10-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

16 October 2011

World Solar Challenge is under way!

I haven't had much time to put a lot of detail here, but photos are being uploaded to Facebook, with a few comments.

The race started at 8:30 this morning, with 37 cars qualified and ready to go, almost.

Twente started in pole position, after really pushing in on the track, riding 2 wheels around the hairpin!

One front wheel, and one back wheel in the air (to reduce rolling resistance :0)

The WSC website is much better this year, with live car loations! Check out

http://dashboard.worldsolarchallenge.org/

So many good cars this year. Tokai, Aurora, Michigan, Nuna, Umicore, SkyAce 5, Sunswift.

Here's my pick, but it will be very close:

1. Michigan

2. Nuna

3. Tokai

4. Aurora

5. Umicore

All these cars are around 150kg.

I rate Michigan #1 since they have done so much testing, and have a very clean and refined car. The actually built two cars, the second being a refinement of the first, and raced the two cars against each other. They are fairly friendly this year too. Their race car has gocherman lamination.

Nuna look good, gocherman lamination, cells cut small for high voltage and best fit. They have done a lot of work around the wheels with tight wheel covers, front and rear fairing which moves with the wheel inside the bigger spats and are only a few mm above the ground. They have stretchy material between the fixed outer spates and the inner wheel covers. Very clean. Still, I think Michigan have more experience with poor weather and strategy, which may prove decisive.

Tokai are a professional team, but I'm not so sure about their array, which has top side metalisation, but the cells are meant to be good. Tokai have rear wheel steering for tight corners, and for crabbing.

I would rate Aurora higher, but the seem to lack the passion to win this year, without David. Still if they get their mojo back they could do better. It's still a very clean and light car, and they have 24 years solar car experience, and very good and well refined strategy. Aurora won 1999 with the bad weather that year.

Umicore are the only competitive car with GaAs, 3m2, 35%, (confirmed by Hanns Gocherman himself!) That's not enough in itself, but they have concerntrators, very nice ones too. They will work well with direct sunlight but with bad weather forecasts, I don't think it will be enough.

Unfortunately Sunswift don't have the good tyres, and all the teams I've spoken to who have tested the tyres say it makes a huge difference, as much as 200 watts! I don't think their brush skirts on the rear will do them any favours either - I hope they take these off at some point.

I don't know much about SkyAce 5, the successor to Tiga. More of a track car, but still very competitive. Not as clean as the others - custom Mitsuba motor.

Stanford will be one to watch. So many innovations, the skirt, crabbing, 3 wheel steering, i-phone lamination, even to top is hinged about 1/3 from the front. Still, they are a bit heavy, and dont have the best tyres, but they should be up there.

MIT are much more budget this year, but they should be a solid mid field car.

Twente were fast on the track. They are very aurora looking, but probably not as well refined or experienced. Should still do well.

Bochum had trouble on the starting grid, but got their motor controller under control and got away at the end of the field.

The Koreans has tyre trouble on the grid, and tried to replace the tyre, but could not get the bead to seat with a hand pump. They eventually went off to a service station to pump up the tyre. They have not spare wheels, and their compressor was packed away. But they should get away eventually. Good luck!

The Indian team's solar car was all ready to race, but their support cars did not turn up! Problems at the hire car place I gather. They should get that sorted, then they will be on their way.

WSC 2011 - Rob's in Darwin

2011-10-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

Wednessday 12 October 2011

I'm in Darwin for the track part of the 2011 World Solar Challenge.

I'll be here until Sunday 16th when the Challenge begins.

Photos from today are on Facebook with a few comments.

Rain on the ground this morning. It has stopped but there's still plenty of cloud. The cloud occasionally broke for the teams to test solar panels, but the cloud kept it a bit cooler, although still humid.

I took the YikeBike into Hidden Valley today. I rode to the nearest bus stop in Darwin folded the Yike and waited for the bus. Everyone waiting was amazed. Took the bus to Hidden Valley road, where I unfolded the Yike and took off on the 4 km trip to Hidden Valley. This is much better than walking, like I did last year!

Having a YikeBike at a solar car race gets a lot of attention! Everyone wants to know me :)

Most of the teams are here, a few are at scrutnieering, which started today, and several have their own workshop elsewhere in Darwin - Nuna, Umicore, Cambridge, and Bochum, maybe some others.

Camera trouble today, so not so many photos, but many good discussions with the teams.

So first up, Aurora. Same car as last time with a few improvements. They are running the Mitchelin tyres again this time. They say they are better this year. The team is going string after the loss of Dave Fewchuck, and the retirement of strategist Peter Pudney from the team.

Onda Solare from Italy are interesting. They are the first Italian team, and they are a private team with members from industry, and some from the Ferrari technical school. They aren't a Ferrari team, but Ferrari are supporting them and hosted their grand unveiling.

The Onda car ,Emilia2, has a carbon tube frame, and the back section has tubes that slide inside the front section, sliding back for the driver to get out. The top shell comes off in 3 parts, see later photos. They also have a chain drive and a cluster on their motor. The motor moves side and back to change gears and tension the chain.

UMP solar a budget team from Malaysia are lead by the same guy that did the 2009 budget car (open frame, car looking, blue) . This time they have golden motors (like my electric bike), but 48V 1000W versions with their own axle and a disc brake fitted. They can get 50kph with their large wheels but are limited by their 48V MPPT. Motor cycle forks, bicycle forks were too weak. Drum brakes on rear, for hand brake and to meet dual braking system.

Calsol Impulse 25 from Berkley USA, have the VW sticker. Their array is laminated as a compound curve! Laminated by the team over a plug the same shape as the car with a vacuum. It worked pretty well, although the edges of the cells are not perfectly flush with the surface. Otherwise standard EVA-tedlar layup.

Stanford, 16, has rear wheel steering, driven by an actuator. It can be either set to crab the car sideways, or work with the front steering for tight cornering. So the front wheel spats are narrow, and so is the suspension. The suspension is very cunning, with a double top linkage giving a virtual centre directly above the tyre. There is no accerman either, since this would change the toe when crabbing. With the top virtual centre the kingpin angle is zero, and the wheels turn in less space. The shock is below the bottom arm.

They have one caliper on each front wheel, and one on the rear. Stanford also have tight fitting wheel covers that turn with the wheel inside the spats. The spats have skirts that almost touch the ground, made of carbon and a flexible resin. This is all in aid of sailing when they crab the car. Apparently this was done by Tokai in 2009.

Stanford have laminated their cells on i-phone glass, but thinner. unfortunately they dont have mitchelin tyres, but they will be an interesting team to follow. They are also visiting NZ after the race and might call in to see the solar fern.

Then there is the Koreans. They are the first Korean team in the WSC , from the Kookmin university. These "Green Maniacs" were building their body shell and fitting solar cells the day before their scrutineering. Being from Korea I knew Barry would want me to ask if they knew about Dal Shabet. When they worked out what I was saying the three girls broke into a chorus of "Supa Dupa Diva"!

Race Day 5: 29 October 2009

2009-10-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

South Australian Border to Coober Pede: 390km

Today was an almost perfect day.

We got good charge last night, and more again in the morning, almost fully charged again. We were ready to set off on the dot of 8:00am when we noticed one tyre was a bit low. We did the photo 8am start anyway, then pulled up a few meters further on to change the wheel, 10 minutes and we were away!

Yesterday we averaged 49kph, starting with a full charge, and with very good sun. If we could keep that average up we could make it to Coober Pede in 8 hours, plus time for the 10 minute Kulgera control stop, driver changes, and any other stops. Fortunately today was most downhill, where yesterday involved a lot of slow uphills. Today we tried to keep the speed up going uphill to minimize lost time. Possible but not easy.

The day started with good downhill, mainatining 50-55, with little battery use. The solar power picked up quickly allowing us to conserve the batteries for later in the day when the road got hillier and there was a band of cloud forecast to come through.

We continued to maintain good speed, with little battery use through the driver changes at Malar Bore and Kulgera, without any breakdowns, and only a few conveinence stops. The cloud was on the horizon, but kept away from us. The solar power never reached the extreme highs of yesterday, but still reached 1200W, and held high late into the afternoon with the sun staying above the clouds and and light reflecting off the clouds. By 3:30 the battery was still good and we only needed 45kph average to make Coober Pede. The road was getting hilly and we were using up to 800W from the batteries plus 900W solar getting up the short hills, but we needed to keep the speed up to make it. As we passed the point where Solar Fern broke down in 2007, 50 km from Coober Pede, that battery was starting to drop, but with good solar at 4:30 we were on target.

We arraived at 5:04pm. marked it and called it the Finish line

Race Day 4: 28 October 2009

2009-10-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

Alice springs to SA Border

Repaired some structual damage to the array bus bar supports. With no proper materials we had to improvise: 5 minute epoxy, balsa, and Chux Multicloth as a fibreglass substitute. The chux is actually fairly strong in one direction, and with three layers soaked in 5 min epoxy, the result was remarkably strong!

We found more significant structrual damage from running off the road, the center body supports had been ripped from the chassis, but it is still supported at each end. It's not ideal but it should be fine.

Arrived at Alice Springs control point at 8:30, unloaded the car, and moved into the official stop at 8:48, did our 30 minutes to start at 9:18. The officials agonised over our late arrival last night and decided to apply a time penalty of 6 hours, to be taken at the end of the race in the interests of keeping us moving. They don't make the crazy rules, so they did their best. We couldn't care less, since we are trailering, and are ranked on distance anyway, and frankly we don't care how they sort their results, we are here to drive the solar car.

There were 5 other cars in the control stop at 8:30am, Aurora 101 (no trailering), Solar World one (no trailering), Esteban, Kelly, and Willeton. We were having trouble with the radio PTT again, and we still had to put on the rear wheel spat, so we planned to stop immediately after the control point. When we came to set off we found the motor would not go either, despite testing ok this morning! Several more broken wires were fixed to get the PTT going, and we eventually traced the controller problems to a bad joint on the controller enable switch. All was finally fixed and ready to go at 10:45.

After all the morning's drama the rest of the day went textbook. We had a full charge from the delays at Alice, we even had to switch the array off. Once again on a constant battery current strategy we hoped to make the SA boarder that night. There is now a 10 minute control point at Kulgera 20km from the SA boarder, and the next one is Coober Pede (30 min). Now with good sun the array power was amazing, peaking 30A into 50V, but mostly around 25 in the middle of the day. The sky was clear, and there was no wind all day.

We managed 50-60 kph most of the day, saving power for the late afternoon. We arrived at the SA boarder at 4:57, with the batteries down to 11.3V per 12V battery. Perfect after maintaining a fairly constant speed. We used all the power we got, as efficiently as possible. Our lead acide batteries on have 55Ah rating, and we got 40Ah out of them today from full charge to almost flat. That's less than 2kWh, so we're hoping for a full charge this evening and tomorrow morning from an array that gave us 1500W peak today!

I used the GPS Altimeter a lot today, and it was very usefull to help corrolate the expected power use with slope, and to identify the hills on the route altitude plots.

No work on the car this evening! Just charging from the evening sun. What an easy evening! Nice. I can even blog!

We are hoping for a clean run tomorrow, start at 8am, and run the perfect strategy to reach Coober Pede by the end of the day. The weather is meant to be good too! After that we will trailer to Adelaide on Friday to complete the global green trailer race.

Race Day 3: 27 October 2009

2009-10-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

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

Race Day 2: Monday 26 October 2009

2009-10-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

We decided to trailer to Dunmarra to try to get ahead of the control stop closing times, So at 7:40am we trailered to where we marked it yesterday, and with it being past 8am, we just noted the spot (on my GPS) and carried on driving to Dunmara. We got to Dunmarra no long after 11am, unloaded and waited 30 mins at the stop. At that moment the car decided it would not go, despite all our checks the pevious night.We move over to a spot familiar to the Solar Fern team, with the same problems, motor contoller issues. This time it turned out to be the power plug on the controller, yet more trouble with bad connections due to age and storage climate. After that the controller gave us no more trouble! We're solaring again!

Driving on for the first time since tyre and controller problems in Adelaide River (114km from the strat), the car was running much better, but array power seemed very low (400-500W). We knew we had array trouble, but it would take a long time to fix, so we decided to drive on what we had. Running a constant battery current strategy, we calculated we could draw 7-8 Amps for the rest of the day, and stuck to that. Speed was good, exceeding 70kph at times.

One thing about a solarcar running constant battery power is that it's speed changes greatly with hills and sunlight, but it is very easy to manage the battery! A consequence of this is that the solar car can creep up on the forward support vehicle quickly, and in one case a bit too quickly. The solar car had to drive off the left side of the road to miss the support car, almost a Michigan! The side of the road was very rough, and the solar car brakes not so good. As the solar car went through one ditch hard it bounced hard and the canopy poped off, flying at least 5m up in the air. It looked horrific! The solar car came to a stop, and we ran to it's rescue. The driver was unharmed, same with the canopy, and the car appeared to work fine. We pushed it onto the road and started driving again. Later that night we found minor structual damage to the array lattice work

As we drove on, the array power seemed low, and thought it was a results of the big air, but it soon became clear it was not clear, ie haze, bad haze. We slowed down and recalculated our destination, Renner springs. Just before renner springs is a reasonable downhill stretch, so we got our new driver to try regen, just to experience how effective it is for high speed braking. Later as we came into Renner Springs the driver used regen to stop, but of course it did not bring the car to a halt. The foot brake actually cuts regen out, so the driver delibrately did touch the foot brake. Fortunately several team member were able to jump out, grab hold and stop the car in time. We're going to change the cut out switch to allow both at the same time.

That night we tested the array, and found no new cell damage, only minor structual damage. We knew some MPPT's werent going. We canabalised one to fix three. One small string of cells was not working anyway, so we didn't need the last MPPT. We also found serveral dodgy swithces on the trackers, which were fixed with a few cycles.

The chassis was fine, and so were the tyres. We meant to check the alignment of the back wheel and brake disk, but no time.
Fixed MPPT's and radio headset in the morning.

What a day!

194km on solar.

This is where Nuna 3 got to at the end of day 1!!

Weird sunset, with thick haze, no solar potential.

Race day 1

2009-10-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

Race day 1: 25 October 2009

We've made it to Katherine, camping at a camp site will all the facilities.

What a day! If it can go wrong.....

The start was a little different, no 1 minute intervals between cars, just roll up in order and off you go. Start was 8:30 today, finish at 5:30, with no allowance for later start times. We started about 8:48 am.

Drama no long after the start, with Nuna trying regen at the first set of lights, overvoltage protection and it all went dead. Took about 5 minutes to get going again. There's always one isn't there!

We got away ok, passing many cars broken down on the side of the road. First Wolar World one, then we passed Heliox (still running) Then Malay uni (10), also running, Istanbul one the side of the road, Willerton running, Leeming on the side of the road, Sunswift on the side of the road, Bocruiser on the side of the road, and McMaster on the side of the road. That was the first two hours, we were cruising at 60, but having radio trouble with a lot of noise in the car, and only using the radio speaker. We stopped to try a backup hand held which the driver put next to his ear and could hear much easier. We also tried to clarify radio calls and meter reading formats and procedures, and we were off. Theis worked better (not great) and we started to get sensible reading from the car. They were not good. Battery getting very low, higher motor power than expected, and lower solar current. We slowed down to try to replenish the batteries, but that ended up being about 30 kph.

We pulled in at Adelaide river (114km) for our first driver change and to check out the car. (11:45) While turning in we noticed the back tyre was almost flat, that's where the power's going! We pump it up and get ready to pull out again, but there was no power! Time to take a closer look and change the tyre while we are at it. The "Turbo" has been jamming, so we took a look at that and the surrounding wiring, but no luck. So we decide to change the controller. But the new controller is intermitent too, with dodgy connectons in the plugs. It's an old car!

Time was ticking on (14:00), and the Katherine control stop closed at 4pm, we still had 200km to go and no chance of solaring there in time. So we repack the trailers to trailer the car to Katherine. Meanwhile I changed the controller back again, and working in the shade, tried it out and it worked fine! But we still had to trailer.

What happened? We think it was just over temp cutout. The controller is cooled by a duct in the bottom of the car and at 30kph there aint much cooling. At the same time We were using much more torque against the flat tyre, and it was stinking hot!

What about the array? Our emergency disconnect cable was pulling on the breaker and when we went over bumps it turned the array off, several times after resetting it until we found the problem. We lost a lot of array time there.

Late at the camp ground we found another problem, several of the 30 odd MPPT's were off, and the biggest sections too! Finally one MPPT was dead - also a big section. We managed to wire two sections (connected to the dead MPPT) in series and directly to the battery via a diode and switch. We'll see tomorrow if it works!

So we trailered to Katherine, getting there at 4:45. Now the rules say half an hour stop and no trailering forward outside race time (after 5:30 today), so at 5:15 we trailered another 20km down the road, marked it, then trailered back to Katherine motor camp. We start tomorrow at 8am 20km down the road.

We plan to trailer to Dunamara tomorrow morning to catch up, and make it before Dunmara closes. We hope to be there about 11am, unload the car, and driver after the 30 min stop (including the unloading). All going well we will have a clean run to Tennant creek, (early Tuesday morning), then Alice by mid Wednessday.

After that the control stops close at crazy times, and get this, we have to be in Adelaide on Friday night! So we will have to trailer from not far past Alice right through to Adelaide. Completing maybe 1000km.

We should rename it the Global Green Trailering Challenge! This is simply crazy. There is absolutely no point in trailering from Darwin to Aldelaide in 6 days, just so that a solar car can run a few kms if there is time between trailering. Put simply, this is at best a 2 day "test run" for slower team, on bits on the Stuart highway. They don't even get a chance to sort out their on road problems. This is not a solar challenge, it is a pointless exersize in trailering. Slower teams would be better advise to simply arrive two weeks early and go out testing on the other highways, clock up some good kms without officials telling the move along, where they can get a chance to actually drive the car for more than two days, then simply drive the first day, trailer it back to darwin and ship the car back home.

Speaking of which, that is exactly what Umicore have done. Not on purpose, but they have trashed their car into a tree just after Katherine, and totaled it. Same with Aurora, both cars, not into trees, but badly damaged. Aurora 101 are fixing their car and will start again Tomorrow from where they span out after a tyre blowout. Apparently they span out and broke their front Axle, amoungst other damage.

There are now only 5 or 6 cars that will be able to finish the race in time. What a joke! What the HELL are the officials thinking. The appear to have absolutely no idea what solar car racing is about, why people do it, or how much effort people go to to come here and attempt to drive across Australia on Solar power alone.

Follow the race!

2009-10-24T02:58:00.000-07:00

The race starts tomorrow morning!

Follow us on the Global Green Challenge Website

Click on "The live event" top left of the home page

There you'll find:

- a link to the Google map "Track race progress"
- Rankings
- Leeming High School's race blog
- Photos
- Videos

I'll also update this blog and facebook whenever I get Telstra coverage. The number of photos per day will reduce quite a bit :-)

Face book photos

2009-10-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

It's taken a while to get Facebook and the local internet under control, but I've now got all my photos on face book, so many there. I might add comments to a few photos, or blog on about them.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Solar-Fern-Racing/187146880548

or the link on the side bar of this blog.

Enjoy!

Driver training & track tests

2009-10-23T05:32:00.002-07:00

Pre race: Friday 23 October

Spent most of the day in the Kormilda garage today, working on the car. We now have Solar Max tyres on the car, at 90 PSI. Checked tyre presures first thing, then tested rolling resistance, what a difference! From 45N without driver or canopy down to 16N today! The first 10N improvement came from adjusting the rear brake caliper so it did not rub, and from removing the brushes from the tyres. The next 19n came from changing tyres from a 41 PSI rated chunky Michilen M45 16"x3.25" moped tyre and tube, to the Dunlop Solarmax 16" x 2.15" grooved solar racing tyres at 90 PSI. This has been a great demo of rolling resistance especially when we were not able to get full torque on the motor. Before the changes we struggled to make 20 kph, after we can do over 40 kph on the same low torque.

We're going to boost the torque tomorrow now we know why it is so low. Then we'll get over 70 kph and see some real power numbers.

The radio also caused trouble today. After rewiring the whole mic interface, we eventually had to replace the radio.

Eventually we go the drivers out on the track to get some driving practice in. After an initial over enthusiastic brush with the tyre wall, driving improved, and they drivers got to know the car and track, and gained some real confidence and experience. More training tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have a ride too. Felino will be doing the qualifying, as a race veteran from NTU solar car team.

2009-10-23T05:32:00.001-07:00

Pre race: Thursday 22 October

2009-10-23T05:31:00.001-07:00

Pre race: Wednessday 21 October

2009-10-23T05:29:00.000-07:00

Pre race: Tuesday 20 October

The track opens for business!

2009-10-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

pre-race: Monday 19 October 2009

The track open for testing today, there will be photos!

Sad news is that Solar Fox has withdrawn, leaving Cambridge as the only UK team left. Speaking of which they are having a BBQ 10:30 this morning at the workshop at BOC gas. See their website for details.

Twente have been here a while now, check out their workshop at Alawa Scout Hall.

Twente's workshop & accomadation!

Cambridge University Eco Racing BBQ

Good BBQ this morning. Thanks Cambridge! Good also to meet MIT there. I look forward to seeing their car tomorrow! Saw some Nuna guy there too, but didn't get a chance to chat. Peter Augenburgs is here too, will be good to meet him, 6 years later!

Update: Kormilda's first track test

"I thought I could smell smoke!" We're not sure what happened, but the wheel would spin when lifted off the ground, but on the track it had very little power then cut out. It looks like a previous fault has returned, the curse of Tantilum caps. It seems these ones don't last long in the heat of the container between races, and we've got some brown ones near where the smoke came out. The high voltage side looks fine, but the negative supply is being pulled down. Unfortunately it happened to the spare as well, even without high voltage on it. So both controllers are away being fixed, locally fortunately. Maybe we'll get to drvive it tomorrow.

The motor controller

It's hotting up!

2009-10-18T04:26:00.000-07:00

Pre-race: 18 October 2009

37 degrees for the last two days, but it not humid, and there's been a good breeze to make it bearable, almost nice!

At the track teams are starting to arrive. At the track now are:

Helios (France)
Principia college (USA)
Kormilda College (Australia)
OSU (Japan Champion)
Soko high school (Japan)
Aurora (Australia)
Southern Aurora (Australia)
CDPM University of Malaya (Malysia)

Also around town are:
Nuon (Netherlands)
Cambridge University (UK)
Michigan (USA - Rumours only)
Umicore (Belgium)
Twente (Netherlands)

Team spotted or waiting for their car:
Esteban (Canada)
Eclipse (Canada)
Swissspirit (Switzerland)
Leeming high school (Australia)
One of the Turkish teams
MIT (USA)

Nuna were spotted today testing on the road again. Their car is mostly fixed now, but it looks like it was a pretty major crash resulting from a tyre blowout at 110kph. There's now info on their website http://www.nuonsolarteam.nl/ They've got some great links to other teams in their blog.

Aurora are very casual at the moment, no last minute rush here! A bit of driver training, checking out the car after the journey up here, and a neat little project to map out the I/V curve of their array to fine tune their trackers. This team has the relaxed confidence of a team with 22 years solar racing experiance!

I'm real keen to have a closser look at the two Japanese cars. OSU beat Tiga in the last Suzuka Dream cup, they have two Mitsuba motors on the car, and a beautiful finish! They are adventure class, and I'm picking they will be the fastest car in the race, but of course they will be held back at Alice Springs due to adventure class handicaps.

Another interesting car is Merderkar2 from Malasia. Built on a very tight budget with minimal aero, the car is very practical. They use a German motor with a 5:1 chain drive, 4x 200W sharp panels with outbacker trackers. 48V, 108Ah lead acid batteries. The use Maxis 20" and 26"(dual rear) tyres, and have several other brands to try. One student is doing a PHD on vribration analysis, so the whole frame is covered in strain gauges. The use National Instruments loggers and desk vue software, keeping the software simple! The wheels are cast Aluminium bicycle rins with real bearings on the front, and side by side spoked 26" wheels on the back, one driven, one with a brake. Front brakes are hydrolic, rear is cable.

I've got lots more interesting photos, I'll update them soon.

Checking out "Towards Tomorrow"

2009-10-17T04:22:00.000-07:00

Pre-race: 17 October 2009

I had a good look at the Kormilda car today, and had a good chat with their electrical guy, the same guy who designed the NTU motor (now NGM). It seems only part of the car was built by the school, and most of it is parts of the 1993&1999 Desert Rose cars.

Kormilda College's "Towards Tomorrow" from 2005

Specs:

Array: 1200W mono silicon UNSW topcell 16% 8m^2 rectangle
MPPT: NTU - lots!
Battery: 48V 55AH, deep cycle lead acid, 90kg
Motor: Original NTU motor (NGM prototype)
Controller: Original NTU controller
Weight: Approx 290 kg incl batteries
Cda: 0.14 (1999)
Chassis: Aluminium spaceframe
Body: Fibreglass over foam
Wheels: 2 front, 1 rear
Tyres: Moped, with tread. 16" rim
Front suspension: Mcpherson struts
Rear suspension: Double sided swingarm
Brakes: Custom hydrollic callipers on all wheels, front operated by peddal, rear by hand lever
Throttle: Torque control knob plus power boost override button. Brake cutoff. No self returning peddel or lever.
Telemetry: Lots of keen students, a radio, voltmeter and battery ammeter.
Rear view: camera
Wheel covers: Originally turning spats on suspension. Does not fit new tyres, so may run without covers, or with makeshift fixed covers.

Back at the track

2009-10-16T03:44:00.000-07:00

Pre-Race: 16 October 2009

A big G'day to everyone who has just joined this blog! Welcome.

I went back to the track today. Still not much happening. Looking back at my photos from 2007 I notice that we did not turn up until the Sunday before the race, so there's still time for the garages to fill up.

The Esteban saga continues. Their car is still held up in customs. Ozzie customs seems to take 3 days to sneeze, then another two days to wipe their nose afterwards, and then it's the weekend! If the car is released on Monday it will have taken 2 months to get here from Canada, over two weeks of that in Ozzie customs! The team has a lot of work still to do and now more than a week less time to do it in. Maybe that is why there are so few cars at the track!

Another team to arrive was Kormilda College, a Darwin high school team, who are now entering their 6th World Solar Challenge. Their car was built by the school, from the same moulds as the Desert Rose which finished 4th in 1999. I will be joining Kormilda college for the race down to Adelaide as their electrical engineer. Their main electrical engineer is unable to travel with them for the full distance. Kormilda College completed the race in 2003 and 2005, and came close in 2007, affected by the storm that hit many teams at then end of the 2007 race.

The OSU team from Japan also unloaded their car today.

Rumors abound about an incident with Nuna5, but details are very sketchy. Nothing that will slow them down I'll bet. They are not at the track, but have been in Darwin since early September so the rumors go!

Helios have dome some interesting tyre testing. The new Michelin 95/80/16 tyre had 4kg/1000kg rolling resistance. The old 65-80/16 slick had 2kg/1000kg, and a Chinese moped tyre has 15kg/1000kg! The new Michelin tyres run on 3" wide rims and have a rolling diameter of 558mm.

Lazy day

2009-10-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

Pre Race: 15 October 2009

Lazy day today, not much happening at hidden valley, so I stayed in Darwin. Esteban is still having trouble getting their car through customs. Hopefully tomorrow.

I went geocaching (www.geocaching.com) today. Secret caches are hidden at interesting locations around the world including Darwin. I dropped off a keyring that has been taken from cache to cache by many poeple around the world, all the way from Washington State. I dropped it off at a secret location at Lameroo Beach (below).

Visited Hidden Valley

2009-10-14T00:32:00.000-07:00

Pre-race: 14 October 2009

I went out to Hidden Valley this morning. The cloud cover and showers kept the temperature down, and I took the #8 bus to Hidden Valley Road and walked from threre (about 3km if you take a short cut).

Hidden Valley was pretty empty this morning! Only 2 teams there, Helios and Principia. I had a good chat with both teams, and meet Chris Selwood, one of the event organisers. Both cars have run in races before, with Principia coming second in the North American Solar Challenge.

Helios in their pit garrage

When I got back to the YHA I found the Esteban team in the pool waiting for the car to be cleared through customs. They’re off this afternoon to collect the car with any luck.

Arrived in Darwin

2009-10-14T00:29:00.000-07:00

Pre-race: 13 October 2009

Arrived in Darwin! I'm the only team member from Solar Fern to make it this year unfortunately, but at least one of us were able to make it, even if our car could not.

So where to stay? Last race we stayed at the camp group up the road from the Hidden Valley race track, in tents! Well we didn’t get to use the tent much since we worked 24 hours anyway, but I’m not planning on doing that this time! With a bigger team (more than one) sharing a hotel/motel would be the way to go. The camp ground is not really close enough to make much difference, so it’s probably better to stay in town. This time around I’m at the YHA backpackers. The rooms have air conditioners, and there’s all the usual facilities.

So after settling in I took a stroll around Darwin centre. It was hot but the cloud kept it bearable. Darwin’s changed a bit, but a lot is still familiar from 2005 when I was an observer and stayed in the city centre. We didn’t have much time for sightseeing in 2007!

Welcome!

2009-09-02T05:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the official Solar Fern blog!

The Solar Fern is a solar powered racing car built for the 2007 World Solar Challenge, where it achieved 12th place out of 18 cars in Adventure class, despite having only 600W of solar power!

The Solar Fern was built by a small group of engineers and friends from Christchurch, New Zealand. We are passionate about solar energy and electric vehicles, and competing in the World Solar Challenge has been a life long dream. Details of our car can be found on our websites.

Highlights from our 2007 race can be found here

Check out our official web site and our 2007 web site

While we will not take the Solar Fern to the 2009 World Solar Challenge due to lack of funding, I will be attending myself and hope to keep an up to date blog of the race here.

We are planning a tour of New Zealand in early 2010 and, all going well, we will attend the South African Solar Challenge in September/October 2010.

We're also planning to build a new car for the 2011 World Solar Challenge, so watch this space for updates!

Rob - Solar Fern team leader