Work on the electrical system continued during ER22 and, due to the car not being able to be tested, it was decided early on to try to build on and improve the already existing systems to reduce the workload. The biggest mechanical development would be making a hybrid chassis with a half-monocoque front and a steel frame at the rear.
In order to reach ER23’s goal of having a running car at the races, the team carried out a major recruitment drive in the fall semester, which resulted in a new record number of members at a whopping 125. The challenge, however, still lay in the lack of electrical knowledge around high voltage. This therefore led to the fact that even during this project, as before, the team became completely dependent on a few people who took on a very large responsibility.
During this year, several obstacles were encountered. The first was that we got rid of the cloud storage of all CAD files at the beginning of the project, which of course made the project more difficult. At the start of production, the chassis was delayed in several ways, which ultimately resulted in two steel frames being bolted together instead of the original plan. Because of this delay, even the electrical team and especially the high-voltage team had even less time to set up and test their systems.
On June 6th our inverter broke and since it is a very expensive part we had not had one in reserve. We thought here that the project came to an end with only one month left until the first competition start. In the blink of an eye, we contacted the manufacturer and had it sent down to Germany where it was repaired. However, this set us back about three weeks.
At least we made it to both competitions where FSN was first. With tornadoes and thunderstorms expected, it was clearly going to be an eventful race. The electrical was further worked on and the mechanical was approved. Unfortunately, not everything could be fixed and we therefore only participated in the static moments.
Our second competition was FSUK where we passed both safety and tech scrutineering. Elscrut went well and only a few things remained before it could have been approved if the accumulator was in. Unfortunately, the PCB that controls the voltage indicator on the TSAC broke and the time was too short to fix it. We fell short of the finish line but still feel satisfied after this challenging year.
