Solar Car Folks at Work.


The view off the porch at Solarch. Great location, lots of space. At time of writing, 29.9.04, no one had got down to the beach at the end of this area.
View back up at Solarch. There's a giant 1.5 kw solar array off to the left. The previous photo was taken off the right hand corner. This was our shop. The building has an interesting history.
Another view up at Solarch. The Prince of Wales hospital next door was busy getting demolished while we were there, and there was talk of Solarch going away at some point. The mech room is in the area shown here. That's where Sunswift II's bits lived when they were getting worked on.
Bit out of focus, but Rob Reid wrote the control code for these MPPTs. I stayed up a week straight making stacks of these things, to try and get ready for the race. After we built them, we figured out that the schematics given to use by our partners were wrong, which meant all the boards were wrong as well. That was an unfortunate whoopsie.
The view off the porch at Solarch. Great location, lots of space. At time of writing, 29.9.04, no one had got down to the beach at the end of this area. View back up at Solarch. There's a giant 1.5 kw solar array off to the left. The previous photo was taken off the right hand corner. This was our shop. The building has an interesting history. Another view up at Solarch. The Prince of Wales hospital next door was busy getting demolished while we were there, and there was talk of Solarch going away at some point. The mech room is in the area shown here. That's where Sunswift II's bits lived when they were getting worked on. Bit out of focus, but Rob Reid wrote the control code for these MPPTs. I stayed up a week straight making stacks of these things, to try and get ready for the race. After we built them, we figured out that the schematics given to use by our partners were wrong, which meant all the boards were wrong as well. That was an unfortunate whoopsie.

The battery problem. Just before we left, it turned out that our batteries had high-resistance tabbing material installed, which meant that we were wasting power and generating heat. We spent the night before we left ripping off the tabbing off, and the driving around like crazy getting new tabbing put on the next day. Sunswift II had something like 700 AA size batteries in it's 3 packs.
While trying to figure out new epoxy systems, surface casting was tried using spare stuff around Solarch. This is the back of the first surface casting.
And the front. The shape is of the aero-spat, which encloses the wheel. This technology wasn't ever used to make anything, but it was a great test of the Zyvax release agent being researched at the time.
Painstakingly assembling a box for the PLEB, the Strongarm based SA-1100 computer that acts as the CAN to Ethernet bridge. Blenno built a board and wrote the software to talk CAN. And I built the box. He's a smart guy.
The battery problem. Just before we left, it turned out that our batteries had high-resistance tabbing material installed, which meant that we were wasting power and generating heat. We spent the night before we left ripping off the tabbing off, and the driving around like crazy getting new tabbing put on the next day. Sunswift II had something like 700 AA size batteries in it's 3 packs. While trying to figure out new epoxy systems, surface casting was tried using spare stuff around Solarch. This is the back of the first surface casting. And the front. The shape is of the aero-spat, which encloses the wheel. This technology wasn't ever used to make anything, but it was a great test of the Zyvax release agent being researched at the time. Painstakingly assembling a box for the PLEB, the Strongarm based SA-1100 computer that acts as the CAN to Ethernet bridge. Blenno built a board and wrote the software to talk CAN. And I built the box. He's a smart guy.

Just before we left, sitting around Solarch talking about something no doubt important.
While on the road, we were going to sleep in swags. This shows the mech room, with swags hanging up to dry after we washed them. That was fun- Somewhere there exists a picture of a lot of wet engineers and a garbage can full of soapy foam pads.
The Maker plying his trade, working on wheel shafts in the lunch room at Solarch.
Sometimes it just takes a big hammer.
Just before we left, sitting around Solarch talking about something no doubt important. While on the road, we were going to sleep in swags. This shows the mech room, with swags hanging up to dry after we washed them. That was fun- Somewhere there exists a picture of a lot of wet engineers and a garbage can full of soapy foam pads. The Maker plying his trade, working on wheel shafts in the lunch room at Solarch. Sometimes it just takes a big hammer.

Scott and I spent several nights at Solarch monkeying around with gelcoats and release agents- That poor spat plug got the hell sanded out of it several times. Here we are removing a bubbled, unsuccessful gelcoat.
During the pre-World Solar Challenge prep week, we lived down at Solarch. I chose to sleep underneath the lunch room... I think Blenno set up underneath there, too. Good place to sleep outside and keep the rain off, although would have been better if it weren't for all that broken glass.
Exactly what you do not want when making a mold. We were trying to figure out how to make some new plugs from one of our successful molds, and figured we would do it like we may end up doing the car- Foam that is sanded and finished with epoxy. That didn't end up happening. This picture is what happens when expanding foam cures in a mold with no release agent- It had been sanded, and we didn't realize it when we went to put in the foam. Oops.
Scott and I spent several nights at Solarch monkeying around with gelcoats and release agents- That poor spat plug got the hell sanded out of it several times. Here we are removing a bubbled, unsuccessful gelcoat. During the pre-World Solar Challenge prep week, we lived down at Solarch. I chose to sleep underneath the lunch room... I think Blenno set up underneath there, too. Good place to sleep outside and keep the rain off, although would have been better if it weren't for all that broken glass. Exactly what you do not want when making a mold. We were trying to figure out how to make some new plugs from one of our successful molds, and figured we would do it like we may end up doing the car- Foam that is sanded and finished with epoxy. That didn't end up happening. This picture is what happens when expanding foam cures in a mold with no release agent- It had been sanded, and we didn't realize it when we went to put in the foam. Oops.