The Power Racing Series (PPPRS) is an electric vehicle competition with a $500 price ceiling. This is Fauxarri, the 2012 Champion. It was built by members of Sector67, a Madison, WI hackerspace. To our delight, they’ve posted an expose on the how the thing was built.
It should come as no surprise that the guys behind the advance electric racer aren’t doing this sort of thing for the first time. A couple of them were involved in Formula Hybrid Racing at the University of Wisconsin. That experience shows in the custom motor controller built as an Arduino shield. It includes control over acceleration rate, throttle response, and regenerative braking. But you can’t get by on a controller alone. The motors they used are some special electric garden tractor motors to which they added their own water cooling system.
If you want to get a good look at how fast and powerful this thing is head on over to the post about the KC leg of PPPRS (it’s the one towing a second vehicle and still passing the competition by).
What a best! Can’t wait to see those promised details about the motor controlled, especially the “lessons learned” part.
“Beast”, not “best”. ;)
Staying under a $500 price cap is easy when you don’t count $450 in batteries from a sponsor.
24 Hours of Lemons rules don’t allow for that kind of bullshit. Car has to be worth $500, period (except for tires and safety gear.)
Batteries were sponsored but still count towards vehicle cost, all power sources are 1/2 their fair market value (this is the case for any team). This is why we couldn’t spend any money on the rest of the vehicle, as $450/2 = $225, meaning we had $275 to spend on the rest of the vehicle!
Video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHnPi4_0pIM
The PPPRS league also doesnt count any “safety” equipment towards the $500, (the huge cutoff switch, and fancy disc brakes mainly)
Sector67 has many advantages (engineering expertise, scavenging, donations) but that won’t stop us from trying to beat them again next year. ;)