Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Rollout, preparations for the competition

 Today was the unveiling of our car to the university. We are close to the completion of the vehicle.
Many people attended, including Dean Rosowsky of the MANE department and Lance Allen Wang of the President's office. Thanks to everyone who helped us achieve our goals! We could not have done it without you.

Mechanically it is 99 percent done. The electrical system is now undergoing final wiring, then CAN node programming to collect data from sensors and control the vehicle's powertrain. Our powertrain is operational in it's current state, but more work needs to be done to pass the vigorous technical inspection at the competition. We will be leaving early Monday morning to get to Loudon for registration.

We will be testing the car this weekend at the Rensselaer Tech Park. If all goes well, expect a strong car from Rensselaer Polytechnic this year.



Stay tuned! There will be plenty of updates next week while we race at the competition.


Tuesday, April 3, 2012

lots of progress!

 The battery box has been constructed. Here you can see our packs, which we'll talk about later...

 The fuel tank has been finished. Here is an image of the tank being pressurized and checked for pinholes and leaks.
 Here are the finished rear uprights, before the final machining. An expanding collet was used to fixture the uprights in the lathe for boring to the final bearing dimensions.
 
Here is an upright being bored in the lathe. Look's pretty silly doesn't it?
Here's a video of the operations.

 We've had a lot of younger members in the shop cranking out parts. Keep it up guys!
 The exhaust has been completed, complete with narrow band 02 sensors welded in. We will be using a wideband sensor for performance tuning, but in the meantime only narrowbands have been installed. Thanks to Burns stainless for the collector, tubing and their engineering knowledge!
 The rear suspension is coming together! Sam has been making good progress on parts, and we now have one corner tacked up. Tomorrow the rear suspension should be done, and after that the front!


Sorry for the slow updates, but more will be coming!

Be on the lookout for RPIFH's rollout - it won't be long now.