Photo Archive

Just reposting the link. I thought the last link was not clearly visible.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46267928@N05/sets/72157623157558096/

Progress of sorts....

Hello!

I have not been able to post for the last two weeks. I was a little too busy with university work.

A lot of work has been done to the car since we started. We added the front wheels and fixed the steering linkage. Also i constructed a new mock up gearbox just to see is the design we are going to go with fits properly.

We had to do this because i realised that the old gearbox was backwards. that is it was designed for mounting next to the firewall behind the driver's seat. It was a good design but i felt it was taking up room where we thought the batteries and the IC engine would go.

So i decided to take it apart and build a new casing more suited to our needs.

i used a laser prototyper and solid works to build it. It did not take too long but the main problem i had was taking the old gearbox apart. now usually I excel at taking things apart but in this case tight bearings and inaccessible screws made it a difficult task.

The case in the photograph is a mock up made of plywood. The real gearbox will look the same but will be made of aluminium.

Also the flicker gallery has been updated with more recent photographs.

More soon

The same renderings from before but with better viewing angels to get a better idea of the distance.

hopefully we will do some 'Real' work on the car this week and we will be this blog aswell.

Tasks for 19/01/2010

Tasks:

1. Show where and how both engine and elec. motor will be mounted

2. Where are the rear wheels going to be placed

3. What changes are going to be done to front wheels

4. How and where is the gearbox going to be mounted

5. How is the chassis going to be strengthened

6. Update Gantt chart

7. How is the breaking going to work

8. add floor, aircraft material floor tony suggested

9. Steering system needs to be revised

10. What things are needed to achieve all these

UPDATE: Gearbox And Motor

I uploaded the renderings of the updated 3D model. i have placed the motor and the gearbox

in the chassis. This is to show what i think is the best position for placing the motor.

The batteries can be secured in the space just below the motors.

The main advantage of this configuration is that the motor and batteries can be quickly removed and replaced with the patrol engine for the Shell Eco challenge.

This ensures minimum modifications and a secure place for all equipment.

The motor has the correct dimensions. The gearbox however is still under development so the current dimensions are an estimate.

The Motor we are using is a Framco DC motor. I think i will add some sort of heat sink to the motor to help cool it down. Also ducts directing air on the heat sinks would be a big help.

I will update more on this after our next group meeting.

I added the steering column so I can start building the entire steering system on the model. Next phase will probably be to model the drive train. Modelling the gearbox is going to be tricky to say the least. Lets see how it turns out.

At the moment i plan to make a 'dummy' model (draw a box roughly the same dimensions as the gearbox and motor to make modelling a bit easier). it will give us an idea about placing the actual gearbox ,motor and batteries when we start construction.

Here are some 3d models of the chassis. I used Sketchup to render them because it is sooo easy!

The drawings are labelled and all dimensions are in CM.