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Project Progression

January 28th, 2022

This is the Gantt chart for the latter half of the project. The Gantt chart is a tool used by engineers to keep track of progress throughout the project. It breaks down the project into individual tasks with set deadlines. As the semester continues, the team will be returning to this chart every week to update progress and determine if the team is ahead or behind schedule. Currently, the team has sent out the motor controller to be reprogrammed by its retailer. In the mean time, the team has been developing the other aspects of the electrical system. For example, the auxiliary system that draws 12V from the main power line for the various lights and signals on the buggy does not require the motor controller to run, so the team will be working on those systems while the controller is away. When the controller arrives, the team will quickly get started on a load test to determine the max current the battery outputs through the line and to see if the battery's design can handle the current the controller pulls from the battery. By mid to late February, the team will be installing the electrical system onto the Baja buggy if the mechanical team is ready for it.

March 11th, 2022

As the team progressed to the load testing phase of the project, many problems arose. To stress-test the motor - and by extension the system's battery - a load was needed to couple to the electric motor to see how much current was being drawn from the battery. This proved to be more difficult than the team anticipated and resulted in many weeks of contacting motor companies within the state to design a load test for the system. Eventually, the team sourced a DC generator and all that was needed to continue was to design a platform to raise the motor's shaft to the same height as the generator shaft and couple them together. This process took a lot of time out of the planned work and as one can see in this updated Gantt chart, that leaves the team with very little time to mount everything to the vehicle and do an integrated systems test. As of this update, the load testing is complete and the team will commence working more closely with the mechanical team to get the electrical system attached to the vehicle and wired together.

Testing

To better understand the electrical system of the buggy, four tests will be conducted. Two of them relate to the load testing mentioned above; one will be used to determine the curve of the current coming out of the battery and the other will be used to see how long the battery can provide power to the system before giving out. The first test will be conducted by monitoring the output voltage of the generator acting as a load for the motor. At each 100V on the output of the generator, the current coming from the battery will be recorded as well as power produced. For the longevity test, the system will be run at max throttle for 10 minutes and then scaled down by 100V (using the output of the generator as reference) every 10 minutes after that. To test the auxiliary system, a step by step testing of the individual components by toggling control switches on individual parts to help the team understand how each part reacts in different circumstances. The final test will be a full integration test which will be conducted with the components of the electrical system mounted to the vehicle.

April 29th, 2022

As of today, this marks the end of the eBaja project for this year. With load testing complete in early March, this left just the final additions to the system to be completed. The auxiliary system was also tested to see how much power it was pulling from the battery and everything including the headlights, taillights, and turn signals only consumed 31W of power. As for further progress, the team was unable to complete the full integration test as many delays came from the mounting phase of the project. While working with the mechanical team, many problems and scheduling issues set back the completion of the back of the vehicle's frame where the electrical components would be mounted. Unfortunately, the team was unable to complete the mounting process and get at least a small test drive of the vehicle.