Friday, July 22, 2005
Rayce Day 5 - The hemorrhaging must stop
The story of the day today was the battery pack. Due to a suspected bad cell, the battery pack would report full-charge too early, and die too quickly. This made for an unreliable car, where most of the battery pack would be at near full-charge, but the one "black sheep" cell would limit the car's ability to fully discharge its batteries for more consistently fast runs.
The car ran for half-an-hour only this time before the safety circuitry in the battery pack shut off the car due to a too-low-voltage state. Again, all this because of the bad cell. Even though they had impressively completed 270 miles yesterday, they had no hope of repeating the performance today. The already-bad cell was deteriorating, and handicapped the entire battery pack's ability to power the car. If nothing was done, the car may not even be able to drive itself into Winnipeg.
A decision had to be made, and after long discussions, it was finally decided. They would replace the cell. The team suspected they would have to spend anywhere between 4 and 8 hours to change out the bad cell, take the points penalty for replacing it, and lose precious daylight running, on a beautiful day. In the end, they were just slowly walking backwards anyway, and they felt this was the best way to go.
A nice, large school parking lot was found in Pipestone, Minnesota, and the Red River Raycer quickly became a big attraction in the small town. Its viewing attendance numbers rivaled those of a local pageant running the same day. Everyone was extremely welcoming, offering discounts and accelerating their services. Most of the team was allowed to relax, as the car was parked and only 3 members were needed around the batteries to change the cell.
They had guessed at least 4 hours for the cell change task, considering its inaccessibility and the complexity of the surrounding hardware. They finished it in a little more than 3 hours. There was still time and ample sunlight in the day to test the new cell. The team pushed on, 11 miles out of town. The running time was up, and the car was parked, its batteries charging to full by the end of the day.
This time, they were truly full, as all the cells were good. The team's motivation went back up slightly, since they now knew that their car was now capable of showing its true pace. They only wished they had done it sooner.
Tomorrow, the team will keep their chin up. They expect to whisk through the Fargo checkpoint, and be on their way to Winnipeg. They won't make it in tomorrow, where they can park the car in its own workshop. It would have to be Saturday for the big arrival. The team can't wait to get back; get back in their own homes, their own beds, their families and their friends, if only for just one night. The r3 Solar Car Team is blessed in that respect, since it'll re-energize them for the second leg of the exhausting event.
Grand Forks, North Dakota, is the optimistic goal for tomorrow.
The car ran for half-an-hour only this time before the safety circuitry in the battery pack shut off the car due to a too-low-voltage state. Again, all this because of the bad cell. Even though they had impressively completed 270 miles yesterday, they had no hope of repeating the performance today. The already-bad cell was deteriorating, and handicapped the entire battery pack's ability to power the car. If nothing was done, the car may not even be able to drive itself into Winnipeg.
A decision had to be made, and after long discussions, it was finally decided. They would replace the cell. The team suspected they would have to spend anywhere between 4 and 8 hours to change out the bad cell, take the points penalty for replacing it, and lose precious daylight running, on a beautiful day. In the end, they were just slowly walking backwards anyway, and they felt this was the best way to go.
A nice, large school parking lot was found in Pipestone, Minnesota, and the Red River Raycer quickly became a big attraction in the small town. Its viewing attendance numbers rivaled those of a local pageant running the same day. Everyone was extremely welcoming, offering discounts and accelerating their services. Most of the team was allowed to relax, as the car was parked and only 3 members were needed around the batteries to change the cell.
They had guessed at least 4 hours for the cell change task, considering its inaccessibility and the complexity of the surrounding hardware. They finished it in a little more than 3 hours. There was still time and ample sunlight in the day to test the new cell. The team pushed on, 11 miles out of town. The running time was up, and the car was parked, its batteries charging to full by the end of the day.
This time, they were truly full, as all the cells were good. The team's motivation went back up slightly, since they now knew that their car was now capable of showing its true pace. They only wished they had done it sooner.
Tomorrow, the team will keep their chin up. They expect to whisk through the Fargo checkpoint, and be on their way to Winnipeg. They won't make it in tomorrow, where they can park the car in its own workshop. It would have to be Saturday for the big arrival. The team can't wait to get back; get back in their own homes, their own beds, their families and their friends, if only for just one night. The r3 Solar Car Team is blessed in that respect, since it'll re-energize them for the second leg of the exhausting event.
Grand Forks, North Dakota, is the optimistic goal for tomorrow.
