Where we're at now

Much to our dismay, we won't have the car done this evening to drive. We had hoped by this time- or at least close enough to it- to have the brakes and steering completed. But the shop ended up closing early on us today- at 3 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. like usual- and we had about another half hour on the steering knuckles until they were finished and a little longer to finish a little piece on a lathe. But we move on.

Last night was definitely an interesting one. We spent most of yesterday preparing the car for driving, which was more difficult than it sounds. We had to attach the suspension, the tires, brake discs and a lot more fun little pieces that I can't even remember. We finished most of our necessary welding, so that meant we could finally start wiring the car.

That took some time-- a lot of wire cutting, soldering, testing and twisting-- and we "purged" the hydrogen tank. Essentially, we were cleaning all the air out of the tank using Nitrogen. We filled and purged the tank twice and then took the entire frame outside to the trailer.

We filled the tank using a cascade system. It sounds complicated, but it's surprisingly simple. Inside the trailer we can carry three massive metal tanks that is filled with compressed hydrogen gas. They're all connected with a system we designed.

When the cascade system's nozzle is attached to the tank on the frame, hydrogen is drawn out of one of the tanks in the trailer. As the pressure in tank 1 decreases, hydrogen from tank 2 is moved back to tank 1 to increase the pressure again. The same repeats when the pressure in tank 2 decreases with tank 3. (That's not too complicated, huh?)

And when I say drive, I should probably elaborate a little more about what we accomplished. The frame itself had no brakes and no steering control; what we did was turn on the entire power system, then the fuel cells, then the motor on a rear tire, and let her drive! The motor made a loud whirling noise. The noise, though, should lessen some as we further refine the car. The car moved slowly, and if we wanted to turn, we had to grab onto the uprights and physically turn them ourselves.

So, while it's a little disappointing we won't be driving anymore tonight, we'll be working hard the rest of this week to get the car fully drivable this weekend.

Oh- and soon we shall have Tigergen's body back! I'll post more details on that when it gets closer to returning. It will be gold with a black chevron on the front and two black stripes following the body's lines back to the tail. It'll look pretty awesome.



And for your viewing pleasure... a visual tour of Tigergen's frame.

The refueling nozzle:


The motor power board (yes, it was set on the car upside down...):


The hydrogen tank pressure gauges:


And finally, the control panel (the gray square mounted on the left) and the driver interface board (the screen in the gold colored frame):


Awesome, no?

As always, if you're in the neighborhood of Engineering Building West, stop by the basement and say hi!