Donald-Lau_Spartan Superway

The team finished up the final presentation. Nothing the team can do right now until the charger is arrived. The team is going to start on the final report while waiting on the charger. Keep our fingers crossed and hope the charger is going to arrive on time.

Final weeks approaching and the team finished up in manufacturing all the parts that the team needs. Plexiglass has been cut, accessories have been purchased, and all four capacitors holders are received. The team also tested the BMS on reading the live voltage and current of the capacitors in charging state with a little 12V 3A charger. Still waiting on a proper charger but the good news is, the team can get a free charger thanks to our generous sponsor. 

With the help of Professor Muntz in the Industrial Science building, the team cut all the wires and clamped them with terminals. The team also finished up in cold welding and started to wire every capacitors together. Problem in getting a charger but working on alternatives.

The team received the parts that have been sent to the central shop for manufacturing this week. The team started to hot weld the busbar with capacitors but it didn't work. The team chose to "cold welding" with conductive adhesive. It's a bit expensive but it will work. The 3D printed capacitor holders has some sizing issue. The team went to the industrial science building and have those fixed with the help of Professor Muntz.

The team created a schematic flow chart on how all the component works in the BMS system with supercapacitors.

Presentation week. Working on the rest of the components in CAD design. A detail base plate design was completed and added some safety side doors to prevent electrical shock to people.

Spring break. But work is continued. Having a huge busbar to connect all the capacitors at once is not optimal because the supercapacitors the team need to be welded on to the busbar. If there's a bad capacitor in one cell, then it requires to change all 4 capacitors instead of 1. Therefore, the team goes to individual busbars instead of cell busbars.

The team is still looking for a proper charger and making sure it works fine with the Orion Jr. BMS. A Elcon 1.8kW charger is considered but the team is still trying to reach out a distributor. Finalized the supercapacitors holder and have the copper busbars connected in the CAD design.

A DC DC converter and a charger are needed to be integrated into the BMS system. The supercapacitors' voltage drops over the discharging time but the motor controller would need a constant power input. A DC DC converter can stabilize the power output to operate the motor controller. The charger the team is looking at would need to support CANbus communication, a widely used communication between controllers and charger in EV field. No charger has been decided though.

The team is looking into the datasheet, manual, and wiring diagram on the Orion Jr. BMS. The team also was working on the holders for supercapacitors and has a prototype SolidWorks drawing completed.

After talking to Eric Wertz, the team was told to consider a over-from-shelf battery management system (BMS). The team is looking at the Orion Jr. BMS at this moment and most likely going to discard the current design.

It's presentation week. The team was preparing the presentation hence there's not much add to the current design.  The team decided to use an active balancing method to prevent supercapacitors' overcharging and undercharging at the same pack.

The team was looking into the Atting 841 and the needed communication protocol for the capacitors bank. The team also started to create a simple flowchart and a program draft for the slave attiny 841. Attiny 841 running code /* assume parallel Vcc to an analog pin; Rx, Tx are binary numbers PIN_A1, output binary as voltage # PIN_A2, input as address */ #include <avr/sleep.h> #include <EEPROM.h> int addr = 0; byte val; byte target = 0; int read_state = 0; int voltage = 0; const byte interruptPin = PIN_B0; // pin used for waking up const byte receivingPin = PIN_A2; // Rx in 841 const byte transmittingPin = PIN_A1; // Tx in 841 const byte voltagePin = PIN_B1; // pin used to read voltage void setup() {     pinMode(receivingPin, INPUT);     pinMode(interruptPin, INPUT);     pinMode(transmittingPin, OUTPUT);     pinMode(voltagePin, INPUT); }     int wakeUpNow () {     delayMicroseconds(200); } void sleepNow () {     set_sl

Final all the groups have put the things back together. The team came out with Attiny 841 to communicate with the slave controllers and main Arduino. Serial communication is considered to be the communication method for the capacitors bank and the microcontroller.

Dr. Furman and Ron was giving opening speeches for this semester. Everyone is just setting up their station and get the place set up. The team talked to the guideway and motor interface team and checking the dimensions up. Tried to finalize the mechanism design

It's the first week of the semester. We were moving stuff from the old shop to the new building. Nothing much has been done for the project..