2014 Isle of Man TT zero

[Brick]

I love reading the progress am am behind you all the way!


Brick

[Buckeye56]

May 29


Today was a busy and long day for Buckeye Current. Work continued on getting the battery pack in top operating condition. The electrical team had the bike for most of the day starting once the morning meeting and breakfast was over, the mechanical team was off duty until balancing was completed.

I should explain what balancing the batteries means, I will start off by saying that I don't fully understand it but basically you want all of the cells to be as close to the same voltage level as possible. This will vary do to production differences, age of the cells, number of charging cycles, etc. This is a gross over simplification but that is the essence of it.

Lee and Sally Helwich, our hosts, and his family have been real troopers in sharing their home with us. Lee, whose job schedule is flexible, has been very kind in driving us around Douglas so we can get all the bits and pieces that we forgot to pack in the crate. We were in need of a variety so screws so he took me to a builder's supply house to get them. I had gone to a local home improvement store that day before but struck out. I was glad he offered as driving here stresses me out! It's really not all that hard to get used to right hand drive but since we are borrowing Sally's car I was happy to be chauffeured!

It was late afternoon by the time the electrical guys where satisfied with balancing, now we could begin the final tightening and safety wiring of RW2.x and affixing the sponsor decals to the bodywork. Before that happened, Tm Monahan, a software engineer from Mission Motors, stopped by to check out our bike. They supply the motor and motor controller for Mugen and he is here to assist with any issues that crop up. He seemed very interested in the bike and spent a long time talking to the team. Thanks to Colin Whittamore of Mugen Europe for sending him our way. While I always like to see interest in RW2.x, it is especially nice when folks in the business are impressed with what we have accomplished. Once he left we pulled the wheels to have a new set of Dunlop D212GP tires that Rob prefers.

Since Rob's paddock is so crowded, we ended up working in shifts starting with the decals. Those of us on the race prep side hiked back to the house, had dinner and waited for the call to return to the paddock. By midnight we had completed checking all of the fasteners and safety wiring where needed. Tomorrow is our first practice at 20:30 (8:30pm), tech inspection is approximately 2 hours before that. It will be a relief to get the bike on the track to see how it performs. With any luck, all we will need to do is tweak the gearing to give Rob as much speed as we can without over discharging the pack on race day. Oh yeah, it would be nice if there were no more "surprises'!

[Buckeye56]

Just a quick update. Yesterday's practice started off really well. At one point Rob was averaging better than 97 MPH. But battery issues ended up slowing us to 89. We have not yet come up with a plan of battle as how to best address this latest problem. I will keep you posted.

[Buckeye56]

We have decided to reconfigure the battery pack where the batteries failed in Fridays practice to improve cooling flow through that section of the pack. We did pack spares in the crate with the bike so the biggest issue is getting them charged up so we can bring the final balancing for the race. We skipped yesterday's practice as the bike is in pieces in the paddock. So there may not be much more news in the next few days. Oh and the power switch on the main battery charger has failed! Fortunately one of the other bike teams let us use their charger and since we use a different piece of equipment to do the balancing so we are OK assuming nothing else goes wrong!

Rob had a rough SuperBike race yesterday. He had chunked the rear slick in the Friday practice and was not happy about it. In the race, the tire chunked again but the bigger problem was the chain failed tearing up the sprocket, wheel and rear tail of the bike. It looks like it came real close to hitting him too which would have been much worse!

[DirtFlier]

Michael Dunlop, the Superbike race winner, averaged over 130 mph which I find totally amazing.

[Buckeye56]

Yes it is mind boggling! Bruce Ansty upped  the Zero record to over 112. Even though I would love to take a bike around the course there is no way I could ride anywhere nearly as fast as these brave souls do every day at the TT.

[Buckeye56]

June 1


Today folks got to sleep in a bit as we were still determining the best course of action and sourcing materials to complete repairs to RW-2.x. We did have two more set backs. Both the high power charger and the one used to balance the pack have failed. On the high powered unit it looks like the on/off/breaker switch failed, the balancing charger did not show any obvious problems, it just stopped working. In a turn of good luck, ARC EV from the UK had exact copies of both of our chargers with the proper plugs and generously loaned them to us! Thanks guys! We charged the bussed part of the pack as high as we could and then started peaking up the replacement cells to the same level. Then balancing began. I was told this morning that it appears the replacement cells can be charged to a higher level than first thought. Every bit of energy we cram into the cells is a very good thing.

Modifications to the upper pack frame continue to accommodate the change in orientation of the cells. Final calculations are in progress to determine the best gearing to run on Wednesday. I don't understand the dynamics of the vehicle well enough to explain the choice options but it comes down to limiting top speed such that we do not run out of energy before the end of the race. Need less to say, there has been much lively discussions on this topic the last few days!

Monday we need to make a parts run early since the course closes at 10am. We hope to find a new switch for the Manzanita charger, a new PL8 (used for balancing) and some fasteners ended to finish the upper pack mods. Then it is back to beating RW-2.x back into racing condition. Wish us good luck!

[Buckeye56]

June 3


Yet another busy day at the TT. The electrical team has bussed, charged and balanced the reconfigured battery pack and sorted out an issue with the rider display. We want to make sure Rob is able to monitor the energy in the pack so that he can go as fast as he can while not running out of juice before the finish line. Tonight they will be tweaking the data acquisition system.

The mechanical team modified and installed the covers on the packs, reinstalled the front wheel and did the final tightening and safety wiring of the fasteners. One of the things that had been the center of discussion for the past few days was what gearing to run. After crunching numbers and analyzing mounds of data, we pretty much took a WAG and threw a 40 tooth sprocket on the rear wheel. Actually we talked it over with Rob and he agreed with our choice.

So tomorrow we need to put the fairings on and go racing! We have serious competition for third from Sarolea, a team from Belgium who have made a beautiful machine that looks like a vintage cafe racer. As you might imagine, we are all getting just a wee bit nervous! Many will be glad once it is over and we know how well we did!

Once more I want to say how proud I am of the team. This year has been one problem after another and even though they were bummed out at times, they pulled together and refused to quit. They are the best!

[Buckeye56]

Yet another busy day at the TT. The electrical team has bussed, charged and balanced the reconfigured battery pack and sorted out an issue with the rider display. We want to make sure Rob is able to monitor the energy in the pack so that he can go as fast as he can while not running out of juice before the finish line. Tonight they will be tweaking the data acquisition system.

The mechanical team modified and installed the covers on the packs, reinstalled the front wheel and did the final tightening and safety wiring of the fasteners. One of the things that had been the center of discussion for the past few days was what gearing to run. After crunching numbers and analyzing mounds of data, we pretty much took a WAG and threw a 40 tooth sprocket on the rear wheel. Actually we talked it over with Rob and he agreed with our choice.

So tomorrow we need to put the fairings on and go racing! We have serious competition for third from Sarolea, a team from Belgium who have made a beautiful machine that looks like a vintage cafe racer. As you might imagine, we are all getting just a wee bit nervous! Many will be glad once it is over and we know how well we did!

Once more I want to say how proud I am of the team. This year has been one problem after another and even though they were bummed out at times, they pulled together and refused to quit. They are the best!

[Buckeye56]

So after months of design, fabrication and fighting with multiple battery and equipment failures, today we battled Team Sarolea the entire 37.73 miles of the famed Mountain Course. They started 10 seconds before us and Rob chased them the whole race and in the end we pulled out third place by a scant .037 seconds! The winners circle was kind of awkward as the stewards waved Sarolea in instead of us. It took about 5 minutes for race control to correct the finishing order. The problem was Sarolea's transponder was intermittent and no one was sure who was third until they reviewed the finish. Once again we were drinking champaign in the late morning, hugging, taking turns wearing the wreath and feeling relived that we were able to back up our podium finish in 2013. Props to Rob Barber for riding the wheels off RW2.x and bringing home another trophy! We ran the race in 24 minutes 12.23 seconds with an average speed of 93.531 mph. That is a little ore than 2 mph faster than what we ran last year.

Now we begin planning on next year's bike. We would love to come back to the TT to see if we can improve on the results we archived this year.

[Buckeye56]

We are still winding down from the high of yesterday's dramatic finish in the TT Zero event. We wheeled RW-2.x back over to the winners circle for team photos and basically relaxed. Given the hectic pace the first week and a half it didn't seem right to not be busy working on the bike!

The team had been invited to give a technical presentation to the Institute of Engineering and Technology at the Salmon Lake Centre. Julia Cline, Nathan Lord, Polina Brodsky and Aaron Bonnell-Kangas each spoke on an aspect of the project and did a fine job. It was a very nice event with a large and interested audience including the Lieutenant Governor for the Isle of Man. It was nice to see so much interest in the work the students have been doing and I know they really appreciated it as well.

Friday we have to repack all the stuff into boxes and make sure it matches the original manifest paperwork. The bike will be on display at a technical conference in Liverpool next week. Three of the team members will be there to talk to folks about the project. Then RW-2.x will begin the long trip back to Columbus. If last year is any indication, we won't see it again until August.

It is a little hard to believe that we are finished with the preparation for the TT. Even so, it is not like we are all at loose ends. Work has already begun for what we hope will be a return in 2015 and an even better result! For me, one of the best parts of helping the team is getting to know so many amazing, bright young engineers. But it is a bitter-sweet experience since their time at Ohio State is relatively short. I have been lucky to make so many wonderful friends.

OK, as the Brits say, it is time to get cracking on next year's bike!

[dhall854]

Congrats to you and the team for outstanding work. OSU engineers ROCK!
Good luck on your new design for next year's race.

[Buckeye56]

I would like to thank you all for your interest and support. These young people have busted their collective butts to achive what they have and it is nice to know others care!

[Brick]

I enjoyed "watching" your progress! Too cool that you got go again and theory did so well.


Brick

[stevegrab]

Bill congratulations to you and the fine team of young people. It must be a real pleasure to work on such a fun project of natural interest while working with talented individuals.