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titleMeeting minutes 2023/07/05

Participants: Former user (Deleted) Mohamed Goha Jonathan Xie Owen Li Shem Kim

Dashboard

  • Steering stalk is super huge and blocks the whole thing

    • Alternate idea to have console on one side and display on the other, with ventilation behind the wheel

  • Ben came up with a new design and it seems to fit tho? Mohamed Goha can you check

    • Need to decide estop location

  • Can we just use an iPad?

    • Yes, but we need to make an app and have the rear camera feed streamed to it

    • More effort than its worth

Power Distribution Location

  • Two primary options: under the seat and in the front

    • Under the seat is the most “central”, optimal for harnessing but hardest to access. It is the furthest point from the outside and you need to climb in for access

    • Want to prioritize serviceability, will have PD on top of chassis in the front

Startup and Power Switches

  • External estop switch will be in the rear b the lights/cam, will be normally closed

  • Internal estop will be flight switch like device accessible to the driver, can go to the left of the main display

  • Proposed startup sequence, changes required

  • PHASE 1 (initial start-up, before HV pack is engaged):

    1. In order for Main Power Switch relay to be engaged, it needs to receive power and signal from the AUX batt

    2. aux batt needs to first flow through the N.C. rear switch in the back of the car (external E-stop), as well as the front switch (N.O), which is located next to the driver. Closing this switch is 'phase 1' of the power-up sequence

    3. AUX power flows through UV cutoff, which currently has active protection to cut off the power if its voltage is too low

    4. AUX flows into Power Select, which through pure hardware, selects the power source used to power the LV system. The priority is JUMP > DCDC > AUX

    5. during phase 1 (initial start-up), only AUX is available, so Power Distribution will output power from AUX (purpled line on diagram)

    6. BPS will be powered off this purple line, and will check the status of the main pack. If the main pack is okay, then BPS will close the 'BPS Switch' (N.O. relay, powered by purple line)

    7. If all the above conditions are met, then purple line will power and enable the Main Power Switch relay, activating the HV system

    PHASE 2 (HV pack is engaged, but car is not fully on yet)

    1. Main pack power flows into DCDC, which creates DCDC LV power

    2. Power Select now identifies DCDC is available, and allows PD to distribute DCDC to power the rest of the LV system

    3. Note that the purple line now becomes DCDC, so BPS and BPS Switch are now powered by DCDC. BPS MUST be powered off DCDC after start-up, but BPS Switch doesn't have to, so maybe we can leave it powered by AUX after start-up?)

    4. Fans, horn, telemetry, will always be powered by AUX (unless aux dies, in which... maybe telemetry & horn need to be taken over by DCDC. See Phase 3 #3)

    5. Centre Console is now powered by DCDC, meaning that its buttons and indicators become active.

    6. Pressing the 'POWER' button on

    PHASE 3 (car is fully on)

    1. Motor controllers, MCI, and all other HV and LV systems are enabled.

    2. In the event of a BPS emergency:

    3. BPS will open the BPS Switch, thus cutting the power and signal to the Main Power Switch, thus disabling the HV and DCDC systems

    4. Power Select will now select AUX as the LV power source such that the driver can safely steer to a stop, and the driver + onlookers are notified of the emergency (this require BPS lights, CC, steering, pedal, etc to all still be active and powered off AUX)

    5. Once the car is in a safe place, the driver can disconnect the Front Switch, or someone from outside the car can hit the Back Switch, to fully disable the car

    6. In the event of AUX failing: (which is likely to never happen, because aux batt should last an entire racing segment)

    7. BPS Switch (if we choose to power it off AUX in Phase 2/3) will switch to DCDC as its power source

    8. Horn may have to be powered off DCDC (is it critical to still have horn?)

    9. Telemetry may have to be powered off DCDC (or can the driver just walkie-talkie to the trailing vehicle?)

    10. In the event of both failing:

    11. Car completely dies

    12. To turn off the car:

    13. Press the POWER Button on CC (with brakes pressed?)

    14. Flick the Front Switch to OFF

    Micah Black 
    This looks pretty good. A few thoughts:

    • 5.a. Yes, brakes should need to be pressed, as in all vehicles.

    • You should expand on point 4. Think through what happens if BPS then aux fails, or the other way around. How will you tell what happened, where are the logs, are the failure states latched, etc.

    • 3.b. if aux fails, and you're still driving and want to pass someone at FSGP, you will need a horn (unless regs have changed significantly).

    • 3. Make sure you have an indicator of this somewhere in the car.

    • Think through what happens when someone pushes the e-stop. What happens when it gets re-enabled? What if this re-enabling happens really quickly (i.e. someone bumped the e-stop but it didn't latch - will the car still have power but think it shut down?) Edge cases like this are important to consider.

    • Precharge should be part of your diagram. What happens if something fails during precharge? e.g. car gets half-precharged, then aux does not have enough power left to close the main contactors?

    Forest Zhou  
    @Jonathan Xie The rear estop switch should not be controlling aux power to power select. That needs to directly de-energize the main relays. Otherwise, if you push the estop the car will just go into 3a and keep on running. Also the diagram says msxiv lol (edited)

Aux Batt

  • SOC indicator is not needed tailing car can communicate to driver pack voltage

    • Can also make BPS indicator RGB, for both batteries

    • Or switch main pack voltage display to aux voltage momentarily

  • Maintain active protection, since its pretty simple

Main BMS

Single Motor

  • Too late now

Comms

  • Different from telemetry, telemetry is only for sending vehicle diagnostic data and not for communication with the driver

    • Telemetry is unidirectional, will simply spill can bus data to trailing car and nothing else

  • Communication with driver is to be established via handheld radio?

Power

  • NEED TO REVISIT FOR SUMMER VALUES Calculation of Solar Insolation | PVEducation

  • Power input estimate

    • Theoretical 3.5W/cell * 256 cells = 896W

    • With 4 peak sun hours per day, 896W * 5h = 4.5kWh/day

    • 5kWh pack over 10 days = 0.5kWh/day

      • Battery average current 0.5kWh / 7h / 130V = 0.55A or 0.07A/cell

      • Battery max current 10kW / 110V = 90A or 11.25A/cell

    • Total = 5kWh/day

  • Power budget estimate

    • Solar inefficiency 4.5kWh * 0.95 = 4.275kWh

    • LV power = 30W * 8h = 0.24kWh

    • Motor controller power 4kWh / 7h = 570W

    • Driver power 570W * 0.95 = 540W

  • Speed Estimate

    • Theoretical Aero Cd 0.09, realistic 0.15

    • Frontal area 1.36m2

    • Crr 0.0109

    • Mass 300kg Mohamed Goha is this with the driver?

    • Cruise speed at 540W = 11.2m/s or 40kph

Expand
title2023/07/04 Hardware-Firmware Sync

Attendees: Mitchell.Ostler (Deactivated) Jonathan Xie

Objectives: UV cutoff merging with PD, power up sequence

UV Cutoff:

  • Good to merge with PD

  • maybe don’t merge with PS, cuz 1 MCU for all 3 might be too congested for firmware. TBD

  • delete fuel gauge if battery/owen is ok w it

  • fuel gauges

  • conduct purely hardware validation on existing UV cutoff board soon (before new one is sent out)

  • conduct firmware validation on existing UV cutoff (can read BATTERY_EN and send load switch enable signals). To be done after hardware validation

Power-Up Sequence

Critical Questions (in general):

  • does UV cutoff power itself on start?

  • does BPS need to be on before HV is turned on? Does it need to on before CC/PD are enabled? Or can it be on at the same time as LV system (CC/PD/etc)

  • how is power selected when main switch is pressed (HV relay closed)

  • what systems are powered by aux (on startup, and when do they ‘get off' aux)

  • how does BPS cut off the battery (BMS relay?? what does it do and how, at each state)

  • what do each of the driver controls (physical button vs digital button) do?

Physical Switch OFF

Physical Switch just turned ON

Physical Switch ON

Digital Button Pressed ON

Notes

Relay??

PD

OFF

OFF

ON - LV

PS

OFF

OFF but doing hardware decision to use LV

ON - LV

CC

OFF

ON - LV

UV cutoff

OFF

BMS

OFF* (could be AUX)

ON - Aux

DCDC

OFF

ON

HV Pack

OFF

ON

SOLAR

OFF

PEDAL / STEERING

OFF

MCI

OFF

Next steps:

  • Email ASC to clarify regs (when can BMS be powered by aux?)

  • Reach out to past elec leads (Micah, Aashmika, Nita) to find out what they did

  • Meet with Forest, Mitch, Owen, Battery Box, etc to discuss this (Wed July 12th)

...