the MegaWatt - 1000ftlbs of torque?

the MegaWatt - 1000ftlbs of torque?

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gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Tuesday 30th August 2016
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Just completing the build diary of this electric animal built in Barbados by Dan Johnson, follow the complete build here :-

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/1210...

Aiming to be the fastest accelerating Westfield ever, and furthermore, the fastest accelerating road legal electric car!

fuoriserie

4,560 posts

276 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
quotequote all
gee_fin said:
Just completing the build diary of this electric animal built in Barbados by Dan Johnson, follow the complete build here :-

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/1210...

Aiming to be the fastest accelerating Westfield ever, and furthermore, the fastest accelerating road legal electric car!
Very interesting build.

Ambleton

6,947 posts

199 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
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At the risk of being a kill joy, is calling it "the megawatt" a bit misleading when is "only" has 640kW??

With so much torque, are you not worried about ripping/bending stuff out of shape? Ultimately the force has to be resolved somewhere, if the tyres keep gripping, next in line to go it the half shafts, then the diff, then the motor mountings, then the chassis!

jontysafe

2,361 posts

185 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
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You'll want to do considerable chassis strengthening. Ask me how I know!

A lot of high power Westfields end up banana shaped on a true flat surface.


NoCorseChris

332 posts

240 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
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Ambleton said:
At the risk of being a kill joy, is calling it "the megawatt" a bit misleading when is "only" has 640kW??

With so much torque, are you not worried about ripping/bending stuff out of shape? Ultimately the force has to be resolved somewhere, if the tyres keep gripping, next in line to go it the half shafts, then the diff, then the motor mountings, then the chassis!
Kill-joy!!! smile

Given the Westfield Mega-Whatever naming scheme I quite like this one.

With all that torque, must admit my first thought was they will be spending a lot of time playing 'spot the fuse' as one part after another bends or breaks. All part of the fun though I suppose and can't wait to see how it performs.

Nice one chaps.

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
quotequote all
Yep, spot on, the MegaWatt is two-fold, it follows the convention of the Westfield naming game (MegaBlade, MegaBird, MegaBusa), also, it's only 640Kw - *for now* biggrin We can add as much as we wish as we go on.

Agreed on chasing the fault/weak point, it's going to be part of the build process. I expect the standard prop UJ into the diff to be the first to go (although we're aiming to beef that up before the first event). Driveshafts and diff will be next on the list of suspects. The beauty with the controller is you can set it to exactly how many amps you wish, 600/800/1000/all the way to 1800 so it will be a case of just ramping up the power and examining along the way, replacing/uprating as required.

NoCorseChris

332 posts

240 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
quotequote all
Bet you turn it up to '11' on the first trip out though smile

Really is an interesting project though, thanks for sharing. Probably a good job you are doing it in Barbados though - can you just imagine what TPTB over here would make of it??

Baron Greenback

7,226 posts

157 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
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Keeping eye on this build!

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
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NoCorseChris said:
Bet you turn it up to '11' on the first trip out though smile

Really is an interesting project though, thanks for sharing. Probably a good job you are doing it in Barbados though - can you just imagine what TPTB over here would make of it??
It is tempting! But for testing (in two weeks) on the drag rubber we will have to approach it 10-20% at a time...

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/1210...


Turn7

24,159 posts

228 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
quotequote all
May be worth reading OP , in case you werent aware...

http://www.currentracing.co.uk/

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Wednesday 31st August 2016
quotequote all
Turn7 said:
May be worth reading OP , in case you werent aware...

http://www.currentracing.co.uk/
Awesome reading, we got room for one more up front if we need it wink

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Saturday 3rd September 2016
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mikeveal

4,715 posts

257 months

Thursday 8th September 2016
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Opened thread about electric car, was expecting an electic car, not a hybrid. frown

100Wh is only about 10 cells these days. If you use high discharge cells rated at 20C, you'll get around 2Ah per cell, and 14 to 100Wh. Each cell is capable of 20C*2Ah*3.6V=144W, but only for 3 minutes.

So your cells are capable of a max of 14cells*144W=2016W. Which is 2.7hp. Thats the maximum power that yor cells can deliver to your motor controller, before any losses (not including losses in cells or controller or motor or transmission)


Either you have a lot more cells than the 100Wh you say you have, or you're going to need to buy a lot more.

How many cells do you have, and what type are they please?

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Thursday 8th September 2016
quotequote all
It's not a hybrid, it's pure electric - twin series wound DC motors.

The initial 'drag' battery pack is 384 lithium cell batteries, 640kw power (64 batteries in total). That'll be used for drag as it's high output/discharge but subsequently low range. The car will end up with a larger battery pack for cruising.

mikeveal

4,715 posts

257 months

Thursday 8th September 2016
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Excellent. I shal have another look at the build diary.Thanks.
384 cells will do the trick!

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Monday 12th September 2016
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'drag' battery pack in situ below (4 x 16) :-


nute

756 posts

114 months

Friday 16th September 2016
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You must have some fiendishly cunning way of balancing all those cells as you charge em....

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Saturday 17th September 2016
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It's done manually 4 at a time currently, no battery management system in place yet as we want to monitor it all manually smile

obr

19 posts

129 months

Friday 30th September 2016
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Fantastic project, can't wait to see it on the strip.

gee_fin

Original Poster:

119 posts

290 months

Tuesday 1st November 2016
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First event down. Only got to do 3 runs on the 1/8th of a mile with every run chopping time off as we sought to dial in tyre pressures and shock settings.

Final time on the strip was 6.626s. The strip here is unprepped, so anywhere from 0.4-0.7s slower than somewhere like Santa Pod. The car smashed the 2WD record and missed out on the overall car record by just 0.03s - one more run and it would have had it!

Incar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfg4GWlNlzY

Hopefully have another timed test in a few weeks time to get down deep into the 6s and make the decision as to whether to push to 12" slicks on the back. The car was wheelspinning 2/3rds of the way down the strip!