McRat whaaaats up?
Hey, Sparky, it's McRat. I get too involved with the "politics" of LSR when I post on this board. So, I delete my user to keep my big mouth shut, but I just end up starting another user.
The material we are using is not flexible enough to make a decent shape. We would have to solder hundreds of individual cells which are fragile like butterfly wings. With the amount of "free" time me and the kids have, we can't do anything but a flat plane for now. It has generated 1050 watts, or about 1.3 hp.
First effort was a 25' long wheelbase two wheeler. At this point, that's not going to work. The center would hit things and it was too "wobbly".
Now we are going to a 4 wheeler or 5 wheeler, with the same overall length, but only a 16' wheelbase.
Layered polycarbonate won't work. It gets weak too easy. It's aluminum now.
Having sprocket issues right now, and some Chinese parts ordered months ago have not arrived.
Allison (14 years old) is going to enter it in her 2012 HS Science Fair. We are going to attempt to test it at El Mirage next weekend, but won't clock it.
She is learning, volts, amps, ohm's law, trig, and hopefully still some aerodynamics. And of course, how to use hand tools and power tools.
We are also trying to get a bike ready to do Time Only at Elmo, but it won't be electric. The solar car takes precident(sp) over the electric motorcycle.
We will post pictures of the solar car it as soon as we git er dun. Hopefully the 16th.
No more LSR cars for us. Too expensive. Fun projects or motorcycles now. We can do all the safety equipment on a motorcycle, including tires for less than the cost of a HANS device alone. We could buy a 2012 Busa retail with safety equip, for less than what our car safety parts cost.
I occassionally drive a "stupid fast" street truck to work, I like to think it's the fastest production diesel truck on the road with a 197mph official timeslip (it went faster though). To continue LSR with it would turn it into a 100% trailer queen and still cost thousands a year to keep, and that's just not how I run. Trucks haul and tow things. If they don't, they are little but poorly designed coupes, they aren't trucks. It's like marrying a mannequin. You pay for the wedding, but the honeymoon is disappointing for me.
See? It only takes me 5 minutes to go from tech to trash.
I hope to run Bville again and Elmo, but I'm moving back to my first love, which is bikes.