Part 1: Retrofitting the
'Atomic Thing' for Ice Racing High Speed Duty.
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| So,
just about everytime it gets cold enough for a nearby body of water to
freeze, it also subsequently snows. This is a bit troublesome in a few
ways. Like in ice skating or ice hockey, the fewer surface
preturbations the better. While a small covering of snow is removeable,
it fouls the top layer of ice and freezes into an intermediate ice-mush
layer. This is fairly viscous and not that great for highspeed ice
vehicles. The effect is visible far right, as the vehicles
penetrate through a top frozen layer into the semi-frozen mush, riding
on an underside frozen layer. |
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| So
as you can imagine it takes a rather particular type of weather
conditions. Nominally, the temperature has to remain well below zero
for
a significant period of time without there being any snow-like
percipitation. We finally found it, the weather reports lined up and
lo, we had up to 11 inches of ice below our feet, time to put
it to use
with modified PWRS racing vehicles and custom high speed electric
skeleton sleds. |
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| Our encampment was right |
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| High
speed electric PWRS vehicles you say? Atomic Thing (a V.W. Thing entry
into 2014-2018 PWRS competitions) always had the stealthy feature of
being intended for more speed than the event required. With an 8-speed
shimano gearbox and a '7kw' motor, clearly there was some more headroom
for
speed. To fully utilize the motor, a 24S 10P cylindrical A123 module
was assembled. This nets 84V fully charged at roughly 22AH. These packs
were re-arranged from the 'a123 - hymotion' prius program. Initialy I
had plotted that a lack
of mass in the front would result in the vehicle having poor steering.
Aside from the large battery pack and ice-skate wheels, the Atomic
Thing was ready to go. |
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| After
some quick driving on ice, we realized that, a significant
lack of
traction was hindering preformance. We were very very efficient at
spitting ice out of the back tires but alas the lack of rear mass
resulted in a very shifty cart. To fix this, the battery module was
'haistily re-located' to the rear of the cart, with what can only be
described
as an oragami of ratchet straps. |
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| We
tried both ice-skate and studded wheels for the front and found that
while the ice skates did provide better steering, it did have trouble
over rough ice. As an alternative we tried studded solid tires to great
effect. While the steering with studded tires was more of a slide, it
was surprisingly less jarring. |
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Along with Atomic Thing, the
Electric Koolaid Acid Test joined for Ice adventures
Electric
Koolaid is the child of Frederick Moore and team department
of silly gokarts. The psychadelic outer shell is the artwork of the
ever-excellent Audrey Horst. To prevent the shell from being shredded
or soaked outside in the cold, it was opted to drive shell-less. |
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The
great smooth, wet ice day was quite excellent. We had a great showing
of miters-on-ice. Ice skates were brought out, kites were attached to
lawn chairs and used as a mode of transportation and the weather held
out quite well. The great Fred koolaid mobile was a great 'tow everyone
back to home base' transport. |
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| When
I said 'kites and folding chairs being used as a form of
transportation' I was quite serious. There was just enough wind to drag
a person in a foldable camping chair at ~1-2 mph. Quite excellent
indeed. The bottom of the chairs started with rough contact patches,
but were buffed smooth by the end of the day. There was plenty of space
to ice-sail about. |
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| Just
for some reference here's what that chari looked like after a day of
ice-kite action. |
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