Solar Freaks

Hello we are a portuguese students from the 12th grade that will participate in the FREI GIL GP 2011;

but all that we know about this is realy the basics, we have a teacher that is helping us, but he said to come here and get information about witch one is best motor, and is caracteristics, we also building a maximiser from engelec, and needing information to what kind of solar painel we should use and is caracteristics.
note that motor must be little and max power of 12w, because car max dimensions between 55x32

If u can give us some information of this, we realy apreciate that.
help us get the 1st place

SORY about my bad english i hope you understand

hello!

have you checked FUTURLEC in europe? they have good solarpanels.

We have used their panels, with Maxon motors, no maximizer, and have won to teams with maximizers.
Its also in the structure.
You may know ETAP school in Pombal, they werent using maximizers and beat everyone.


In Portuguese ::

Façam a pesquisas nessa loja, e podem falar com o pessoal da ETAP. Eles têem experiência recente mas excelente.
Eu desenvolvi um pseudo-maximizer que mantinha a tensão de saída em 24V, independentemente da tensão de entrada, e desenvolvi um circuito armazenador-inteligente, que só carregava os condensadores quando havia energia solar suficiente, e depois descarregava só qd é preciso. Na página http://www.antoniosergiosena.com vão encontrar ambos.

Outra coisa, se vocÊs fizerem os vossos carros a pensar só no FREIL GIL, vão ter problemas nas outras provas. O FREI GIL tem um campeonato à parte, e com regras diferentes. As outras provas tÊem todas as mesmas regras.
Novidades: vai haver uma reunião nacional com as escolas que têem peso, junto com a SPES, e vai redigir-se um documento de regra única para as provas nacionais. Estas regras vão ser baseadas nas provas Australianas, que são as melhores.

Qualquer dúvida, disponham.

Sérgio Sena

Thanks for help,

We don't want to participate only in FREI GIL GP, we want to go on others too, FREI GIL is just the traditional one.
I have been in FURTURLEC, and now i got some anoying questions like:
- If i connect in serie for example 2 solar cells in serie of for example 0.5V and 280mA, what the effects? does Voltage rise to 1V? and what about current? it goes up too?
- For use with faulhaber 2232, should i use one with high voltage like 12V for example? or better with 6V?
- Again with solar cell, is better a polycrystalline or monocrystalline?
- If i use a faulhaber 2232 006SR, to i get highest efficiency, should i try to get maximum voltage and current?

thanks again for helping us, and sry about english again

The best setup we have experienced here in the AU competition is the 2232 Motor, a maximiser, and a solar panel around 10 watts at 15 volts. Make sure you set up the Maximiser correctly otherwise itll slow you down.

The maximiser will give your motor extra current for extra torque, just make sure you gear accordingly.

RLY thanks TonyB!

We need to get 15V in open circuit right? that is able whit 30 solar cells of 0,5V and 830mA or better with 30 solar cells of 1V with 415mA?

thanks again

You want around 15V at the mpp. But, 15Voc would still be ok.
Can you post up some pictures of the FUTURLEC cells?? Im interested in seeing their quality.

I came across these a little while back and I think these are the modules that are being referred to:

http://www.futurlec.com/Solar_Cell.shtml

They look alright and for the price I was seriously considering getting a few in to have a bit of a look to see what they do.

With 15 of the 1.0V 415mA modules you could put together a 6W panel for like $60.

Yes but the prices are in US dollars and there will be postage fees on top of that so it'll cost around the $80 mark.
If the quality isn't there, you may as well by locally.

That module, the forth one down (1.0V 415mA Solar Cell) has a Q on the cell, which means they are using Q-Cells. Q-cells is a high quality European manufacture of solar cells, http://www.q-cells.com/en/index.html. If they are using Q-Cell cells then i think you will have a decent FF and high outputs.

http://atrc.net.pk/products/energy/sola ... s_s_01.JPG

Well, the exchange rate is pretty much 1:1 at the moment so there would be no real loss there.

Postage will cost a bit but Futurelec seem to have something located in Aus (Broadmeadow, NSW) and state that the shipping costs for an order between US$50 and US$99 is only US$9.00 using standard post.

All up $70 maybe.

So to answer your question baty92, somewhere between 15 and maybe 18 of the 1V with 415mA cells should work well and give you around 6W - 7W.

THANKS YOU GUYS! you RLY helping us in this project!

i got a novice question :
-If we put more than 6/8W of power in houer solar module, that affects motor rotations? using the engelec maximiser max4? because, if we get some sponsors, we maybe get "unlimited" cash to spend on the project, should we put more than 15/18 solar cells?



(thanks again for helping so much)