Electrathon America Forum

Zaine Stapleton · Zaine Stapleton

Anyone done a in-car charging setup? Ideally you'd plug a external charger into the car to charge up your batteries before or after a race? I've got ideas for a charging system for my car to charge in parallel but still change it over to series for racing. Zaine

Zaine Stapleton · Zaine Stapleton

Would anyone know how to change over a breaker switch to have terminals on it? I've got a couple that would fit into a household breaker panel. Would you happen to have any pictures by chance Mike? Thanks, Zaine

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

I heard somewhere, i forget where, that larger sprockets are more efficient even if they have the same gear ratio, such as like a 10 tooth motor sprocket and 20 tooth drive sprocket is less efficient then 20 tooth motor sprocket and 40 tooth drive sprocket. Has anyone ever tested this, or even heard of i...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

I've been racing with an Alltrax for about a year and a half but i feel i don't take advantage of it. I run 36v and run a high voltage around 42v, a low around 28v. I put it at full speed and 30% max amps. Ive only changed it once and it was when we went from 72v to 36v. How do other teams program theirs. Are there w...

dfarning · dfarning

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for Battery Management Systems devices that they felt were suitable for electrathon? In my test battery packs, I don't use Battery Management Systems. I currently use a balancing charger to make sure the pack is balanced each cycle. For dischargin...

dfarning · dfarning

Has anyone had success using the USB to serial adapter that came with their alltrax AXE controller? Mine worked last fall on windows 7, but fails this year. It keeps trying to update itself and then reports that the driver install has failed :( I have contacted both the vendor and alltrax without a help...

dfarning · dfarning

I was wondering what current flow people are seeing when float charging their packs. I recently build a charging/maintaining station similar to the one Zaine described. But, instead of eight batteries I only have four; two good batteries and two pretty worn out practice batteries. As Zaine descri...

dfarning · dfarning

I am trying to compile a list of motor related information to help sort out the differences between the various motors used by electrathon teams. My challange is that when I get to a vendor site like http://www.cloudelectric.com/category-s/14664.htm or https://shiftev.com/index.php/test...

dfarning · dfarning

I would like to revisit an earlier thread about recommendations for battery chargers. I am a Do It Your self guy who likes to build my own gear which I can tweak to send me a text message about the status of a battery :( However, many coaches and mentors have express that a disproportionate am...

Stevie G · Stevie G

14.1 Vehicles must only be powered by electric motors. The rules used to specify only one motor. Are two or more allowed now?

dfarning · dfarning

Over the past couple of months I have been looking at inexpensive systems that teams could use to test their batteries. Below is a very simple prototype which can serve as the base of a pretty capable battery workstation. Hope it helps someone get started:) Sorry about the formatting I am new to this t...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

My team use to have a size 30 chain but we are changing the car to use a bike chain finding sprockets to put on the wheel is very easy but for the one that will go on the motor is much more difficult. Does anyone know where I can find a motor sprocket that will fit a bike chain?

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

So today in my physics class we were learning about transformers, and how some (set-up transformers) can increase voltage and lower amps (much like Bernoulli's principle with liquids). Now I know with higher voltage it means lower amperage meaning less inefficiency in the car. This also allows fo...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

My team is planning on modifying our #80 car (My profile picture) from 4 wheels to three, during that process we plan on doing a battery change, we have been using6 12v 18ah batteries each about 10 pounds, running 72 volts, we never ran any meters on that car. We plan to switch to 36v using the batteries Da...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

So there is debate on yellow top (deep-cycle) and red top (starting power), but I was reading about the optima blue top which says they are a mix between deep-cycle and starting power. So how come they don't seem to be used? Because people like arguing about red vs yellow but never blue (really should be...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

My school is looking at building a new car, right now we have two cars, one runs on 6 10lb 12v batteries and the other 4 of the same ones, since they take so long to charge on trickle we have to sets so we have 24 (4 spares) and those take 2 people the night before the race to charge and I want to use lithium ion for...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

My teacher was talking about a brushless Etek motor and I found one but i don't know if its the right one for Electrathon. All i have is this picture. Thanks for the help -Ryan

Kalie_CHS · Kalie_CHS

Hey everyone. This is Kalie and Sam from White Salmon. We built a cool car last year, but we noticed something that everyone was doing differently from us was gearing differently. I think we were gearing too high. I was wondering if anyone had tips on figuring a proper gear ratio or information about ge...

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

My school is making our second car and thought about a brushless hub motor, does anyone know advantages/disadvantages of a hub motor and a traditional electric motor?

Nitoragro · Nitoragro

For my schools new car we are going to use 7 10lb 12v batteries, our old number #80 car uses 6 of those and it works great, but we are having trouble getting a 72v motor. Or would it be worth it using the same 60v system? The reason we use these smaller batteries is because if we used the full size yellow top ab...

dfarning · dfarning

Over the past couple of months several current and former Electrathon have helped me get started on my first vehicle. One way I thought that I could repay the generosity is to share my experiences, both good and bad, as I try to build an Lithium-ion battery pack. My initial premise is that electrathon i...

ProEV · ProEV

Anybody else running advanced batteries? What are you running? How well do they work? We are running Kokam lithium polymer batteries, model SLPB78205130H. We are running 16 in series of the 16 amp hour capacity cells. This gives us 947 Watt hours (3.7 volts nominal * 16 amp hours * 16). Pack weight is 1...

XvEAMvX · XvEAMvX

We are trying to decide on a motor for our new Electrathon car that we are building this year but we cannot decide on a certain motor. Any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated! -Grayson HS Electrathon Team -Evan -- Edited by XvEAMvX on Saturday 2nd of August 2014 06:31:21 PM

Ed Richter · Ed Richter

My students and I are fairly new to Electrathon and we are in the process of building a new vehicle. Our goal is to run it at the Emerald Coast Electrathon. That race is run on a half-mile oval with a bank. With that being said, my question is: Is there an advantage to running an Etek motor over other moto...

Vic556 · Vic556

I was on the Optima Battery web site and saw under tech tips how to bring a Yellow Top AGM back from the dead using a good battery, charger and volt meter. Going to try it out. optimabatteries.com and look under Tech Tips.

swdragon17 · swdragon17

How do you find motor efficiency and how do you improve it ? Also , how much does raising or lowering the voltage affect the motor efficiency

Kalie_CHS · Kalie_CHS

Ian Baxter I know used to run a 48v system and always did well. He had good things to say about it. Everyone else, however, uses 24v. We experiemented with the 48v system last year and experienced electrical problems, and we haven't yet figured out if those were due to the system voltage. Thoughts on sys...

Nick Gupta · Nick Gupta

What is the theory behind battery heating? Does it allow the batteries to take a greater charge? Or does it allow the batteries to discharge more of the potential energy within the hour?

Nick Gupta · Nick Gupta

We are a fairly new team working on Electrathon and we are having some trouble with our car. We can run at comparable speeds to the other vehicles for about 12-15 minutes, but then the vehicle batteries die. The motor is also very hot (so hot that it hurts to touch it) after the race. I was wondering if anyo...

Nick Gupta · Nick Gupta

Over the past few years, I have seen some cars that have thumb or or foot throttles, while others have a dial in, where you can just turn the tile to the speed you desire, and leave it at that speed for the duration of the race - almost like a cruise control. Just wondering anyone thought one type of throlle (...

Topic		Started By	Replies	Views	Last Post
	Charging Harness (Preview) Anyone done a in-car charging setup? Ideally you'd plug a external charger into the car to charge up your batteries before or after a race? I've got ideas for a charging system for my car to charge in parallel but still change it over to series for racing. Zaine	Zaine Stapleton	2	1066	Mar 27, 2016 by Zaine Stapleton
	Breaker Switches (Preview) Would anyone know how to change over a breaker switch to have terminals on it? I've got a couple that would fit into a household breaker panel. Would you happen to have any pictures by chance Mike? Thanks, Zaine	Zaine Stapleton	8	1429	Mar 27, 2016 by Zaine Stapleton
	Bigger Sprockets better? (Preview) I heard somewhere, i forget where, that larger sprockets are more efficient even if they have the same gear ratio, such as like a 10 tooth motor sprocket and 20 tooth drive sprocket is less efficient then 20 tooth motor sprocket and 40 tooth drive sprocket. Has anyone ever tested this, or even heard of i...	Nitoragro	3	2144	Mar 19, 2016 by Zaine Stapleton
	Alltrax AXE Programming (Preview) I've been racing with an Alltrax for about a year and a half but i feel i don't take advantage of it. I run 36v and run a high voltage around 42v, a low around 28v. I put it at full speed and 30% max amps. Ive only changed it once and it was when we went from 72v to 36v. How do other teams program theirs. Are there w...	Nitoragro	4	1745	Mar 1, 2016 by ProEV
	Recommended Battery Management Systems for advanced batteries? (Preview) I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for Battery Management Systems devices that they felt were suitable for electrathon? In my test battery packs, I don't use Battery Management Systems. I currently use a balancing charger to make sure the pack is balanced each cycle. For dischargin...	dfarning	2	1484	Oct 9, 2015 by dfarning
	usb to serial adapter for alltrax AXE controller? (Preview) Has anyone had success using the USB to serial adapter that came with their alltrax AXE controller? Mine worked last fall on windows 7, but fails this year. It keeps trying to update itself and then reports that the driver install has failed :( I have contacted both the vendor and alltrax without a help...	dfarning	2	1434	Oct 4, 2015 by dfarning
	Current flow when float charging (Preview) I was wondering what current flow people are seeing when float charging their packs. I recently build a charging/maintaining station similar to the one Zaine described. But, instead of eight batteries I only have four; two good batteries and two pretty worn out practice batteries. As Zaine descri...	dfarning	1	1012	Sep 30, 2015 by Zaine Stapleton
	Does anyone have any links to commonly used motor resource? (Preview) I am trying to compile a list of motor related information to help sort out the differences between the various motors used by electrathon teams. My challange is that when I get to a vendor site like http://www.cloudelectric.com/category-s/14664.htm or https://shiftev.com/index.php/test...	dfarning	4	1182	Sep 16, 2015 by dfarning
	Smart Charger recommendations and battery maintenance strategies. (Preview) I would like to revisit an earlier thread about recommendations for battery chargers. I am a Do It Your self guy who likes to build my own gear which I can tweak to send me a text message about the status of a battery :( However, many coaches and mentors have express that a disproportionate am...	dfarning	4	2036	Sep 7, 2015 by dfarning
	Motor(s)? (Preview) 14.1 Vehicles must only be powered by electric motors. The rules used to specify only one motor. Are two or more allowed now?	Stevie G	3	1210	Sep 1, 2015 by XvEAMvX
	Simple Battery Workstation Build (Preview) Over the past couple of months I have been looking at inexpensive systems that teams could use to test their batteries. Below is a very simple prototype which can serve as the base of a pretty capable battery workstation. Hope it helps someone get started:) Sorry about the formatting I am new to this t...	dfarning	1	1411	Aug 24, 2015 by dfarning
	Motor Sprocket (Preview) My team use to have a size 30 chain but we are changing the car to use a bike chain finding sprockets to put on the wheel is very easy but for the one that will go on the motor is much more difficult. Does anyone know where I can find a motor sprocket that will fit a bike chain?	Nitoragro	4	1257	May 29, 2015 by Nitoragro
	Changing Voltage (Preview) So today in my physics class we were learning about transformers, and how some (set-up transformers) can increase voltage and lower amps (much like Bernoulli's principle with liquids). Now I know with higher voltage it means lower amperage meaning less inefficiency in the car. This also allows fo...	Nitoragro	2	1033	May 8, 2015 by Nitoragro
	Amp Draw (Preview) My team is planning on modifying our #80 car (My profile picture) from 4 wheels to three, during that process we plan on doing a battery change, we have been using6 12v 18ah batteries each about 10 pounds, running 72 volts, we never ran any meters on that car. We plan to switch to 36v using the batteries Da...	Nitoragro	0	790	May 5, 2015 by Nitoragro
	Blue Top? (Preview) So there is debate on yellow top (deep-cycle) and red top (starting power), but I was reading about the optima blue top which says they are a mix between deep-cycle and starting power. So how come they don't seem to be used? Because people like arguing about red vs yellow but never blue (really should be...	Nitoragro	6	1383	Apr 2, 2015 by mhodgertt
	Lithium Ion Questions (Preview) My school is looking at building a new car, right now we have two cars, one runs on 6 10lb 12v batteries and the other 4 of the same ones, since they take so long to charge on trickle we have to sets so we have 24 (4 spares) and those take 2 people the night before the race to charge and I want to use lithium ion for...	Nitoragro	3	1226	Mar 24, 2015 by meangreen
	Etek Motor (Preview) My teacher was talking about a brushless Etek motor and I found one but i don't know if its the right one for Electrathon. All i have is this picture. Thanks for the help -Ryan	Nitoragro	0	813	Jan 27, 2015 by Nitoragro
	Gearing For Specific Races (Preview) Hey everyone. This is Kalie and Sam from White Salmon. We built a cool car last year, but we noticed something that everyone was doing differently from us was gearing differently. I think we were gearing too high. I was wondering if anyone had tips on figuring a proper gear ratio or information about ge...	Kalie_CHS	9	1630	Jan 27, 2015 by mhodgertt
	Hub motor (Preview) My school is making our second car and thought about a brushless hub motor, does anyone know advantages/disadvantages of a hub motor and a traditional electric motor?	Nitoragro	3	1791	Jan 22, 2015 by ProEV
	Motor (Preview) For my schools new car we are going to use 7 10lb 12v batteries, our old number #80 car uses 6 of those and it works great, but we are having trouble getting a 72v motor. Or would it be worth it using the same 60v system? The reason we use these smaller batteries is because if we used the full size yellow top ab...	Nitoragro	1	753	Jan 11, 2015 by mhodgertt
	My journey towards a Lithium-ion battery pack for an Electrathon vehicle. (Preview) Over the past couple of months several current and former Electrathon have helped me get started on my first vehicle. One way I thought that I could repay the generosity is to share my experiences, both good and bad, as I try to build an Lithium-ion battery pack. My initial premise is that electrathon i...	dfarning	18	3712	Dec 12, 2014 by dfarning
	Who else is running experimental class this year? Kokam lithium (Preview) Anybody else running advanced batteries? What are you running? How well do they work? We are running Kokam lithium polymer batteries, model SLPB78205130H. We are running 16 in series of the 16 amp hour capacity cells. This gives us 947 Watt hours (3.7 volts nominal * 16 amp hours * 16). Pack weight is 1...	ProEV	12	3245	Nov 19, 2014 by ProEV
	Etek vs Etek-R vs Motenergy ME-0708 (Preview) We are trying to decide on a motor for our new Electrathon car that we are building this year but we cannot decide on a certain motor. Any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated! -Grayson HS Electrathon Team -Evan -- Edited by XvEAMvX on Saturday 2nd of August 2014 06:31:21 PM	XvEAMvX	7	1864	Sep 18, 2014 by XvEAMvX
	Etek motor? (Preview) My students and I are fairly new to Electrathon and we are in the process of building a new vehicle. Our goal is to run it at the Emerald Coast Electrathon. That race is run on a half-mile oval with a bank. With that being said, my question is: Is there an advantage to running an Etek motor over other moto...	Ed Richter	4	1310	Oct 31, 2013 by Ed Richter
	Battery Charging Tips. Save that Yellow Top. (Preview) I was on the Optima Battery web site and saw under tech tips how to bring a Yellow Top AGM back from the dead using a good battery, charger and volt meter. Going to try it out. optimabatteries.com and look under Tech Tips.	Vic556	0	958	Sep 17, 2013 by Vic556
	motor efficiency (Preview) How do you find motor efficiency and how do you improve it ? Also , how much does raising or lowering the voltage affect the motor efficiency	swdragon17	2	1199	Sep 17, 2013 by Vic556
	Voltage? (Preview) Ian Baxter I know used to run a 48v system and always did well. He had good things to say about it. Everyone else, however, uses 24v. We experiemented with the 48v system last year and experienced electrical problems, and we haven't yet figured out if those were due to the system voltage. Thoughts on sys...	Kalie_CHS	3	1415	May 2, 2013 by bobfranz
	Battery Heating - How it works? (Preview) What is the theory behind battery heating? Does it allow the batteries to take a greater charge? Or does it allow the batteries to discharge more of the potential energy within the hour?	Nick Gupta	3	1051	Apr 8, 2013 by Zaine Stapleton
	Motor Troubles (Preview) We are a fairly new team working on Electrathon and we are having some trouble with our car. We can run at comparable speeds to the other vehicles for about 12-15 minutes, but then the vehicle batteries die. The motor is also very hot (so hot that it hurts to touch it) after the race. I was wondering if anyo...	Nick Gupta	37	5162	Apr 5, 2013 by Nick Gupta
	Throttle Type (Preview) Over the past few years, I have seen some cars that have thumb or or foot throttles, while others have a dial in, where you can just turn the tile to the speed you desire, and leave it at that speed for the duration of the race - almost like a cruise control. Just wondering anyone thought one type of throlle (...	Nick Gupta	2	985	Dec 16, 2012 by ProEV
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