FSIPLeiria - Formula Student Racing Team

Hello PCBWay Team,

FSIPLeiria Formula Student Racing Team:

Site: https://formula.ipleiria.pt/en/home/

FSIPLeiria is a Formula Student Team from Leiria, Portugal based at the Polytechnic of Leiria, the team has existed since 2006 and built the T06, but had problems with continuity, in 2014 the team revived and made the T14, but once more the crew died. In 2020 a group of automotive engineers revived the team focusing on building a car in 2 years and keeping the team alive.

T06 – United Kingdom Competition

T14 – United Kingdom Competition

T22 – Italian Competition

The team that is talking here has 30 active members, and 7 of them are from the electronics department. The team goals for this year and the next is to have a complete electrical formula designed and manufactured, which will be reliable, competitive, and powerful.

We are developing a complete battery pack from scratch, high-end control PCBs, electric management, thermal management, and a vehicle control unit.

Electronics Department:

Most of the electronics department is electronics engineering students who have a passion for developing PCBs and electrical circuits. Currently, we have designed a Datalogger, Power-Distribution-Module, Telemetry Module and most of the data acquisition system were designed by us. Fortunately, we have the chance to develop most of the Formula Electronics.

Datalogger:

Datalogger is a board that has the ability to monitor CAN Bus and write it to an SD Card as fast as possible so we can get accurate data and analyze it to tune the car and achieve a better performance, the board is carefully designed to keep as small as possible so we do not occupy necessary space in the formula, the board is also designed considering that we might need to read an analogic signal so we always consider in having extra inputs to satisfy that need.

PDM:

PDM was developed to do energy control and protection of the vehicle, it has 4 smart fets which provide, overcurrent protection, current feedback, pwm control, and able to conduct high currents. As this module is the main control board since it has the ability to turn on and off individual modules and actuators we had to consider having thick tracks to conduct the max power.

Telemetry:

We have a data logging system that can save data up to 250Hz, however, it saves locally on an SD card. If the car is on the track, how would we monitor the car and check its status? For that, we have developed a telemetry system able to communicate through radio waves at 500m with 10ms of latency. This module connects to the CAN bus, receives the data, and sends it over the air to the pit wall.

Current Goals:

The current team is going to compete in Formula Student Portugal to present our first electrical formula, as we have a powerful background in electronics, we are planning to keep that power and take it to the competition with our new PCBs, aiming to have a very good score. We have all our systems built in breadboards, which we finally have finished the prototype and we are now working on the PCBs to take them to the competition.

The following picture shows a complete system of contactor control, battery pack cooling control, and motor temperature control. This board which will be one of the PCBs that we want to take to the competition is called Thermal Control Unit.

PCBWay Message:

We have heard about PCBWay and its quality in PCB manufacturing, in PCBWay we have a lot of options to choose from and adapt to our needs, as we believe in our electronics and their performance, we are ready to work with you and push the development to its maximum quality and performance. We are going to have the PCBs presented to international teams and engineers this year from July 31st to 6th August, and the following year we are also going to take them to other international competitions.