University of Washington Formula Motorsports

University of Washington  Formula Motorsports

For more than 30 years, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has held

an annual competition known as Formula SAE. The competition directive is for

students to design and build a formula-style racing car, and then compete

against similar race cars built by other students from all over the world. Today,

over 500 teams compete world-wide.

Formula SAE teams are challenged to build a car that has excellent handling,

braking, and acceleration capabilities. However, sheer performance is not the

only goal. The car is also to be designed as affordable, easy to maintain, and

reliable. Additionally, widely accommodating ergonomics and aesthetics must

be addressed.

Our PCB’s

The majority of the circuit boards used in our car are custom designed by our team members.  This allows us to use boards perfectly meet our needs in terms of size and functionality.  Below are three examples of boards that we utilize on our car.

Low Voltage Battery Board

The Low Voltage battery board regulates and monitors charge to the battery that powers all of our car’s low voltage components, such as the dash, and steering wheel.

ANACAN

The ANACAN board acts as our CAN bus module.  CAN bus is what allows our car’s components to communicate with each other without using a host computer.  Using CAN bus reduces the cost and weight of our car when compared to other communication methods.

PDU

Our PDU board allows us to switch electrical loads to the car, and electronically fuse them.  The PDU is key to all electrical components on the car.

Support

Testing last year’s car is crucial to our team’s success as it allows us to make informed decisions while we design this year’s vehicle over the coming months.  With PCBWay’s support, we will be able to to further develop and test last years PCB’s.  Revising previous PCB’s will also allow new members of our team to gain invaluable experience designing and assembling PCB’s.