VUB Racing electronic safety systems
VUB Racing is a Formula Student team from Brussels
This year marks our fourth year competing in the electric vehicle category of the formula student competition. Our team takes our motto ‘Built not bought’ very seriously.
As such we try to make a lot of parts ourselves.
This ranges from smaller mechanical parts to the gearboxes and electromotors and so on. In an electric race car, there are many different electronical systems.
Because we do not have the right tools to produce our own complex PCB’s, we are thankful for our partnership with Eurocircuits.
They can provide us with reliable and high-quality PCB’s for in our car.
An important electronical system is the safety system. This system consists of a few PCB’s to make sure that all systems work safely and can be shut down when an unsafe situation is detected.
One of those PCB’s is the BSPD PCB. This stands for Brake System Plausibility Device and it monitors the brake pressure and the power consumption of the motor.
When the car brakes and the motor keep’s going at full speed, the high voltage system will be shut down. The PCB will reset itself after 10 seconds if everything is safe again.
BSPD PCB
Another PCB from the safety system is the IMD-latch. This PCB will shut down the high voltage if an insulation fault is detected.
IMD-Latch PCB
The last system we will discuss here is the TSAL. This stands for Tractive System Active Light. This PCB uses different leds to indicate if the high voltage system is active and operating normally (green leds) or if the high voltage system is shut down (red leds).
TSAL PCB
Of course, there are still a lot of other PCB’s, but those will be discussed in another post. The next step is to order all the PCB’s from Eurocircuits, assemble and test them. Stay tuned for the results in a few months.
Thanks to Eurocircuits
Thanks to our partnership with Eurocircuits, we can equip our car with the best quality PCB’s. We look forward to work with them.
For more Information, visit our web site VUB Racing
