What are
/r/FSAE's
favorite Products & Services?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
The most popular Products mentioned in /r/FSAE:
![Design and Simulation of Four Stroke Engines [R-186]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41i6E0PcCWL._SL500_.jpg)
![Anker 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub, Ultra-Slim Data USB Hub with 2 ft Extended Cable [Charging Not Supported], for MacBook, Mac Pro, Mac mini, iMac, Surface Pro, XPS, PC, Flash Drive, Mobile HDD](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31gHkluN45L._SL500_.jpg)
The most popular Services mentioned in /r/FSAE:
Asana
Onshape
Mathpix Snip
Slack
Hangouts
Grafana
Splunk
AlternativeTo
TinyPic
Google Photos
SOLIDWORKS
Live for Speed
Indeed
The most popular reviews in /r/FSAE:
With the info you have provided, I can definitely recommend this one:
Gordon P. Blair is your messiah in this case
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Simulation-Stroke-Engines-R-186/dp/0768004403
> We don’t have a decibel meter
Are you from the same team as OP? If you don't have a meter how do you know if you've changed anything? I agree 3 dB is a big difference, but 110 is so loud to begin with I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference. How do you know you're at 113 to begin with? I'm really not trying to be mean but if you don't have a meter, what are you even testing?
edit: you can get a pretty cheap one on amazon. It's not expensive and fancy, but it will at least give you some numbers
There's really a lot that can be done, and there are a lot of great resources out there. All of the "To Win" books by Carrol Smith are great for learning how to properly build and design a car. You can get them all on Amazon for about $25 each. Tune to Win and Prepare to Win are the most beneficial in my opinion. Tune to Win is good for designing, and Prepare to Win is good for manufacturing. I have also heard there is a PDF of Tune to Win somewhere. Another good book is Learn and Compete. This book is written by FSAE judges and is great for new teams because they give a good direction for where to go. They also give a good idea of what not to do for new teams because they will see the teams try it and fail. Claude Rouelle also has a video that gives good pointers for teams to be successful. The main idea that stuck with me from the video was that you must build an A team and a C car before you can build an A car. I wholeheartedly believe this because I experienced it first hand. It is possible to build a car with only a handful of people, but that car will not be the best it can be, and your social, mental, and school life will suffer because of it. All of these really helped us when we were struggling my first years on the Alabama team. It took a few years to grow the team, but once we did, the results began to show.
We usually use a flick switch behind the brake pedal, similar to the one in the link.
"Inside Racing Technology" by Paul Haney and Jeff Braun is the one i always recommend to everyone as a primer. discussion of high level technical details written in plain english with some great first-hand accounts. From there I stick to technical papers and RCVD... which is written in Greek by comparison
The 10x number is emperically derived by tbe team I was with over several years. That value is a solid starting point for the FSAE restrictor and thumper engine applications.
Remember that engines are just glorious heat pump systems. They resonate, they have harmonics, there are tuning frequencies and efficiencies of the system you are polishing.
Corky Bell's Maximum Boost is a good reference for high performance applications.
And then, the Holy bible of engine knowledge that your team should have on hand: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Simulation-Stroke-Engines-R-186/dp/0768004403
Would you think that these kind of bms are appropriate to use? https://www.ebay.de/itm/353925767090?chn=ps&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A19yaa5HCzRsGfN3_2tuwgeQ45&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=707-134425-41852-0&mkcid=2&itemid=353925767090&targetid=1596011700910&device=m&mk...
Drag and sports car tire design at Goodyear. Extensive travel during race season and typically pretty involved in the manufacturing process. http://www.indeed.com/viewjob?from=appsharedroid&jk=73ce7898fd173beb
I suspect when you say "Arduino motor" you're talking about the SG90 but you haven't been very specific.
My suggestion is to ask yourself some questions and define your requirements before going any further. What range of motion is needed? What torque is needed? How fast should the rotation be? Should the servo/motor use a certain voltage to be compatible with your vehicle's electrical system?
Here's their page on it: https://slack.com/help/articles/204368833
But yea it looks like their limit is exactly 250, with an 85% discount above that. So you all could probably just purge out your inactive members and be good.
We use the advanced features quite a bit, especially the video calls which are very handy.
Getgud at math. Get familiar with a machine shop setting, learn to use a lathe & mill if you have access. Learn to Cad and how to make good engineering drawings with proper tolerances, Onshape is free and runs inbrowser on any computer btw, it just can't do drawings or finite element analysis. I wish we had highschoolers dedicated enough to help.
This got me through university.
Holy smokes! 450 USD for a relay is insane! And most alternatives are not better... (cough 1,5K for a relay cough..)
I think I found a cheaper suitable alternative:
https://no.farnell.com/cynergy3/dbr71210-hr/reed-relay-spst-nc-1kv-3a-th/dp/2663971?st=dbr71210-hr
It seems to fit the bill:
- Model name: DBR71210-HR
- Switching Voltage : 1000V
- Switching Current: 3A
- Coil Voltage: 12V
- Contact configuration: Normally Closed
- Cost: 600NOK (60 USD ish)
Before buying any equipment you need to ask yourself what you're trying to observe and why. Data is cool, but will often go unused if there's no purpose for it. Every year on my old FSAE team someone brings up Telemetry and everyone loses their shit because YoU GeT tO sEE tHe DAta LiVe oN a TaBlet. Someone tries to make it, realizes how hard it is, graduates, and then the team is back at square 1 with a half finished data system and crud wiring diagram. Everyone eventually loses sight of what data acquisition can help you do.
The first thing that comes to mind is design validation: is the design on paper the same thing you made in real life and does it meet the goals. How do you prove you met the goals: with data. Because you're a new team, I wouldn't spend a lot of money on a data logger or any onboard electronics.
Before thinking about telemetry and data logging, you have to start simple.
- A stopwatch/timing gates
- Use an accelerometer on your phone and strap it to the car
- Record speed using a phone's GPS
- Tire Pyrometer (or IR gun)
People have been racing for decades without data loggers and still made kick ass machines with those tools.
Knowing Position and Time will tell you way more about your car than spending $400 on a set of shock potentiometers will.
Once the team grows and knows what data they want to collect, then you can start specing out a data logger based on what channels, hardware requirements, functions you want.
If you want a basic cheap system, Id recommend any of Racepak's system or even a used AiM or Racecapture and a copy of Competition Car Data logging. Its a pretty basic run of the mill explanation of the basics of data acquisition.
You'll want what's called "thermal adhesive", which is also used for CPUs and VRMs in personal PCs, but more sparringly.
Thermal paste doesn't have any significant adhesive properties.
Also, just in case the Amazon link goes down in the future, here's an Imgur link to the page
We have had good luck (so far) with these cheap Chinese brands you see on amazon/eBay: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N8SX347/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_l4gxDb55CXC96
We installed one on a tee in our oil lines right by our headers and had no issues with it.
This little guy has worked on both the AEM and Motec ECUs we’ve had.
This book has some simple calculations to get you started. Other books with info are Milliken obviously. The to win books aren't that great for actual design but still have value, Tune to Win specifically. https://www.amazon.com/Race-Car-Design-Derek-Seward/dp/1137030143
Here is a great book about autocross. Nearly all of the driving techniques described in this book are applicable to our cars. It's also a good place to pick up some lingo that drivers and engineers might use, plus it's cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Autocross-Techniques-Speed-Secrets/dp/0760331561
These two books are a great place to start.
The first book goes over some of the basic stuff like what each sensor does and the overall process of tuning. The second book goes a bit more in-depth and discusses things like how to properly create your base fueling/efficiency map, why injector characterization is so important, why running E85 is beneficial in certain applications, etc.
Other than sitting in on dyno tuning sessions or asking questions to the engine lead, I found these two books one of the best sources of info.
Heywood So you understand the physics of an engine. The text is getting a little old and dated, but it's still pretty much the calibration bible.
MegaManual very good guide on how to work with an engine controller and get an engine running. Some of the things presented are a little ghetto but they are generally very good.
If you read Heywood too you should be in a good position to understand why some of the things in the megamanual are not 100% correct.
The Banish books posted are fundamentally correct but tend to be content lacking. Even more so for an engineer.
Yea, what do you guys use? I found this and was told it would work.
It can vary a bit from team to team. At my school though, the team was very welcoming of people with any amount of background knowledge about cars and engineering (including absolutely zero prior knowledge) as well as any major. I was at an engineering school, so the vast majority of people were engineering students. But that didn't mean they wouldn't be open and welcoming to a business student, a comp sci major, a humanities major, or any other student.
Also, check out Racecar: Searching for the Limit in Formula SAE.
Also, my final note, FSAE cars are nothing like regular everyday cars. I don't necessarily think I was highly knowledgeable about cars when I first joined my school's team, but I wasn't completely "car illiterate" either. What I can say is that nothing I knew was entirely relevant or useful with regard to Formula SAE. So don't feel bad that you know very little about cars. The people that I've seen go furthest in terms of their involvement in FSAE were those with a background in FIRST from high school or similar.
Everything you want to know about AoA/racecar aero if you are starting out are in these two books: http://www.amazon.com/Competition-Car-Aerodynamics-Practical-Handbook/dp/0857330071 http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Low_Speed_Aerodynamics.html?id=RblgQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y Go to the FSAE and read some thesis papers as well. Simple test - mock up some wings in fibreglass/mdf/coreflute/scrap metal sheet and drive around - see if they make a difference. Send me a message if you want some more books. Regards
CFD is a drop in the bucket when it comes to Intake and Plenum Design.
Look at the top 5 teams design try to understand why they run that. By looking at current designs you can learn why they do something, the way they do then improve on it for your design.
Search the FSAE Forums, lots of info there. Maybe not always directly but its helpful.
Google FSAE Intake Paper, use other key terms there are a few papers that you can find that talk about plenum design. Also before buying or complicating your self google the SAE Papers name you can find many of them for free.
Tip: Just because something flows better does not mean it will perform better. You might get higher power but throttle response suffers.
Reccomended book http://www.amazon.com/Design-Simulation-Stroke-Engines-R-186/dp/0768004403