Thread: Electrathon - A Different Kind of "Hotrod"

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Man, that sucks! Your luck with automobiles recently sounds about as good as my son's...
I am building another Electrathon car; it is almost a twin to the one built earlier in this thread. If I get it done in time, I will take two cars to Tampa! They have moved the race times back so the second race will be run under the lights. That will be fun if it doesn't turn cold when the sun goes down...

Jim, This series is exactly what I've been looking for. We actually built an Electrathon in my Engineering & Technology lab at school. Bought most of my electrical stuff from Steve Cloud.As of right now we have the only Electrathon is Georgia. I was asked by our TSA State Advisor to take point on this to try to promote it across the state.Made a lot of prsentations, drew a lot of interest,a few takers! If it is OK with you, I may send some folks to you for advice.
Don

Sure, Don. Send 'em to me. I'll try to answer any questions and if I can't, I can probably send 'em to somebody who can. I also have a pretty good stash of pictures on some previous builds and events. Speaking of pictures, do you have any pics of the car your team built?

I didn't make it to Tampa last Saturday (12-5-09). It turned cold and rainy on Friday and the weather forecasts were not good. It did dry out by Saturday afternoon, but, being two hours away, I didn't make the trip. I would have had to leave here in the pouring rain with a 70% chance of rain-out... They did run both races, the second under the lights in 40+ degree temps! There was a total of ten cars in attendance and, from the lap count results, there was some close racing going on. If anybody is interested, you can see the final results at www.electrathonoftampabay.org

I am nearly finished with the second car mentioned above. I haven't posted any pictures because it is nearly identical to the one I already built on this thread. I'll put up a finished pic soon.

The next scheduled event is USF Tampa in February. I plan to be at that one with at least two cars...

Don,
I just looked up Morven, Georgia on the map. You are closer to Pensacola, Florida than I am. The reason I bring that up is because last year there was a race at Five Flags Speedway in early March and they said they were going to do it again. As soon as I know something definite I will post it here and also send the info to you.

OK, I just got word from the main guy in charge of the race at Five Flags - there will be an Electrathon race there on April 17, 2010.

The race last year was in early April, not March as I stated above. This will be the second annual "Emerald Coast" race.

Jim,
There are very few bends in our frame because we had nothing to bend tubing with! Our motor is a 1hp Scott I ordered from Cloud Electric, it has the copper brushes & larger fan than normal. I wish I could find another set of wheels like the rears. They have the built-in drum brakes, very simple to hook up. We did something different in steering, front drive and front steer. We got around the Ackerman dilemma by using a "joystick". Push forward to go left, pull back for right with a twist grip throttle. Next car will have a steering wheel, only one kid can handle this one & he graduates this spring.I think we'll probably go conventional with 2 fronts & rear drive. Torque from this little motor is awesome! I bought a 3-n-1 machine & no gas MIG welder so we'll be able to get a little more creative with frame design. By the way, 3/4" EMT works great doesn't it!
Would attach pix but all are too big file size!

Don,
If you take a look at some of the cars that ran at Tampa last weekend (www.electrathonoftampabay.org) you will see that some of those teams obviously built their cars with few or no bends. The important thing is you built a car and got involved.

The venerable Scott 1 hp motor is probably the most commonly used motor in Electrathon. They are reliable and fairly efficient and they don't break the bank when you buy one.

If the car is difficult to drive, it could be a real handful on some of the twisty parking lot courses we run. I have attached a picture of a front-drive car from Miami that uses a Scott 1 hp. Notice that this car uses a go-kart style "butterfly" steering wheel. If you would like more info or pictures of this car, I can put you in touch with the owner/driver. Another option would be to go to a twin-lever style steering like some of the cars that were at Tampa.

If you look at the build part of this thread you will see that I use a combination of 1/2 and 3/4 inch EMT. Yes, the stuff works great for this. You can get conduit benders for cheap at Lowe's or Home Depot (or any hardware store) that will allow you to make all the bends and curves you need.

If your computer uses XP or Vista, there should be a "Picture Manager" program where you can crop and resize pictures. 640 x 480 is about ideal for this forum.

I bought a bench mount tubing bender and metal shear to use on 2.0,"code name" for our next car.Should make things more interesting. Didn't ElectrathonAmerica outlaw single stick steering for next year? I think I read that somewhere.
Hopefully these pix will attach. You can see the we built this car in the middle of my lab. Complete with NASCAR approved chassis jig(metal stools)! We would like to compete with other Electrathon cars but there are none even close at this time. Pensacola is at least 4-5 hours away as is Titusville.I'm trying hard to get other teachers in GA. to build a car and compete. Many are buying a "kit" electric go-kart. I can't find the student "engineering" in a bolt- together kit, esp. paying $5000+ where our car was less that $2000 including buying some tools and incidentals.
Last picture was our first attempt to do sheetmetal work. I bought a roll of roof flashing at Home Depot and tried to make templates for side panels.

Up to now I haven't posted pics of my latest build because it's virtually identical to the last one. However, I'm in the finishing stages now and I built this rotisserie to help with painting the car. The wheels are actually a pair of moving dollies that we have at the school shop, but the platform, uprights, and hardware are just scrap junk that was lying around. The pics are pretty self-explanitory. If anybody has a question, please ask.

That looks really great,i sure like that cool rotor deel too.
I see there are new rules from EA for bats,we can use bigger?/more lb's at lest now!
What do you think of ,and what seems to be the hot bat combo next.?
This new bat deel hit me odd,I was thinking if they did new rules,it would of been to less lb's not more

Well I did findly get my new to me old 2001 Foucs working,got a autotranny at the junkyard[$267],put it in and works very well,but then the LF front spring broke in two,come to find out front springs are warrented by ford 10years/150000 miles,so they put two new springs in for free
Time to start working on zappy car again maybe And get back to helping my son on his 23T.

Hi Bat,
Yes, Electrathon America has approved new battery rules to allow the Optima yellow top batteries. The yellow tops are deep-cycle and (supposedly) good for about 300 charge/discharge cycles as opposed to the red tops which are good for 50 - 60 cycles. The reasoning was that they cost about 30% more, but last 500% longer. In order to make them legal, the maximum overall weight had to be raised so that other manufacturers equivalent batteries could also be used. As soon as my personal budget allows I'm going to get a couple of them to replace a couple of my older red tops, but I will still be using my remaining red tops until I wear them out...

Glad you got your "tow car" up & runnig again; there are a bunch of races coming up...

Don - Somehow I missed your last post until I was re-reading my last one this morning... Anyway, the car looks pretty good. As for the steering, just add another lever and pushrod to the other side. That would make the car easier to drive and, more importantly, eliminate any dispute of its legalality.

A lot of schools start out with "kit cars". The most popular Electrathon car kit is the "Aerocoupe" from Blue Sky Designs in Oregon. It's not cheap ($1850 + freight for the frame, body, wheels, and canopy), but it's easy to assemble & maintain and very competitive. I guess the "engineering" part comes in when the kids are researching gear ratios, motor efficiency, and battery life. I tend to agree, though, that building a car from scratch is a much more intense learning experience. It's a lot more rewarding to the mentor and students when you hit upon a succesful design. It can also be cheaper...

I just finally totaled up all the receipts from the build above. I spent $963 on it not including the motor, controller, and batteries. It is possible to build a car for much less by scrounging parts from bicycles, go-karts, and other sources, but I used all brand new parts (except the bicycle fork) this time.

To generate interest in your area, have you considered hosting a race? If you have a place (a large parking lot or school running track is a good place) and pick a weekend when a lot of teams are available, you could invite teachers & potential sponsors from your area to come and watch. I can walk you through the process - you need flags for the starter, stopwatches and scoresheets for the scorers, a good set of bathroom scales for driver weigh-in, and about a half-dozen volunteers to help you. I can give you my list of active teams if you want to ask who might be interested in traveling up there for a race. The calendar is about to get pretty busy, so it might be better for you to wait until next Fall (Sept -Oct) when there isn't much going on...

Jim,
Actually the kits I was referring to are not Electrathons, more of a battery powered go-kart, complete with a schematic printed on the mounting board. Just Google for them, they are located in Georgia. Some of the folks promoting electric vehicle education in GA are good folks but they are using this kit to teach with. It is atrue bolt together affair

That go cart kit for teaching kids may work some,but fact is they sure get a lot more from doing all the research and design there self. with teach pointing the way!
Myself having run a small school on racing cars many years back[1970's],found there is nothing like hand on all,to get things interesting and fun for thoughs learning.
That's the EZ way to say a total bolt together kit of any type is selling the kid's short. but better then nothing

dmorgan is this the one your talking about?
http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/kango.html