Control Box & Foam

Simon's coming along with building the control box. We temporarily lined up 6 batteries to get the 36v needed to power it up.

And, the foam arrived! Here are two pieces cut for the seats.

More Photos of the Processor Boards

Electronics

Simon has made great progress on the electronics.
 
Almost all of the components have been soldered onto the boards:

 
This was a long and meticulous process as many of the components were very tiny.  Here is a picture of some of the resistors:

 
Each board has a port for an LCD screen that can be used for debugging and eventurally getting feedback from the main CPU:

 
Simon hooked up the cpu board to one of the motor control mosfet boards and began testing. He connected a motor to the mosfet board and lo and behold was able to control the speed of the motor quite nicely.

Lights...

Just ordered lights for the GravityBowl from Cool Light. We will be using super bright LED arrays for both the headlights and accent lighting. Not sure we'll be able to do much more with our budget. Note that they are offering a significant discount for Burners!



We've made a lot of progress on wiring over the last couple of weeks and Simon and broken through a couple of roadblocks on the control boards.

Seeking help....

As you can see from the blog we’ve been working hard since last October, and progress on the GravityBowl has been great.

Unfortunately we underestimated the cost of this project. Despite getting financial assistance from Burning Man and putting in 10k of our own money, we are now at a difficult decision point. We’d prefer not to pass on including comfortable seating, lights and shade, but we’ve already tapped our personal resources.

We discussed the idea of trying to put on a fundraiser but realized that that would take too much time away from finishing the actual car, and fundraisers often only break even. As an alternative, we were hoping that maybe members of our community might be willing to make small donations to help us complete the car. (You would of course be guaranteed a ride on playa!)

If you are interested in helping out, please visit:

Help the GravityBowl!

Thank you.

- The GravityBowl Team

A busy 4th...

Much of the main wiring has been completed. Here is the main power junction:


Kevin is busy working on the boxes to hold the motor controllers and CPUs:


The drive and battery sections have been detailed:



Suzanne helped double up on the riveting:



Fabric has been chosen and ordered for inside cushions: