Electronics installations

[hardingfv32]

What are all the boxes? There is a lot going on in this area. ECU, what else?

Brian

[mzivtins]

My guess would be volatile storage device(s) for sensor data? Am i right in thinking that the team still only download telem as the car passes the pits? therefore it has to be stored somewhere?

Can't be the f1 cars black box as im sure that's stored elsewhere?

[ESPImperium]

If there are 100 data streams on the car, only 25 to 30 are measured real time, this for a few reasons, keep data packets small and not overload ECU and track systems. However the rest are sent in a data spurt then the car passes the pits at 10GB/S usually. However the data is no where 10GB thats sent, its usually a few hundred MB at tops, so download usually takes 2 tenths.

The team monitors the 25 top 30 top critical components on the car in real time, however cant make adjustemtns from the pits like they did up to 2004. 2005 saw the steeringwheels develop a lot of rotaries for driver adjustment of the car.

However there is romors that drivers will have 7 rotaries and 10 buttons/switches from 2014 in order for drivers to pay more attention on the track.

[marcush.]

Isn´t there a FIA sign on one of the electronic boxes?
I think it could be the crash recorder which is collecting date when the car is having an incident..

Mclaren electronics site with pictures of all the electronic gizmos including F1 hardware -who spots the parts?

http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/


http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Produ ... ct/HSL-500 -that one was definetely on last years Renault mounted in front of the front bulkhead.looking at the technical data ,one should not try to mount that one near the engine..

[elFranZ]

Wow, that's hard, let me try: right side of the blue cables, high speed data logger:
http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Produ ... ct/HSL-500
mounted on top of a PSU or temetry unit (the bigger black box)

I really cannot see the ECU there

[hardingfv32]

I think it could be the crash recorder which is collecting date when the car is having an incident..

1) Some aspect of the crash logger must be mounted to the floor. The floor and plank rules specify holes for that purpose.

2) Do you think that the McLaren Data Logger is the only unit allowed for that purpose?

Brian

[ESPImperium]

SECUs and the Black Box recorder that logs the last 5 mins before a incident are both located under the drivers seat.

Reason for this is all due to Kubicas accident, simply so both boxes would still work. However they are buried in various places under the seats. Ferrari and Caterham have them between the drivers legs under the seat, McLaren have them under the seat at the drivers back.

[elFranZ]

Article 8.8 from tech rules describes all the details about ADR:

8.8 Accident Data Recorders (ADR):
8.8.1 The recorder must be fitted and operated:
- in accordance with the instructions of the FIA;
- symmetrically about the car centre line and with its top facing upwards;
- with each of its 12 edges parallel to an axis of the car;
- less than 50mm above the reference plane;
- in a position within the cockpit which is readily accessible at all times from within the cockpit without the need to remove skid block or floor;
- in order that the entire unit lies between 30% and 50% of the wheelbase of the car;
- via anti-vibration mountings giving a clearance of 5mm to all other objects;
- with its connectors facing forwards;
- in order that its status light is visible when the driver is seated normally;
- in order that the download connector is easily accessible when the driver is seated normally and without the need to remove bodywork.
8.8.2 The recorder must be connected to two external 500g accelerometers which are solidly bolted to the survival cell, on the car centre line, using four 4mm bolts. One must be as close to the nominal car centre of gravity as practical and the other as far forward as possible inside the survival cell. The forward accelerometer may be mounted to the underside of the top surface provided it is solidly bolted to a structural part of the survival cell.
8.3.3 The recorder must be powered from a nominally 12V supply such that its internal battery can be recharged at all times when the car's electronic systems are powered and when the car systems are switched off, but a jump battery or umbilical is connected.
8.8.4 An ADR and two accelerometers must be fitted to every car at all times during an Event and at all tests attended by more than one team.
8.8.5 Details of the connections to the ADR may be found in the Appendix to these regulations.

2) Do you think that the McLaren Data Logger is the only unit allowed for that purpose?

FIA makes no reference to a specific supplier for data logging systems. More details here:
http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules ... 1/fia.html
As you may note, the only component to be manufatured by a specific supplier is ECU. Everything else must be simply approved by FIA, so I believe the aswer to your question is no.

[pitlaneimmigrant]

Damn ESP, where do you get this stuff? Seriously, I would like to know because it's not like this info is hard to find, you just to do a bit of googling.

The two connectors visible at the centre of the image connect to the PB2006 which regulates power and drives the ignition and injection.
The small beige box above that is the LRX310 lap marker receiver
The carbon covers a lot of the other stuff but I can see the FOM power conditioner which powers the cameras. There is another box in there from EFI technology, but I don't recognise it.

More to the point, There are WAY more than 100 data streams on the car, the TAG310 http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Produ ... t/TAG-310B which is the standard ECU, is limited to 512 parameters, and has over 100 inputs, most of which are used, and may be transmitted in real time.
It most certainly does not transmit in a burst as it passes the pits. There is a network of 5-7 receivers around the track to ensure coverage at all times

The TAG310 also has a 1GB memory, which has to last a whole race, so don't expect to see a couple of hundred MB per lab

It's no secret that McLaren supply the SECU system to the whole grid, http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Syste ... mula%20One, so it's not a lot of work to find out some of the basic facts

As marcush spotted, there are FIA stickers all over the place, these are for legality reasons, any active electronics on the car have to be homologated and carry an FIA sticker

There are a bunch of other boxes on the cars, mostly McLaren Electronics, but Ferrari still have some Marelli boxes like the MTX, and the Renault KERS system uses Marelli electronics http://www.anie.it/download.asp?tm=2009_5_7_17_43_58%20

There is nothing to mandate that the ECU is inside the cockpit, it's unusual to keep it there due to cooling issues, the SDR (aka ADR) must be at the centre of the car though which places it safely inside the tub http://www.emmotorsport.com/products/sdr

And just for good measure, you can see the ECU on the 2012 Ferrari on the left side of the car here http://www.sutton-images.com/preview.as ... &count=194. It's got the 3 large connectors on the front.

[marcush.]

what I find surprising is the fact that all electronic boxes seem to be installed with the connectors pointing upwards ..one could argue that´s to mount these components as low as possible ,but the heavy harness has to be routed there-longer cables and those are well up in the installation as well... ?

[pitlaneimmigrant]

The locations and orientation of the boxes is dictated by a number of (normally conflicting) requirements, but getting the mass low is obviously important. The mass of the connectors and harnesses is relatively low compared to the boxes, so their position is more important than the orientation. The TAG310 for example weighs 1.1kg, while a whole chassis harness is anywhere from 3-5kg (depending what is included), so having the connectors high only lifts a small part of the harness, lifting the ECU moves over a kg.
Lying everything flat would be the best compromise, but there's not a lot of room to do that

Other factors that have to be taken into account are

• Reducing length of harness
  Cooling requirements
  Serviceability (installation and replacement)
  Vibration levels
  Availability of space

None of the teams seem to come up with the same solution to the problem, well not around the sidepods anyway, and it's very rare to see inside the cockpit without a seat in there.

[marcush.]

I´d say

vulnerability to minor contact damage should also be a consideration...?

also -it seems that harness and electronic boxes are -as usual in automotive (best practise?)very late in the package considerations and treated as addon ..instead of creating voids and recesses for the boxes and the harness from the word go...which could reduce length and vulnerability considerably...

[elFranZ]

I would say you're partially right. Electronic packaging is not the main area you start designing for sure, but you have to count for some sideway aspects, like EMC coupling. A bad or approximative wiring can make the way for altering engine timing, for example. There's a doc on youtube about the development of a Ford F1 turbo engine, in the early stages of testing they had HUGE timing problems. They found the problem was... coupling between ECU's wiring and the engine itself, and had to completely rewire just everything.

[pitlaneimmigrant]

Interesting elFranz, do you have link?

I haven't come across problems like that before, but you can get some interesting things going on when you add high voltage systems (KERS) to the equation

[elFranZ]

Here is part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfVAGOaGEc&nomobile=1

Starting exactly with the problems i cited. Bonus: a small interview with a "young aerodynamicist"

Edit: sorry, the link was in mobile version