Hello everyone,
We are E-Traxx, the Formula Student Team from the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf. Each year, we design and build a new electric race car to compete in international Formula Student competitions against teams from universities around the world .
The dashboard and steering wheel are the two most crucial areas that a driver must concentrate on, and now I want to share with you how we approach the dashboard. First and foremost, we entirely altered the dashboard PCB’s concept and design from the previous season. Only the two encoders on our dashboard were part of the previous PCB; the remaining components were scattered around the front portion of our vehicle, making it challenging to disassemble or perform an error search for the dashboard. This season, we included all its components on a single PCB, including LEDs, display, buttons, and encoders.
Because there is only one large connector connecting to and from the PCB, this not only makes it simpler to disassemble the dashboard, but it also makes testing and error searching much simpler .
I’ll go over the main components to help you understand what the PCB can do. First, we utilize the DCDC-Converter to adjust the voltage from 24 to 5 or 3.3 volts because our car’s LV-Voltage is 24 volts, but all the components on the PCB operate at either 5 or 3.3 volts. Second, our dashboard has a total of eight LEDs. AMS, IMD, and TS-OF are three of them that receive their signal straight from the connector. The ESP32 S3, “the Brain” of the PCB, controls the other five, Shutdown, Error, Volt-Low, Temp-high, and IGN, which are optional, but we felt would be beneficial. Everything on the PCB is managed by this microcontroller. It receives signals from the two encoders and the three buttons we have, and it shows crucial data on the display, such as the speed or errors the driver requires. Additionally, the ESP uses CAN to interact with the MAB and sends messages via UART to our PCB’s telemetry, allowing us in the pit to view what the driver sees on the disp la y.
Thanks to AISLER, we not only received a high-quality PCB, but also managed to realize a unique design since our dashboard PCB follows the shape of the front hoop. Its unusual shape comes from fitting directly into the front hoop, so thanks to AISLER, we achieved both the desired geometry and a PCB that is reliable and dur ab le.
Hopefully this post has given you some insight into how we approach the dashboard and we would like to thank AISLER again for their generous supp ort.
