Circuit Design

[Ronald_raygun]

NOTE: This has nothing to do with the FIRST competition.

I'll be participating in another Fuel cell car race this year with the NorthEast Regional Science Bowl.

Last year, my car was the fastest primarily because I was able to use a capacitor to store the fuel cell's electricity.

Championshiop Race

First Race

I expect that next year, my opponents will be using capacitors of their own cars against me, so I need to step up my own car. My target last year was 8MPH, and I hit it exactly. This year, I wanna try and reach 20MPH. A little higher, but I think very possible.

• Hydrogen Capacity was increased
• Oxygen Intake and filter developed
• New starting system which uses a push-push (on-off) set of switches.
• Multiple capacitors in a series-parallel chain.

It's the capacitor problem which I'm having trouble getting through.

I'm chaining two 2.7v 10F capacitors in series, and getting two of those chains in parallel, for a total of 5.4V and 10F.

How do I wire those capacitors to a DPDT switch so that when the fuel cell is charging them, they are individually charging in parallel, and when armed for a race, the capacitors are in the series-parallel arrangement described above.

Any thoughts?

(For schematic-drawing software go to www.expresspcb.com and download their software. )