About Us
Background
We were donated a sled by RIT, when the Alfred University team was created in 2019. The sled had been through its paces and was deemed unusable
Seeing an opportunity to create something unique to showcase our talents, we set out to combine our passions and design an electric snowmobile.
The SAE Clean Snowmobile challenge, asks for university students to create a snowmobile which is quieter, more fuel efficient, and economically equivalent, for use in US National Parks. The primary competition includes gasoline and diesel compression engines
A small subset of teams create rudimentary electric and hydrogen fuel cell sleds
Electric Motor
The motor that was selected for use was a 144 Volt motor, by NetGain. It includes all required relays, harness, and controller for use.
It was selected due to its high efficiency, coming in at 94%, and its economic advantage, as it is lower cost than comparable products which do not include the other required accessories
The motor will be setup to operate the snowmobile with a sprocket and chain system. The system is 1 to 1 to get a baseline of performance for the sled
It will be programmable to control the acceleration and braking, so a separate braking system will not be required. The original hydraulic brakes were kept however for redundancy and to protect the driver.
Testing Metrics
There are a number of factors which will be focused upon for testing the sled:
These include a handling course, acceleration, range, and charge time
Charge time for the most part is a metric which cannot be altered, however adjustments to suspension and the motor power band are possible on the fly.