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It was the 12th and final finisher, ahead of the many teams that failed to finish, and quite a few that failed to start.
It wasn’t only cash sponsorship, as a Power Integrations InnoSwitch3 fly-back converter powers low-voltage loads including the steering wheel control, battery telemetry, CAN bus, lights and horn.
The solar cars race on the road from 8am to 5pm each day, starting at Darwin and stopping at nine check-points en-route to the finish in Adelaide.
Team aCentauri comes out of ETH Zurich.
Its car has 4m2 of single-crystal silicon solar panels that can drive the car at 75-80kmh without using the batteries, and the batteries can propel it for over 400km at 60km/h without sunlight. It weighs 188kg and can go at up to 120km/h.
Electronics includes an inverter for the motor and maximum power point tracker for the solar cells. There is also a steering wheel module which controls lighting, cameras, horn and ventilation, and a data logger.
Most of the body parts are made from carbon-fibre reinforced polymer, except the canopy which is glass-fibre reinforced polymer to make it transparent to the Bluetooth communication link.
Alongside Power Integrations, Euro Circuits, Harting, Hitachi, OnSemi, ST, uBlox, Wurth and Littelfuse were amongst the sponsors.
The photo with mountains in the background was taken at Waffenplatz Thun in Switzerland during final testing before transport to Darwin.
