Pitland race preparations
I’m making tire warmers.
It’s a kinda janky way, but that was the easiest way I could think of just buying a proper solution.
I made a circle out of 50mm thick nickel that fits over the tire. I made them so the fit over the exway venator 165 mm, but I plan to use linnpower slicks - the venator is the plan B.
Soldered up the heating pads, 3 pieces per wheel all connected in parallel
Which were then wired up to the 12V power supplies.
Each of them is 7 Ohm, meaning at 12V, each power supply powering 2 wheels so 6 heating pads, there’s around 10A per PSU. My power supplies are 12.5A so I might also wire up a PC fan in parallel and ziptie it onto the PSU if the setup works decently.
Then the heating pads got taped around the nickel with kapton tape
And here it is. It’s working kinda, but the heating is not super even. Definitely usable, definitely not great.
Next up. I’m doing some tire prep as well.
This is some kind of kinda toxic chemical that I apply onto the tire tread, and it’s going to get the tire to grip more and drop durometer. The linnpowers measure 67-68A from the factory, the 9x3.5 CSTs measure 72A. I’m going to apply some coats to both - that should make them grip more, and hopefullllly make them perform better for the race. If this experiment goes sideways I’ll have the exway venators to fall back on.