Retriever

Now that I have a table for my track which is right up against 2 walls, it was a bit difficult to retrieve crashed cars against the edge of the track, so I built this gadget I call a 'Car Retriever' to pick up the cars that are not within reach. One end has a bicycle brake grip and the other a modified clamp

Electronic Devices


Dyna-Mo Test Block

Pacer System
- race against the pacer
- cannot be used with any other system


Power Plus System
- full independent power with additional transformer
- control to each car
- automatic braking effect
- two directional racing


This is the new setup for my lap counters and timers.

2nd Lap Counter

I built a new digital lap counter. Instead of using the scalextric lap counter, I used a half straight track and replaced one inch of the rail with two copper wires beside each other to be used as a sensor strip. I placed the two copper wires on on each track. I covered the other side of each track with electric tape to make a dead section. I then hooked up the timer and lap counter to the copper wires underneath the track. I'm investigating the possibility of building a lap timer using photocell, and software with an old DOS computer.

 

My 1st Digital Lap Counter

I bought a scalextric lap counter and using 2 calculators converted it into a digital lap counter. I took the manual lap counter apart and glued a metal nut to where the lap wheel was attached. On the other side, I glued a spring onto the slider, and then I attached the cables coming from the equal switch of the calculator to the nut and the spring (see photo right). There is only about 2mm of space between the nut and the spring, so when a slot car passes over the scalextric lap counter, it pushes the slider back making the spring and the nut connect to make the electronic connection to the equal switch on the calculator. To make this whole process happen, you must first turn on the calculator, and press 1+1. Each time the car passes by it adds another lap automatically because the counter is connected to the = sign. Obviously, I did this whole process twice as there are 2 counters, one for each track.

 

 


Digital Lap Timer

To have a lap counter also means you have to have a lap timer. I converted a digital stop watch into a lap timer. I attached a cable to start/stop switch of the timer and then I attached it to the nut and spring on the slider (see photo). The only draw back to do it this way, is it times one lap at a time as when a car passes over the timer, it turns on on one lap and off on the next. You have to reset the stop watch every time.

Lights

I added lights to some of my cars, buggy's back and front, and on some of the formula 1 cars. Almost all my formula 1 cars have lights now.

This is just for looks!

Wind Tunnel
One of my designer brain storms... To test my F1 cars aerodynamically, I designed this wind tunnel. I used a plastic pasta container, hair blower motor (which happens to be 12V so it can run off the slot track power and I'm using the hand control to run it) and fan, and a piece of plastic to place the car on, and some small plastic gadgets to look like official equipment. On these photos, the wind blows against the car from the front but in actual fact it should be the other way, air being sucked in over the car. At the moment I'm thinking of a way to use smoke to see the effect of the turbulence.

Parma Controllers


Turbo Controller Kit

45 ohm Economy Controller