GTR XU-1 Posted January 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 Perth (south of river) - WA Which is unfotunately the other side of Aus to you. - Would have loved to be testing scorpius with you! Iam going to soldier on with Ninco for the time being but you never know, maybe scorpius one day - it looks great Cheers for the comments guys. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted January 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 A few more shots of todays ...cough... splutter...work. Not really worthy of posting but what the hey. The windmill isnt quite as orange as the picture shows - more of a rust colour. The windmill is on the inside of the corner with the toilet block. Below..just did half of the hill. it is also ready to have the gravel trap around the outside of the corner. Nothing exciting though. Cheers Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 Dave, That rough bitumen (charcoal ballast) on the inside of that hairpin turned out alright once you threw some dead grass in it. I'm hoping the windmill isn't that orange... cos that looks like one rusty windmill. I reckon we go a similar treatment on the inside of the next left turn... and/or add a bit more to the inside of the existing hairpin so it's like a big paddock of that rough bitumen with a smooth circuit running through it. Kind of tie those two corners in together. Might pay to use your tripod for ur shots too bro... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted January 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 I just sent the Ninco digital unit over to RichG (slotforum) in th UK to do the simple H mod. I trust that his electrical knowledge and soldering skills far outway mine and could only see me having to buy a new Ninco unit if I had done the soldering. Should get it back in a couple of weeks then will be able to copper tape the track. Word on the street is the simple H-mod is pretty good with the Ninco unit. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue95 Posted January 30, 2009 Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 What does the H mod do for the unit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted January 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 Blue95, This is my understanding given my limited electrical prowess..... I believe the H mod basically bypasses the power to the Ninco unit so that a higher current can be run through the rails with out blowing the unit. Basically significantly more current to the track. The standard Ninco unit doesnt really provide enough current to run eight cars properly....the other benefit is then less interference between drivers as they get on and off the accelerator. The Ninco unit is still run by the standard ninco PSU and an after market one (like a D3800)is used to power the track As I said, thats my understanding anyway. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilR Posted January 30, 2009 Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 The simple H is a great thing Dave..You neednt have sent it to Rich to get him to install it though, must have cost a fortune in postage! Its a simple 5 min operation only 3 wires to solder onto the board and one resistor to remove..Anyone you know with some soldering skill..say down at the local electronics repairs place..could do it for you in minutes.. Your track isnt very long and it has four lanes ,so u likely wont need any power taps, as you wont see too much load on the rails at any point..its never that far from where the power comes in on your track. The simple h does not drop any volts under load..My track routinely sees loads of 12 amps and more on 2 lanes...and it is a long track...power tapping for me is a must Whilst the simple h wont drop any volts at all under very high loads,when measured at the output power terminals on the unit...A long track will drop voltage significantly without power taps..copper tape will not really help with this,copper tape gives you a reliable trouble free and low maintenace rail surface.. That is because even if your track somehow had no joins at all..just unbroken track rails..the actual gauge and material (steel) that the rails are made from,is not heavy enough to take large current draw over distance without voltage drop..so to achive 0 volt drop at any point under heavy load,you have to keep supplying power at regular intervals on the circuit in a direct and shortest possible line from your power output (power taps) Your simple h has an external adjustement for overload protection..Rich will set it so that it is unlikely to overload under normal use..If you find though that it overloads sometimes on start up with 8 cars..or too frequently from minor braid shorts,just wind up the adjustment a bit more. Go just as high as your usage requires..If you go too high..and have a serious and long running braid short.. it is possible to blow the chip in the offending car.. A serious braid short is where the braids are seriously mangled and twisted and an unobservant punter persists in trying to re slot the car despite the sparks and smoke coming out from under it! A non serious braid short is just a quickie..with a losse strand of braid causin the problem. The stock pb wont start any more than 5 standard ninco cars (with magnets) in a full throtttle start situation. And once 5 cars are running on the track..reslot based load spikes cause it to overload frequently.. The simple h with a decent psu, copper taping the rails and fitting zener diodes in your cars to calm down the %100 brick wall brakes,are the very best mods you can make to N digital. It turns the system from a dud into one that can easily handle heavy commercial use . Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted January 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 Cheers Phil, Postage did cost a bit!!! The mod itself didnt actually look too hard in retrospect but I guess I just dont have enough faith in my workmanship when it comes to electronics. I prob could have taken the unit to an electrical mod guru and got Richard just to send the bits and pieces... But I know Richard knows what he is doing and for $60 didnt want to risk it. I have already got the copper tape (I think it was from a guy you recommended) and know the copper tape doesnt really help with voltage drop but have read all the trouble you had with maintaining the rails with out the copper tape (I imagine the copper tape still has to be maintained but less frequently). Just supposing I need to do run a power tap over, is it as simple as soldering two wires (one to each slot rail) from one piece of the track to another (obviously ensuring that each wire goes to the respective rail either side of the slot same as the old scalextric power taps). If so, do I only need to run one lane power tap over near a lane change (as the power travels through all the rails) or would I have to run a power tap per lane to the same area. This is all supposing that I notice a voltage drop. I havent read about the zenner diode mod (will have a search in a second). Does this reduce the effective braking capacity of the car. If so, as all the cars are mine that will be being raced, I would be thinking that it may be best to keep the brick wall braking as I will be probably be racing with inexperienced racers like my mates and family and if it pulls the cars up quicker, then thats something I think will be best to live with (I could be wrong?). Once again, Cheers for your comments Phil. I always find your posts very informative. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue95 Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 down at the local electronics repairs place.. I may have to look into this further as I work at a local electronics place LOL. Also have to look into the zener diodes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilR Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Dave,Im thinking of putting together a comprehensive list of tips and tricks for N digital users that I can post on all the forums. It would be better to do that than keep answering questions individually.. My top tips are as follows though.. Crimp your female track joins pre assembly Copper tape your rails. Fit a 3.3 volt zener diode between the chip and the motor in your cars These 3 will ge a standard system working well wit about 4 cars.. To go further..8 cars..bigger motors..club level racing etc Do This Dick Smith D3800 psu Rich G Simple H Beefy power taps Build a track that has a minimum of 14 seconds per lap so as to run cohesive 8 car races. There are several other little things to get the best out of this system and eliminate some annoying problems also. Gotta take some pics of how I do my power taps..But.. You need to make a few bridging taps around your circuit..That is connect right rail to right rail and left to left underneath a few straight sections..Then you can run a power tap to it and it will go direct to both lanes.. Thats how you can compensate for a bunch of cars nose to tail sucking the power out of a section of your track. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted February 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 Phil, A topic under digital for all the Ninco mods would be great. I think Iam up to speed with all the mods you have suggested now but it would be easier for everyone if all the mods were consolidated into one topic. Reading other posts of yours, I might give the zener diodes a go in a car to see what the difference is in feel As far as the 14 second lap is concerned with running 8 cars - this is sort of the reason why I did 4 lane digital. I know to the digital purists who are after racing lines etc, four lanes may be not as realistic - but I think four lanes actually generate more competitive racing and the cars hopefully wont be as spread out. Not that I am trying to sell the idea to you but it maybe something you would consider in your shop. With 8 cars on four lanes, on average you will have two cars in each lane (captain obvious) therefore the racing pack is only one space (between cars) apart on average. You also have four cars vying for the lead (lead car in each lane) and if one comes off, then hopefully the second car in the que in the lane isnt that far behind. I will be doing short 5 - 10 lap (7 secs per lap) races crash and burn style so I think it should work well. I admit for enduro type racing, then definately two lanes is the go. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangermouse Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 I take it that a 4 lane track is actually 2x2 lane - ie the car in lane 4 can't cross into lane 1? Do you find people mostly race in the middle lanes? That would be close with 8 cars in 2 lanes with the shift outside or inside to overtake. just some late night pondering cheers DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Posted February 2, 2009 Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 (edited) Dangermouse, Dave will correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure how Dave has located his lane changes ... (Refer to pics)... If you just press the change lane button once, you can go from lane 4 to 3 or 3 to 2 or 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 etc... If you hold down the lane change button through the whole lane change section... Like down the entire straight... You go from lane 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 or 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 depending on the direction of the lane change. It isn't really 2 x 2. Yer, there are 2 tracks side by side but lane 1 can move across to lane 2 or 3 or 4 - But there isn't a track that takes lane 4 to lane 1 directly... if you catch my drift... I'm guessing you'd have to rout that... It would be quite tricky I imagine. On this track, I'm gussing the two middle lanes would see most of the traffic... once the field settled down a little. Turn two (windmill hairpin) looks like the outside lane could bury the boot and hang the rear of the car along the armco... might get some advantage in that (maybe)... same with the final turn on to the main straight... so there may be advantages in some outside lanes in various spots... or having said that... even some inside lanes of the more subtle corners like turn 1 could be at an advantage... Hence the beauty of the lane changes. Edited February 2, 2009 by Captain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted February 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 Dangermouse, Just to add a bit to what my brother explained. At the end of the start straight there are two double cross overs side by side to accomodate any urge to change lane off the start line...so in that respect and at that part of the track, yes, you can only move from lane 1 to 2 and vice versa and lane 3 to 4 and vice versa. However, On the next long straight I have three single cross overs (Double cross overs werent actually produced at the time I started the track). In that straight, if you hold the button down through the three lane changers yes you can go from lane 1 to 2 to 3 and finally to 4. Same as on the next straight...it is the revers, you can go from 4 to 3 to 2 and finally to 1. You can also just shift 1 or two lanes if you dont want to make the switch the whole way across the track. Ideally now, I would change all those lane changes to doubles ...but that costs money. Long story short, a car can move into any lane on the track..not just the two individual tracks. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted March 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 Been a little while with not a lot of progress. I sent my Ninco unit over to Richard (Rich G) on slotforum.com to do the H mod and just got that back (Cheers Richard if you browse this site also. I havent hooked it up yet as I havent been down to get some cable and connectors to hook into the PSU. That has basically been holding up a bit of scenery work because I wanted to get that in before I started copper taping and my brother and I couldnt do that much more scenery because we will nedd some areas to stand on the track whilst we copper tape....biut its all full steam ahead again (By the way this would have to be one of the slowest track builds ever...maybe next to Eno!!) Anyway a few more pics - not that much different though. you will notice I have also got bits of Balsa between the rails at all the joints - it is a tight fit between the rails but it seems to be forcing the insulating plastic from coming together near all the joints. I havent been glueing the plastic insulation to the rail but it does seem to hold once I take the plastic out (just in case anyone has experienced the same problem with the insulating rail). And some tarting up of the shed whilst I waited for the H-Mod and unit .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoath Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 Dave, you've really got yourself a great little race room there mate! I don't usually look twice at plastic tracks, (We run on timber only - except for one track) but the work you and the Captain have done with the scenery is an obvious exception!!! The brick sh*thouse looks very similar to the one over here at Winton, very good job with it! The flaggie's tower is spot on for the era, looks great. Do you have a timing system and screen? Can't see one. More pics, more scenery! Dick Quote Cheers, Dick SCMR build thread Woodbrook Valley build thread "A Man's home is his castle, but his garage is his sanctuary!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted March 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2009 Dave, you've really got yourself a great little race room there mate! I don't usually look twice at plastic tracks, (We run on timber only - except for one track) but the work you and the Captain have done with the scenery is an obvious exception!!! The brick sh*thouse looks very similar to the one over here at Winton, very good job with it! The flaggie's tower is spot on for the era, looks great. Do you have a timing system and screen? Can't see one. More pics, more scenery! Dick Dick, The routed tracks do look pretty good so fair call about the plastic ones. I dont have a timing screen but was looking into it. The last track and table we made up had a dingo timing system hooked up to a computer - that worked a treat. But with this one being Ninco digital it isnt really possible to have a computer timing system. It is one of the MAJOR flaws with Ninco digital unfortunately. Ideally one day I would like to set up to a scorpius digital system and run 16 cars on the track at once. that would enable a computer timing system. Even though this track isnt that big, I would think that 16 cars would fit alright - 4 cars on average per lane same as what Ninco Digital 2 lane currently runs with 8 cars. I am still yet to name the track as well...not that it matters that much but I'll come up with something soon. Cheers for your comments mate Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) Firstly....all the bloody copper taping is finished..that was a mission and a half to get it neat - The track doesnt look that big but keep in mind there are 4 lanes. I have also hooked up Rich Gs simple H mod that he did for me. The H-mod and copper make massive improvement when running bulk cars. I am currently running 14 volts at the PSU but would like to see what sort of drop I get around the track. The cars are going plenty fast enough at 14volts anyway. other than that, just a bit more scenery........ Rich Gs H mod unit Pit entry Last corner of track now cleaned up more gravel traps installed Copper Tape!! There are some more scenery shots that didnt come out that well. We have done a bit more of that black rock stuff that is under the windmill on another corner and are planning to put a white painted haulage earthmoving type truck tyre on the corner or something to that effect. As a tip if anyone wants to put rocks on their track, I have been using the dog rocks that you put in your dogs water bowl. Instead of throwing them out once they stop working in the dogs water, I have been putting them around the track in low risk (car damage) areas - they dont look too bad either if I do say so myself By the way - also named the track 'Copper Mill Raceway' Cheers Dave Edited March 31, 2009 by GTR XU-1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussieslotter Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) Any multilane LCs to get from lane 2 to 3 and back? Nice set up by the way =) Edited March 31, 2009 by aussieslotter Quote 3 stooges, 2 apologists and 1 deep endless mess. www.scorpiuswireless.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoath Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 What are the 'Dog Rocks'? Track looks great Dave... Quote Cheers, Dick SCMR build thread Woodbrook Valley build thread "A Man's home is his castle, but his garage is his sanctuary!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR XU-1 Posted March 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 Cheers guys, Three single lane changers in a row down the second straight all to the right so you can go from lane 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 or part there of and then three single lane changers to the left down the back straight so you can go 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 or part there of. The dog rocks are just scattered around the place but I didnt really get any good pics of them. will get some later Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoath Posted March 31, 2009 Report Share Posted March 31, 2009 (edited) OK, but what are they? Edit: Did a Google search and found this. Amazing what people will adapt for scenery! Edited March 31, 2009 by knoath Quote Cheers, Dick SCMR build thread Woodbrook Valley build thread "A Man's home is his castle, but his garage is his sanctuary!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 Dick, Dog rocks - I'm not convinced these things serve any purpose other than making rock/boulder landscaping for slot tracks. There is one under the levi sign in the last turn... although that is a pretty small one. I have a dog at home, but don't run the dog rocks in it's water... I think they are like Brocky's polarizer from the 80's. It's a mung bean hippy product you get from some dog stores and I don't think they are cheap. You throw these slate / granite looking rocks in your dawgs water bowl and apperantly when your hound takes a leak on your lawn, it stops the lawn from going brown. Dave has just found another use for them when the magic spell wears off. Sorry about the sarcasm Dave... I'm sure a couple of boondies (spelling?) in the dawgs water bowl works. David, I should be around on Sunday for more work when our wives go to this kids book selling party / scam. I'll bring my camera and tripod, cos I reckon we can get better pics. Aussieslotter - More lane changes may be added at a later date. They are pretty pricey and we'll just see how this goes for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 Also just quickly... squint your eyes and look under the light blue yellow camel sign for dog rocks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarKraft Posted April 1, 2009 Report Share Posted April 1, 2009 (edited) Nice work guys. The trees are great. I've plopped a couple of bushes on my scenery and it looks out of place, whereas yours looks properly planted. Can you put together a how-to on making the trees with lots of pics? Also can we have some more close-ups of the buildings, especially the garages, they look schmick! Just noticed all the Trans Am pics on the walls. Where did you get those? Edited April 1, 2009 by KarKraft Quote Fairmont Park Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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