hello,

when i was working on my ninco track and the ds 35ohm regulator this afternoon, it started to smell a bit burning, later i noticed that there were also some sparks visible on the gold strip of the ds regulator,

how does this happen, can it be harmful, and what can i do about it?

i would like to hear it :)

   

The start of the 2025 Slot Rally GB series took place in the quaint little edge-of-Cotswolds village of Ramsden, about 15 miles from the centre of Oxford...

   

After two hours of dual-carriageway and 15 minutes of country lanes, five intrepid WHO racers - Phil, Mike D, Jeremy, Terry and Andy - made it to the Ramsden Memorial Hall to be greeted by the Slot Rally GB crew of Phil, Seb and Alan, plus the smell of sizzling sausages and bacon...

   

Mike and Jeremy couldn't resist a visit to the phonebox...

   


Inside the main hall were six stages - three routed, two Ninco stages built for the day and the giant, modular Nobby's Nightmare...

   

Each entrant could run four cars across three class (a lot of SRC Porsche 914/6 GTs for Classic), plus there was the debut of the Avant Slot Challenge - Nissans outnumbering Mitsubishis and Mantas...

   

With cars checked over at Rally HQ, the Five were ready to get started...

   

Terry, Mike and Phil would race in a four, alongside a local Oxford club member. Jeremy joined a Nascot Wood / Abergavenny group of five. I was allocated to another five of me and four local hotshots - John, Wayne, Colin and Ian (aka Nobby - purveyor of the Nightmare stage and of the cooked breakfasts, lunch, teas and coffees, plus owner of Dave the dog).

Round 1 live starts at 6pm UK time

Twofer’ or Two for one in English, 3d printed motor magnet attraction and torque tester jigs.

Motor magnet attraction jig
   

Motor torque jig
   

For racing use to find which motors have greater magnet traction on plastic tracks I created a version of the motor magnet attraction tester, permutations of which have been around for some years. This technique although not delivering industry specification accuracy is sufficient to compare motors and motors mounted in cars.

My version uses a set of digital scales from Amazon (Criacr Digital Pocket Scales, 500g High-Precision Kitchen Scales) with a claimed accuracy of 0.01grms which in reality is probably more like 0.1grms but in practice looking for say 0.5grm differences then not a problem. The jig is sized to take this set of scales at 106 x 127 x 19mm.

The scales sit on the base plate over which is a bridge piece that takes a steel shim to act as the attractor plate and over that but resting its 4 feet on the scales are the motor pods or the car cradle. The pods, cradle, cars and motors are placed on the scales away from the bridge to zero or Tare, then the motor is placed in the cradle over the attractor plate such that the magnet attraction can be directly measured as the motor magnets pull the car/cradle downwards applying force to the scales.

Included is 2 off motor holders one for the boxer type (or S can) motor the other for the Flat 6 type so both are presented to the scales at the same height from the scales to underside of motor. There is also a tray to present a car as well for club racing checking use, and has the car sitting on its tyres so ground clearance and magnet traction can be checked against a set limit. Putting wheel cut outs in this would take out the track clearance aspect.

Built this up as shown and thought why not add a motor torque test function as well, and decided it was easier to design a new bridge piece than try and dual function the existing one, hence the 2nd set of files using the same base. The motor sits in the bridge and is clamped down, then the disc is fixed to the motor shaft and held with 1-2 grub screws. Depending on filament used this may or may not take a thread that lasts so have included a 2nd disc which can be glued to a cog that has grub screw fixing for more permanence. The disc takes the 3 pusher pieces at 120 degrees at 1cm from the motor axis so that the motor torque can be checked in 3 positions then averaged.

Methodology for testing is to clamp the motor, align one pusher to the scales, zero the scales then apply 4 volts momentarily to the motor. This is done 3 times at 120 degrees and then averaged and the result multiplied by 3 to equate to 12 volts operation. The disc can be rotated 60 degrees or the pushers repositioned around the disc, then the testing carried again to get 6 readings for greater accuracy, but found in practice taking the 3 readings was sufficient. This setup gives a good equation to manufacturers figures once calculated.

Note: this will need a minimum of a 5A power supply for testing hard bodied motors otherwise the PSU will not supply sufficient power to allow the motor to generate maximum torque.

STL files content

Printed in PLA+ at 0.16mm layer and 40% fill.

   

   


Cheers 
             John

I don't know who needs to hear this, but...

If you have a Scalextric ARC Air controller that you want to use as an ARC Pro or slot-it oXigen digital controller, but can't get the slot-it button for it since Shapeways got all shaken up, here's my version. It should print easily in any material on any 3d printer.

     

https://www.printables.com/model/1237039

Looking For any of the 3 liveries made by Black Arrow as seen below, and maybe any custom paint jobs too!
One sold last month for £59 but whatever you value yours at!

   

Our 2025 WHO Digital GT Championship sees six teams - led by our Gold-rated drivers - race over three two-hour races on Wednesday evenings, followed by a four-hour, double-points championship finale at our June GT Saturday.

The WHO GT cars run to our local interpretation of the DiSCA GT4 Scalextric Clubman rules, requiring mostly standard Scalextric parts to be used throughout. The older Sidewinder models are permitted to use a vac-formed interior as a Balance of Performance measure.

Teams are strictly Pro-Am - our driver ratings based on performances across all our WHO events and weighted towards individual races. There are six Gold and Six Silver 'Pro' drivers, with all other drivers rated as Bronze. Pro-Am means that at least one Bronze-rated driver must race on each team and must share the driving time equally. A two-minute driver change window straddles the end of stints at 20, 40, 60 and 80 minutes, giving six stints in a two-hour race. A three-driver team shares the six stints equally - two each. A four-driver team must share the six stints equally between Pro (Gold/Silver) and Am (Bronze) drivers, ie Bronze drivers must race at least three stints.

Twenty-four drivers turned up to race for Round One. Gold drivers Alex (WHAM/AST One) and Ryan (Smooth Operators) handed their teams over to deputies. After additional drivers were allocated, this was the line-up...

   


We started the season on Mike's tweaked Barns Hatch layout...

   

... which went together very nicely - without any of the issues we experienced the first time we built this track in August 2023. It is a fast track with some challenging corners and not the easiest for overtaking - a bit like the real-life circuit...

   

After a start of the season drivers' briefing, we were straight into Super-Pole qualifying - the six drivers would also start the race for their teams. Here's the fastest laps from the two-minute session...

   

Congratulation to Ollie - and the newly-branded Slimline team - on another pole position...

   

The Slimline Ford GTE may appear next time out, but Mike's trusty AMG GT3 did the business.

From here you can optionally navigate to:
Magazines Index - February 2021 through December 2022
or
Magazines Index - January 2023 through December 2024


Contents list for the Magazines thread from January 2025 through December 2026.
Maybe this list can be of some help to find a certain magazine.
Click the number : #...

SLOTCARS

Car-On-Line 
Car-On-Line 190 1/2025-01-02 #480

DRS Magazine
All DRS Magazine back issues from number 1 until now are still available here free: 
https://www.dijon-racing-slot.com/drs-magazine/

DRS Magazine 42 2025-01 #474
DRS Magazine 43 2025-02 #478
DRS Magazine 44 2025-03 #489

DRS Magazine Special
All DRS Magazine Special back issues from number 1 until now are still available here free: 
https://www.dijon-racing-slot.com/drs-magazine/

Jim Hunt Magazine
All Jim Hunt Magazine back issues from number 1 until now are still available here free:
http://www.jim-hunt-magazine.de/downloads.html

Jim Hunt Magazine 66 2025-02-03 #488

NSCC Journal #46 

Slot Magazine
Slot Magazine 67 2025-01-02 #468
Slot Magazine 68 2025-03-04 #484

Slot Car Magazine International 
Slot Car Magazine International 83 2025-01 #466
Slot Car Magazine International 84 2025-03 #490

Slot Car Mods
All Slot Car Mods back issues from the year 2016 until now are still available here free:
https://slotcarmods.com/index.html 

Slot Car Mods 2024-fall #442


TRAINS

Model Railroad Hobbyist 
All Model Railroad Hobbyist back issues from the year 2009 until now are still available here free:
https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/maga...ack-issues

Model Railroad Hobbyist 179 2025-01 #476
Model Railroad Hobbyist 180 2025-02 #482
Model Railroad Hobbyist 181 2025-03 #491

The O Scale Resource
All The O Scale Resource back issues from Sep/Oct 2013 until now are still available here free:
[/url]https://oscaleresource.com/WP/index.php/complete-back-issues/#gsc.tab=0

The O Scale Resource 2025-01-02 #485
The O Scale Resource 2025-03-04 #486

Trackside Model Railroading
Trackside Model Railroading 2025-01 #477
Trackside Model Railroading 2025-02 #483
Trackside Model Railroading 2025-03 #492

Trainini (German language)
All Trainini back issues from the year 2015 until now are still available here free:
https://www.trainini.de/magazin/ausgaben

Trainini 234 2025-01 #479
Trainini 235 2025-02 #487

Trainini International (English language)
All Trainini International back issues from the year 2018 until now are still available here free:
https://www.trainini.eu/magazine/issues 

Trainini International 234 2025-01 #481
Trainini International 235 2025-02 #493

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Section of discontinued magazines :

Más Slot - discontinued magazine
It appears that some (44) supplemental digital  Más Slot 
issues are still available for free online reading. More info here:
https://issuu.com/masslot/docs

Model Car Racing - discontinued magazine
On December 1, 2023 all of the Model Car Racing website will be down and none of the links will be accessible.
Model Car Racing 132 2023-11-12 #334 Final Issue
Model Car Racing Older issues #245

Slot Cars Magazine - discontinued magazine
Slot Cars Magazine issue 1-8 #261

Slot #244 older issues - discontinued magazine
Slot 360 #244 older issues - discontinued magazine
Slot Magazine #244 older issues - discontinued magazine
Slotracing NEWS #33 older issues - discontinued magazine
SVQ Slot Press #244 older issues - discontinued magazine

The Mill  – discontinued magazine
All The Mill back issues from the first issue until now (april 2022) are still available here free:
https://steelindustray.blogspot.com/2018...e-for.html

N Scale Railroading - discontinued magazine
All N Scale Railroading back issues from number 118 until now are still available here free:
https://nscalerailroadingmagazine.com/do...issue-118/

The S Scale Resource - discontinued magazine
All The S Scale Resource back issues from Oct/Nov 2014 until Oct/Nov 2024 are still available here free:
https://sscaleresource.com/WP/back-issues/

A friend sent me a APB C7042 powerbase which had a couple of dead throttle ports to see if these could be fixed.

I believe this fault occasionally happens during plugging-in of wired controllers, and is likely due to static charge effects from the throttle ports onto the microcontroller input pins.

So can the microcontroller be replaced?

The short answer is yes - but it needs considerable care.

The longer answer involved learning how to replace the microcontroller without allowing any solder bridges to occur between any of the 64 solder points. Once a bridge occurs it is extremely difficult to correct.

After three re-fitment attempts on the same APB - success!

And, next time around it should be a bit easier :)

After re-fitment, a continuity check of each of the 64 solder points was carried to ensure all APB functions were restored. This is quite time intensive!

The final step was to flash the v1.009 firmware onto the new microcontroller. The result is a fully functioning APB with all throttle ports operating correctly.

At present, while brand new APBs are still available the best solution for an APB with a a failed microcontroller is replacement of the entire APB. However, with time, and as the stock of new APBs is exhausted the option of replacing the microcontroller may become more attractive.

At least we now know that the microcontroller swap-out is possible using simple lab-bench soldering techniques.

c

Hi,
Wye Valley are proud to be holding two rounds of the SRC European Rallyslot legends. 

April 27th and October 5th. 

Rules are the same as last year :-

3 classes 

Group B Peugeot 205 and Lancia S4

Group 2 Porsche 914/6

Group 4 Capri LW/RS and BMW 2.8CS

Any SRC motor. 

Interiors must have a driver and navigator. 

Wheels must have inserts in.

All parts must be from SRC except braids, motor wire and screws. 

The rear control tyre will be SRC RN0115 17.6x10.3 these will be provided by the club. 

SRC will be sending prizes.

Rally stages will be Ninco, Policar and MDF. 

Our address is 
The Workhouse
1 Hatherleigh place
Abergavenny
NP7 7RL

Doors open at 9am.

Light snacks and tea/coffee will be available all day. 

Any questions please ask. 

Regards
Phil