Well , Im after some help with the design of a four lane Policar layout for the xmas holiday break my area is a strict 3.00m x 2.00m and I will need borders on all corners and straights after them as I'm a no magnet slotter,
Im planning on all visitors doing some laps so I can get some race times up and hopefully get one or two interested.
Ive not built a four lane track before and because I will have to build it on the weekend before xmas Im after some ideas.
I have plenty of track stock including some R5's and also a fair bit of Ninco and adapters but would prefer to stick to Policar.

On the ‘old’ forum there was lots of discussion and early trials of brushless motors in slotcars including in digital slotcars.

Drifter2 has more recently carried out some interesting trials with sensored brushless motors which look impressive and highly positive as a future race option. Link below:

https://slotracer.online/community/showt...p?tid=4217

As my high speed ‘drag strip’ instrumented test track is upgraded with a large digital speed read-out display - it’s become a useful test environment for my own experimentations with sensored brushless motors.

Having used brushless motors in model aircraft for many years - their use in digital slotcars is hardly fundamental research - it’s more about optimisation as a route to assessing ‘usefulness’ as compared with the brushed motors. The latter are of course the current norm across the slotcar hobby.

Like Drifter2, I believe ‘sensored’ motors are the best starting point for brushless slotcars in order to achieve smoother low speed running. These motors have internal Hall sensors to report rotation phase. Simpler non sensored brushless motors rely on back-EMF to measure rotation phase which works best at moderate and high speeds, but poorly at low speeds.

My experimentations will use digital control only as others are busy developing and in some cases selling brushless motors for analog systems.

My plan is three stage and likely to run through 2025.

Stage 1: use commercial sensored brushless  motor and electronic speed controller (ESC) in conjunction with Spektrum DSMR r/c system. This approach will pick up DC power from rails and then step down to 7.5V using a buck converter.

Stage 2: Use commercial sensored brushless motor and ESC in conjunction with an SSD decoder which has a modified output to match the input ‘servo’ pulse requirement of the commercial ESC. In this case track power will be SSD digital and a combination of bridge rectifier plus buck converter will be used to generate 7.5V DC.

Stage 3: Here the commercial ESC will be replaced with a Texas Instruments IC to provide a small footprint in-car solution. The ICs of particular interest are the DRV10970 and the newer variant, the MCT8316Z.

In my previous experiments a few years back I used sensorless brushless motors and a simple controller which could be driven by a standard digital decoder motor PWM signal. It drove but had no brakes. At that time I used a slot.it motor pod and a PCR chassis.

This time around the mechanical platform uses the NSR Z4 chassis with side-winder, angle-winder and in-line motor pod configuration options.

I hope this new thread will be of interest both to hobbyists and system developers.

Current status: the brushless motors and ESCs have arrived and the Z4 chassis are patiently waiting for they drive system install.

Apologies this post is rather long but I did want to frame correctly the upcoming project effort. Future posts on this thread will be shorter and to the point!

Meanwhile, thanks for reading - and as always, all comments and thoughts are welcome.

c

Race results and report - 5th December 2024 - Le Manx Classics followed by Le Manx Group C/LMP
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Another room full tonight and we saw some cars for the first time.
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Le Manx Classics

   
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Ed, Paul & Geoff racing Standard Class cars - Ed’s SlotIt Ferrari 412P is probably his best car and managed a great result in Blue lane to beat the pair of chasing NSR Ford GT40’s, Geoff’s a Mk1/2 and Paul’s Mk 4.
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Modified Class had four cars competing with Andy’s SlotIt Matra finishing ahead of Kev’s Fly Porsche 908/3 and a pair of matching Ford GT40’s raced by Brian L & Mike B.
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Two Open Class cars raced by Brian H & Matthew saw Brian’s Spirit Ferrari 512M (you rarely see one of these on the track) finish ahead of Matthews Ninco Jaguar XK120.

   
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Le Manx Group C/LMP (plus a GT4)

   
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Geoff, Brian H & Matthew all raced ‘B2B’ LMP cars which was very interesting, Matthews Panoz running the car as it left the manufacturer many years ago (tyres didn’t have much grip but the magnet helped a bit).
Geoff’s Porsche RS Spyder won in the end fairly easily and managed to finish 5th overall!. Brian H getting the most he could from the Audi R10 and Matthew did exceptionally well to drive the Panoz with his limited Slot car experience, he should be pleased with his result as the Fly Panoz is a funny car to drive with the motor at the front of the chassis.
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Of the two Standard Class cars, the tyres on Mike B’s NSR Audi R18 needed a little help with some tyre treatment and did well to hang onto the coattails of Paul’s Maserati GT4 but lost out mainly in the Blue lane.  As Paul doesn’t yet have an LMP he was allowed to race the Maserati.
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Three Modified Class cars headed by Kev’s Ninco BMW V12 proxy car with a NSR Shark 21 motor kept Brian L’s NSR Audi R18 and Ed’s SlotIt Jaguar XJR9 behind.  Brian was getting better on each lane with a borrowed car (he didn’t realise it was Le Manx tonight and brought the wrong cars) and Ed who often struggles on Blue lane managed his best result tonight.
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The other car was Andy’s Avant Kremer K8 Spyder built for the same proxy as Kev’s BMW LMP and was comfortably the fastest car on the track.

   

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This Saturday the club will be open all day as we are hosting the final round of the ‘Goodwood Revival Proxy’ as reported all year on SlotRacer Forum.
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Next week is Saloon followed by the final round of the NSR Mosler ‘Club Challenge’ with three drivers able to win the championship!

   
Hi bought first track in June, built layout and to date invested in 40+ cars, learning new things all the time. Would like to build a kit car once I  have come more competent 
Any Members in Shropshire?

Another fun evening was enjoyed by 6-friends. We even did some racing.   

Up first is one of my favorites (not). Tall, tippy, cars racing in the dark. The Mini night-race with the lights turned off.

Stock Scalex Mini's with a slower 14k motor, aluminum wheels, urethane tires, and upgraded guides.

   
   

Pre-war came next. It's a regular class. We love our old cars.

   
   

RevoSlot GT was up next.

   
   

The last class to race was the fastest of the evening. Classic LeMans 22k. Any plastic chassis with a 22k max motor. Lots of Thunderslot and NSR in the group. These are much faster, but more stable than the Mini's. It was really nice to see a Strombecker Chaparral 2D in the field. Congrats to the builder!

   
   

Until the next race.

Thank you very kindly for looking,
Ken

   

This isn't the official thread - that's hosted elsewhere... but this is a heads-up that the Staffs Slot Cars UK Slot Rally GB Championship is back for a second year.

Focused on venues south of Birmingham, this promises to build on some excellent attendances and exciting stages in 2024.

Here are the dates...

• Sunday 23rd March - Oxford Scalextric Club, Ramsden Memorial Hall, Ramsden, OX7 3AU
  
• Sunday 1st June - Farnborough Park Scalextric Club, St. Peter’s School, 60 Church Avenue,Farnborough, GU14 7AP.
  
• Sunday 22nd June - Nascot Wood Slot Car Club, Margaret Wix Primary School, High Oaks, St Albans AL3 6EL.
  
• Saturday 19th July - Worthing HO Racing, English Martyrs Catholic Church Hall, Goring Way,Goring-By-Sea, BN12 4UE.
  
• Sunday 7th September - Abergavenny Slot Rally Club, Abergavenny Community Centre, Merthyr Road, Abergavenny NP7 5BY.
  

And some more details...

• Stages will again be a combination of routed, Ninco, Scalextric Classic and Scalextric Sport.
  
• The championship will consist of five rounds, best four to count for championship points to registered drivers. Championship points registration will be £5.
  
• The events will run to national slot rally rules. 2025 championship rules and regs will remain the same as 2024.
  
• Entries per car will be £4. You can enter up to four cars - maximum of two in any class.
  
• A one make/model category should be announced in due course.
  
• Due to low numbers in 2024, the standard Scalextric and SCX sub classes are dropped for 2025.
  

Registration for each event is via the Abergavenny Slot Rally Club Facebook page or the Slot Forum threads.

Visited the UK this last weekend to see all the kids and a couple of them cannot make it across for Christmas. As per tradition, we each get allocated a person to but a present for. BUT I was presented with this packet, and told to open it when alone as my son had cheated and got me an added present!!

And what a present it is:

Strombecker 1/24:

               

Assorted 1/32nds


                       



He knows how much I like fettling and fixing and this was on his local 2nd had site.
I now have to collect parts - any sources info welcome!!

I know this will be added to as thunderslot have been very naughty by issuing SA 9 hour cars

As you get yours - lets see em please !!

Ever wonder why you bought something in an impulse buy?? Sadly I do it quite often!!

Saw these on the dreaded bay and they wer a lot cheaper that priced new - so in for a penny ...... next thing I know I was the proud owner OF:

So I thought I would picture them with either the cars they raced or the team they were in!!

       

       

       

       



Go-on - guess the names of all of them

Not heard of this until now, 3D Gaussian Splatting...is this the future of 3D scanning?