Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Question..

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Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Question..

Postby historiceng » Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:08 am

Hello to all and a happy new year.

I am hoping to build an oval very similar, in fact as close as possible, to Harry's Show Me speedway.

My reason is that I would like to produce something that will give similar performance and lap times to Harry's, that way I can kind of relate to some of your events several thousand miles away, here in the UK. And also, I just think it's a great looking track :).
Now I do realise that I will never get something identical, of course the distance of the lanes will be different, elevation changes, surface friction, power supply and many other things will differ........but it would be like having a little bit of HRW in my home here in the UK..

I don't think I will be too long before I start the track build and Harry's Show Me build post is perfect.

I have a question on the controller, I have an unused Parma Turbo sitting in it's box, a gift from many years ago. This has a 4 Ohm resistor which is not usable on my small Scalextric sets. I have noticed that only 60 Ohm resistors are now available in the uk, having read that I can change to these resistors, I'm not too worried about that. But before I buy one of these, I suddenly wondered if the 4 Ohm would be useable for the Show Me size oval? Or what size range should I use for the bigger track. I'm not sure about the power supply yet but I think I might start out using a car battery for the first months (if that is possible?).

One other question for Harry if possible, would you be able to give me the approx. oval width between the one of the slot lanes side to side and the length between the same lane maximum radius to the opposite turn, just to help me get a similar lane distance. I have the lane spacing from your really helpful build thread.

Thank you all for making such a brilliant group.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby HomeRacingWorld » Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:30 am

In my opinion just scrap the 4ohm. It’s little more than an on/off switch of a controller and not suited for our home based models.

See if you can find a source for the new Pro Motor 35 ohm. Much better than a Parma. I bet one of the dealers here could assist.

I think I know what you are asking, I will head down there in a few and get some data for you.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby Vintage 1/24 » Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:01 am

Counterpoint:

Keep the 4 ohm controller - perfect if you run faster motors - like the hawk 7 type mini-motors, or the Parma 16Ds ... things that run 40,000 or 50,000 rpm... stuff like that is the main stay of commercial track racing. That turbo controller is absolutely common in commercial track settings. Around here the wood home tracks pretty much mimic the commercial scene - except smaller of course.

In fact I raced just last night at a brand new basement wooden oval running 10 volts, and we were all using controllers in the 4 through 2 ohm range. A great D-shaped track by the way. Brass chassis, foam tires, 40-50k motors wide, sweeping curved back 'straight' - lots of car control - Great fun!

Not really a counterpoint, because neither way is wrong - just match the controller to what motors, and cars, and which people, you are running with and see what works.

All roads lead to Rome. . . Our home-track wooden oval guys stepped down from commercial tracks, and other guys stepped up from plastic track... our guys would run 2-4 ohm controllers with 40,000 motors and theirs would use 35 ohm controllers with 25,000 motor - both can work.

I really do like the idea of a dimensionally accurate 'twin' track, using HRW as the model. An interesting idea. Harry has a good sense of his track, turn radius dimensions, etc. so following his lead with 18-25k motors makes perfect sense.

I just felt compelled to say using Parma 4 ohm controller with a brass chassis, foam tire car running 40k motors at 12 volts is what hundreds of guys run and race on the home track level all around NY and New England (and elsewhere). Do what works for you and what your group is into.


In any case build the wood oval, you will get tremendous enjoyment out of it, and like a scratch built slot car you will derive extra satisfaction from using something that you built from nothing.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby HomeRacingWorld » Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:25 am

First of all, the actual width of my track is 5 foot, 3 inches. Why this odd size? Because the table was originally built for a 4 lane Carrera with borders. I just call it 5 x 16 as close enough.

The distance of the outer lane on end to end is 15 feet, 1 inch. The width of that lane is 4 foot, 3 inches.

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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby HomeRacingWorld » Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:38 am

And as far as controllers go, you simply have to decide what type of models you are running as mentioned above. Or go electronic.

I stand by my statement on the 4 ohm. For our cars running the Piranha and below, 4 ohm is useless. It is not made for these types of motors. Are you running a commercial style car or home racing?

My track has the Professor Motor 2120 controllers and these are by far one of the best investments I have made for my own home track.

Image

We run everything from the commercial style models with H&R 40K, all the way down to Artin 15K. It runs them all rather well. We DO NOT run any commercial motors such as from Parma, JK, etc.

But our most common models are all Piranha, Stock Carrera/Scalextric/SCX, etc.

So YOU have to determine what types of cars you will be running the most and purchase accordingly.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby historiceng » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:44 pm

Thank you for your trouble Harry, that is perfect, I hope you don't mind my asking and my replicating your track.

Thank you both for the controller input. I am really just taking my first steps into slot car home building, I built a strange modified using bits and pieces a few months ago and now just beginning to build cars from Harry,s Galaxy bodies. As you say "Vintage 1/24" I really enjoy my home build far, far more than the standard boxed cars, it seems pretty sturdy too.

I think I will put the Parma away for now and concentrate on building an oval like Harry's.

Best wishes
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby RichD » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:16 am

A resistor controllers lack the flexibility to cope with various combinations of track style, voltage and motor types. It is a shame to leave a nice controller like a Turbo sitting in the box. It would be better install a more appropriate resistor, like a 35 ohm to at least get some use out of the controller. Parma still sells their full line of replacement resistors and those should be readily available in the US. Maybe you could arrange for someone here to purchase one and ship it to you.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby historiceng » Mon Jan 15, 2018 4:28 pm

Thank you RichD, I will be considering asking for some help with obtaining some items for future proxy races and so that would also be a good time to do that.
Thank you for your thoughts.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby smithspeedway » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:30 pm

Our oval is 18 by 6, 6 lane, no banking. The inside lanes are similar to the outside lanes above. We use Slick 7 MiniBrute, JK Hawk and Falcon etc. in our open classes. The 4 ohm did not have enough mid range throttle response to handle turn exit well, so most of the guys use 25-45 ohm controllers on everything (even our restricted classes which max at 21,000 rpm). We did learn that 4 ohm controllers work well if you change your gearing. By going down to a 7 tooth pinion, the 4 ohm controllers work well right in the power band. Having said that, we're also finding that SRP motors are less fussy than others about type of controller. One drawback to those is that if you are using old school dead strip lap timing, they don't always trip it.
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Re: Simulate Show Me Oval and Parma Turbo Controller Questio

Postby historiceng » Sat Feb 03, 2018 4:38 pm

Thank you for your help smithspeedway, it's a steep learning curve :)!
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