MasBlast-O Ring

[masmojo]

[masmojo]

OK, Just when you thought, this thing was dead! :lol:

It's actually just been on the back burner, I got a bunch done over the winter of '14/'15 when it was too cold to work at my other house, but the this last winter was pretty mild so I had to concentrate on finishing that. Well, work on the old house is slowing down the FOR SALE sign is in the yard and I am slowly, getting back to working on this (and other things).

I have done a little scenery, but I was sort of held up on problems with my drivers stations, frustrated that I was not running due to these problems and not having time to sort it out properly I decided a couple months ago to just bang together some basic drivers stations with XLR plugs. I built them and finally had time last night to wire two up and get a couple lanes going! YEAH!

Will post pictures Soon!

Progress should move at a steady clip now!

[Jabbatee]

Hey Mas,

Looking forward to seeing pics of your progress!

Joe

[RichD]

Somehow I missed this thread when you started it several years ago. Most people are not aware of how much power their cars actually use. Slot car motors use a lot more power when they start up than when they reach full speed. A Slot.it 21.5K motor has a 3.1 ohm armature, so knowing the track voltage you can at least calculate the starting current, which is 3.2 amps if you run your track at 10 volts. Actually measuring the starting current is difficult. An analog meter with a needle can only measure continuous values and a digital meter must be time averaged or the display would flicker too much to be readable. The perfect thing to use would be a digital meter with a peak hold feature. One of the Shoreline Model Raceways tracks had a power supply with a digital amp meter of the time averaging sort. The track had three lanes and was run at 10 volts. With three cars that had Slot.it motors on the track I saw 6 amps when the power came on. Once the cars got rolling the cars averaged about an amp. No doubt you are aware that with a small unregulated power supply running several lanes there will be power surges. A common solution to that problem is for each lane to have its own power supply. If the power supplies are not regulated the voltage will still fluctuate to a considerable degree, even if they are quite large. If you have a good regulated power supply it is not necessary to have a separate one per lane provided that it is large enough. I am not a big fan of having a lot of bells and whistles built into a track's drivers stations, if you were to hold formal races on your track they could cause problems. You already have a voltage regulator for each lane, but those will not be fully effective because the power supplies are too small. In any case you will have to use something to knock back the 18 volts from the power supplies that you have or the cars will be undrivable. The voltage regulators do not have to be mounted at the drivers stations, but it would be nice if they were easy to reach.
What you have will work well enough for a start. I am one of those obsessive people that wants to be positive that my track is running at the correct voltage no matter what. I have two 20 amp regulated supplies for a four lane HO track. High end HO cars can easily draw 10 amps. If I was you and I had finished everything else I would consider getting a good 10 amp power supply at least. Those can sometimes be found for less than $100.

[masmojo]

Understood Rich, but the truth is this track is unlikely to see any "organized racing". Might race some friends and family from time to time, but mostly it's just me. The way I look at it is, if everybody/lane has their own power supply, then they can crank it up or drop it back to suit their driving style; this is far more of a factor when running no mag. where cranking it up to eleven is really just a recipe for disaster. Also, It ultimately gives me a little more flexibility the next time I go to build a track. put power taps on the lane and attach each lanes power supply. I like the simplicity of it.