Last night was our first race night in some time so I was looking forward to having a good time. At the end of the evening 50% of my controllers need replaced. Luckily I borrowed some from my brother.........he left his stored in my garage so they were handy.
First, a controller simply did not work. Replaced, we were back to racing.
Next the entire system malfunctioned. A car took off on its own, the control unit went wacky, and then nothing. One of the guys went home and returned with his control unit, and it did the same thing! We took a lot of time connecting things one at a time and it turns out it was another controller. It must have shorted out.
So we are back to racing. And then a different controller had the plunger spring break!
I have replaced controllers several times over the years, but this was ridiculous. $135 in repairs for a few hours of racing! We usually run about 8-9 heats and we made it through 3 last night and spent the rest of the time fixing things. I guess I can take the spring out of one of the other broken ones and patch thing up, but at a minimum I am looking at 2 new controllers to buy.
I guess in addition to replacing the tires on all the Carrera cars with aftermarket, I should now replace all the controllers with aftermarket. And they are expensive. Maybe a few at a time will be easier to deal with. $480 for 6 aftermarket controllers is a bit much for me at once.
I also now have lane gates on all of my crossovers and that feature should be standard. It really makes ghost cars actually usable and cut down on accidents among the racers.
Anyhow, still a fan of Carrera but not the tires or controllers.