CarGoFast Light Kit

[Fumey]

Having trouble with the fronts and the "dome" flickering unless WOT applied. When removed from track/power supply, fronts and dome will quickly fade, brakes will stay lit. Tried replacing capacitor. Tried additional capacitor. Tried removing dome. Tried removing rectifier. All connections are good, no wires touching. Any suggestions?

[RichD]

What is WOT? With most of the light kits that I have seen white lights will go out soon after track power is off while the red lights stay on longer, sometimes much longer. I believe that is because white and blue LEDs operate at a higher voltage than red LEDs. I am not positive what the output voltage of the regulator is, but it must be higher than 3-3.3 volts or else there would not be a dropping resistor for each LED. Some light kits use a 3 volt regulator so only the red LEDs will need dropping resistors, red LEDs run at 2 volts.. Part of the problem may be that the diodes in the circuit have a voltage drop, but that should have been taken into account when the circuit was designed. Possibly the dropping resistors for the white and blue lights are not quite the right value. You have to use the resistors that are available, after you calculate the correct value you pick the closest available one, but it is safer to go for a higher value than a lower one. It might not be a bad idea to measure the voltage across one of the white LEDs first. If that is less than 3 volts the LED will be right at the point where it won't light. If you are willing to take a chance you could change the dropping resistor for one of the white LEDs to the next lowest value. You could then measure the voltage at that LED, after the dropping resistor, if the voltage is at least 3 but no more than 3.5 volts you would be good to go. If you run the LEDs even a little high you will shorten their life.
Here is an online calculator for selecting dropping resistors: http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz
In order to use the calculator you would have to know what the output voltage of the regulator is. You would have to measure that after the diode. You would also have to know what the continuous amp rating of the LED is, if you don't know 30mA would be a good guess for white LEDs.
If the output of the regulator is 5 volts and you wanted 3.5 volts the dropping resistor would have to be 56 ohms, the color code for those is green, blue, black.

[Fumey]

WOT is my way of saying "wide open throttle" lol... Did use the supplied resistors, was under the impression that if a resistor wasn't sufficient it just wouldn't work. I will try what you suggest. Thanks

[Smokeio]

Those front LEDS are some of the brightest white you can get and with that draw a lot of current. Unless you triple or quadrouple the capacitor (look for a super flux capacitor option in the near future) the front dims pretty quickly while the rears stay lit forever. If they dim right away, that's normal. The system works OK once you get them on the track and are running with them because in most cases you are not off the throttle long enough to notice.

[Fumey]

There's something going on. It's understood that the fronts will dim sooner, but these lights flickered on and off from the get go, and after several minutes of driving, they had no charge while the rears stayed consistent. No change when a second capacitor was added, think a third would help?

[Smokeio]

No. Something else is wrong. Put the car on the track, pick the tires up and hold WOT for a minute. Release the trigger and tell me what happens. Let's make sure the capacitor is fully charging.

[Fumey]

After WOT on a power supply (Dave W's "dynamic tech block") all the lights would stay on, the fronts dimming quickly, the rears remaining strong and bright. On the track, wheels up, WOT, remove from track, same thing.

[Smokeio]

[Fumey]

Yes.

[SlotCarCorner]

First, thank you Rich and Smokeio for jumping in to offer assistance to Fumey.

Next, put the rectifier back in the circuit! If the car deslots and inadvertently slides back into the slot facing in the other direction (or a corner marshal has a brain fart and puts the car back in the slot facing in the wrong direction), you will destroy one or more of the other components.

The circuit is working exactly as designed (see Smokeio's video). A larger capacitor will keep the lights on longer - the tradeoff will be space required and weight.

:D

[Fumey]

No, something's wrong. The lights staying on for x amount of time is not the issue. The front lights flicker and never reach a full charge when driving normally around a track. Only at WOT do the front lights fully illuminate, and then hold somewhat of a charge, and of course this is only achieved by holding the wheels off the track and gunning it, or putting it on the "rolling tech block".

[SlotCarCorner]

Any chance you might post (or send us) some close-up pic's of your lighting install? And possibly a video of the lights flickering (might be tough to capture that on video)?? The lights shouldn't flicker.

Also, what is your track voltage set at?

[RichD]

What sort of track do you have? If the track is a technical one with short straights the capacitor may never get a full charge and adding more capacitors would not fix that. In fact adding capacitors or using a bigger one would be likely to make the problem worse. You really do need to take some measurments to find out what is going on. On most tracks the lights would be running off of the regulator and the capacitor would be charging unless you were on the brakes. On a track with short straights and slow turns the capacitor might never fully charge and the LEDs would be running on the cap more of the time, probably not just when the brakes were on.

[Fumey]

It's the Cloverleaf store track. Pretty sure it's kept around 11.5v. Other CargoFast kits set up identical were running with no problem.

[SlotCarCorner]

Hello Fumey,

We can arrange for Mike to give you another kit (at no charge) and we'll send along a replacement kit to him. While the kit components are very reliable, there is always a slight possibility one of the components in your kit is not working correctly. If you try another kit and the problem persists, it would suggest something is not right with your install since the same kit is installed in hundreds of other cars (including some running at Clover Leaf Raceway) with no problems.

If you don't want to go the replacement lighting kit route, another option is to send us your car so we can double-check your install and test your setup/components firsthand. If this is a "top secret" build, we promise not to divulge any of your secrets.

Please advise how you'd like to proceed.

:text-thankyouyellow: