Any AC2 system home tracks out there?

[viejoronnie]

In anticipation of setting up my soon to be 2 lane home track, comprised of two sets of 4 lane 1/32 Artin track, I looked at the AC2 system for running two cars in the same lane, which I recall was the method (or something similar) used on the 1960's Eldon Selectronic system.
I came across this site which took some of the mystery out of this idea (at least for me).

http://ac2car.org

[BRS Hobbies]

[mikeinclover]

The guy who made that website and basically made it a thing lives by me. I have raced on a few different tracks here. We have noticed that after racing some motors will will not run as well as they did before. It is a different way of racing slower that normal and no breaks.
Mike

[viejoronnie]

Right now I am just gathering tech info, etc. Those ancient lionel transformers can get kinda pricey, so I am looking for a suitable industrial substitute.

I don't mind a reduced speed. In fact a more scalar speed is preferable for me.

[Nor Cal Mike]

I still have an old experimental two lane, AC2car 4X8 wood oval between the rafters in my shop attic. I built it not long after I came back into the hobby in 2006. I haven't played with it in years. It worked pretty well. I never did scale it up. The crossovers are what turned me off to a larger track with more cars. Had I decided to stay with it, I figured out a three lane system that would run four cars but didn't require any crossovers. It basically had single A&B lane on right and left side of the roadway. Each side would pe paired with one of two side by side slots down the third "lane" in the center of the roadway. The right side A&B cars would race in the center right, The left side A&B cars would race on the center left side. Both the left and right lanes would merge into the center in some places to force all of the cars to play together.

[PWflyr]

I have one of those Lionel 1033's that is just gathering dust. If you decide build a track and you want it, give me a pm, I'm sure we can work something out. I am into trades.

On that AC2Car.org site is a link to White Lake F1 Ring, it's really cool.

Paul

[dreinecke]

I LOVE AC with slot cars. I only recently changed due to moving and making another track. I NEVER had any issues with motors.

If PWflyr and you don't come to an agreement, I have a refurbished Lionel #1033 90 Watt, transformer I'm about to list for $45 with shipping.

[RichD]

With the AC2 system the cars will not be running on pure DC, what they are actually seeing is half wave rectified AC. With a regular set type power supply the incoming line level AC first gets stepped down, then a full wave rectifier inverts the negative half of each 360 degree cycle so you get four positive 90 degree pulses. With a half wave rectifier you lose the two negative pulses, so there is a 90 degree positive pulse, a 90 degree zero amplitude pulse, a 90 degree positive pulse and another 90 degree zero amplitude pulse for each cycle of 360 degrees. For a given AC input you will get less output with the AC2 system. Even with a full wave rectifier there is going to be an AC component to the output, with better power supplies there is a filter capacitor to smooth out out the AC, but there is usually some measurable ripple. With a half wave rectifier it would be much more difficult to filter out the AC component. In the case of the AC2 system your rectifier is the diode in the car as well as the one with the controller. Actually one car is running on two positive pulses per 360 degree cycle and the other is running on two negative pulses per 360 degree cycle.
The large amount of ripple is likely to cause the cars to run at least a little warmer than normal. You could have a problem with that if you also use powerful traction magnets like the older Scalextric cars had. I would not expect the motors to be damaged, but that might be a possibility with higher performance motors.

[viejoronnie]

I was investigating a Lionel 275w transformer that could handle 4 trains that had variable 0-20 vac outputs. From what I gather frlm posts today, that won't harm 12vdc motors, but as you can see above from other posts, some problems did present themselves.
The first goal is to get the track set up once I acquire it.

[MoparGreg]

Hi. One of my tracks is AC2car. See here for my American Graffiti track - viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3470
Most of the photos don't work now as photo bucket changed there free accounts. Mine is a simple 2 lane track with 1 lane changer for each lane. I can run up to 4 cars at a time. I can also use it with DC power instead with just 1 car per lane if wanted. The only problem Ive had with it is Ive had to replace a few diodes occasionally. I think it happened when I ran a few higher RPM motors. Otherwise its been bulletproof. The lane changers took a bit of fooling at the start to make work with but now they are awesome. If you need any info about AC2car, ask away.

I fumbled my way through getting it running so Im sure you can get it running well.

[viejoronnie]

ac2car guys:

I think I have digested everything I can find regarding ac2car, but I have some questions.

Given that I want to adapt an Artin 1/32 4 lane set to ac2car, I know that I can run an A and B car independently at the same time in the same single lane (i.e. "hare and hound" racing, which is ok) for a total of 8 cars being run since each lane represents a single electrical circuit, but it appears to me that I can only run two cars in two adjacent lanes with one or more lane changes since that single electrical circuit is now applied to those two lanes. Is that correct?

BTW, I have figured out how to run multiple ghost cars in any lane by building some battery powered plastic pan chassis/magnet hard body cars with pins/reverse wedge guides front and aft to keep them in the slot at a reasonable speed. I could possibly modify some 1/32 scale RC cars the same way. Then even if I can only run 2 cars in two lanes with lane changes, 4 actively controlled ac2cars with lane changing racing around multiple ghost cars or with several drivers using the rc cars (speed control only) seems like it could be fun. Perhaps not like real digital fun, but ok for me for now.

Feel free to comment.