Scalextric Digital (and compatible) Chipping Database

[MrFlippant]

This thread is for those who would like to share, and find, information about installing digital chips into cars for the Scalextric Digital (SSD) system. There are several chips that are compatible with the SSD system, produced by Scalextric as well as Slot.it (and possibly others in the future). If you are looking for help installing a chip in your car, start here. Look through the existing posts for help, or post your request for help so that other can respond. This top post can be edited in the future with direct links to the posts for specific cars, creating a quick reference to the posted examples. If you post a new example, please feel free to PM me to ask to add it to the list. I'll start off with a few examples of my own. If you have any requests, please post them! :)

[MrFlippant]

Another SP15b installation into a slot.it Classic car. Fairly straightforward with some minor mods needed to the interior.


Model from above.


From below. Some early 312PB chassis didn't have the hole needed for the IR LED, so one was added just behind the forward body mounting screw.


Chassis showing chip installation. I put the ferrite man to the side of the motor, with one leg extended by wire. This allows space for pod and body roll. That wire is not as close to the pinion as the photo makes it appear, and it is in no danger of rubbing.


Also an early model where the interior was not designed for the chip. Some minor material removal was needed to clear the chip components to allow for pod and body roll.

[MrFlippant]

Using a slot.it SP15b chip, this was a simple installation with only minor mods needed to the interior.


The model. No shelf queens in this collection.


The bottom of the car, showing the IR LED opening. You can also see the blue tack I used to hold the chip in place.


Chip placement. Fits well into the slot.it chassis. No need for an LED on leads. No need for a ferrite man at the guide, and there is plenty of room between the motor and body for the ferrite man on top of the motor.


This is an earlier model from before this chip was finalized. Only a couple holes needed to the bottom of the interior to clear a couple components on the chip.

I chipped this particular model for another club member for the DRAWW Slot.it Classics series that recently ended.

[MrFlippant]

From above. Not a lot of track time on this one.... yet! Runs like buttah!


From below. As I recall, some brief filing to open up the IR window a little was done just to be safe. I didn't like how close the LED was to one of the edges of the opening, so I opened it up to make sure I wouldn't have to do it later.


Chip install. Not a lot of room between the motor and the body for pod motion and body roll, so I installed the ferrite man off the end of the motor instead of on top. Works well in this position. The photo does make it appear that the solder on the ferrite man may touch at some point, so I'll have to double check on that and maybe put some tape there just to be safe.


Interior. No mods needed.

[MrFlippant]

Full gallery of original car and some chipping/chipped images at this gallery:
http://www.ggaub.com/cgi-bin/SlotsAlbum ... 13007&tn=1

One of our A1 cars took some damage early on, and the shell keeps popping apart in the back and making it not run well. We barely race A1s anymore anyway, so this one was chosen as the donor for my Impreza. It was quick work to pull all the pieces out of the A1. A quick solder melt and the chip with ferrite men was removed from the A1s motor. I left off that capacitor looking thing, though, as the Impreza didn't have it, and my other Scaley cars didn't either. I'm guessing it had to do with that motor? Let me know if I should put that on, but it doesn't appear to be necessary.

Anyway, I stripped down the Impreza almost completely. The motor has an odd clip that I didn't want to break, so it stayed in. That made mounting the LED a little harder, but I managed. The Impreza has lights, but I decided to worry about that once I got it running. After playing around with locations for the chip, LED, and wires, I warmed up the soldering iron and got to work. The LED happened to fit perfectly in a small hole just below the front drive shaft coming from the motor. I had to splay out the wires for the LED and finesse it into place around the drive shaft and then under it. It wasn't long before I had some things connected the way I thought they should be. I extended the leads on the ferrite man at the motor with some wire so that if it ran backward I could swap them. Maybe that's not a concern? In any case, I didn't need to swap them. I dropped a line of hot glue next to the motor and stuck the chip in there. I put a dollop of hot glue on top of the LED to keep it from moving around. It's sticking out of the bottom a little farther than I'd like, but I think it'll be ok. I only put the back axle in for the test, then finished up the wiring for the chip.



Moment of truth... I put it on the track, and ZOOM! It worked great! Changing lanes and everything. But my work was not yet finished.

Next I had to wire up the lights, then make sure the body would fit on. I was sure I'd need to get the dremel out, but I waited in hope that I wouldn't. After putting the front axle back in, I remembered that I saw some other mods where the lights took power right from the rails. But I thought the power off the rails was AC? I think I've got more learnin' to do, but I decided to do a scientific test. I took the body to the track, and touched the wires to the rails. the lights went on just fine. :) they weren't real bright, so I think I'll be safe not to burn them out. Even if they do, it should be an easy repair, as this one uses only two LEDs with light piping to the front and rear light "sockets". With that test proven, I decided to wire the lights to the pickups, same as the chip was getting power.



The AutoArt uses a clip/tab thingy to connect to the pickup leads, so I just soldered the light wires to those, along with the wires that were feeding the chip. After a little wire wrangling, I was able to put the body back on with NO dremeling! YAY! :) After some racing, it stopped working. Some of my hot glue got into a bad place. I cleaned that up, and she's running great since!

[MrFlippant]

I picked up a Carrera Hot Rod 'cus it looked cool. :) While it was winging its way to me, I checked out the chipping database to find Savage's Hot Rods. Unfortunately, "High Performance" is significantly different from the ones he did. :( I used some of his tips, but it was different enough that I decided to document it for everyone.

Here we see the beauty from the outside. Who cares how fast it really goes? It LOOKS fast and LOUD. :)


Here she is on the inside. Note that I've already disconnected some of the wires to the lighting chip. I love lights on all the time, so wanted to retain the chip and install the SSD chip in parallel.


It took a little thinking, but I found a good place for the LED between the housings for the polarity switch and the self-centering guide. It's tight, but it works.


Admittedly, I have too much wiring to fit in there (see below), but I still had to take some plastic out. There's no "shelf" for the chip to sit like on other models, and the cockpit comes down right on top of the light board and guide housing. First I cut the red part out, but that wasn't enough for where the chip had to be, so I dug into the cockpit itself.


Since the chip would be more or less resting on the motor and the spur gear, I decided to elevate it with a small bit of styrene board. It looks like it's touching the gear, but it's not. A dab of super glue to hold that in place, and then hot glue for the chip itself.


As I said, I've got too much wire. I'm still new to this, and wanted a lot to work with in case I needed to cut, strip, and resolder anything. If I ever have to open this up to make repairs, I'm going to trim down all that extra wire, and the next Carrera I chip like this (taking the chip's power off the lead from the light chip to the motor), I'll keep my wires shorter. Note that I put a piece of electrical tape on the back of the chip before gluing it down, to avoid shorts on the motor casing.


Here's the underside showing the finished chassis with the LED and modified guide blade. I had to do more to this guide blade than any other Carrera so far. Not only did I have to trim the length and taper the leading and trailing edges, but I also had to slim the whole thing up, as it would literally get wedged between the rails in some parts of my track. Drives very well now. :)


I hope that's helpful to someone planning to chip this car.
For wiring details, see Savage's HotRod Chipping where he retained the light board and took the chip's power from the motor leads off the light board. :)

[MrFlippant]

[munter]

Lots of good info there...even I could follow most of it.

[CJR]

I'm in agreement with that! Thank you for sharing.

[Czar]

Really nice post, Greg. You have done some very tidy work with those chips.

[BARC 1]

I am not familiar with the Scalextrics decoders. What is the purpose of the Ferrite man? The Carrera decoders don't seem to need them.

Cheers

Dan

[MrFlippant]

The Carrera cars come with a bunch of bits on the motor already, and may also have some things on their board, but it's possible one reason that the same is not necessary with Carrera Digital is that Carrera uses DC rather than AC like SSD does. Being that's a pretty fundamental difference, I imagine it has something to do with it, though I'm only speculating.

[BARC 1]

OK, that would explain it. Must be a filter of some kind to clean up the signal. I never realized that Scalextrics ran AC in the rails.

Thanks

Dan

[Nor Cal Mike]

I have chipped about a dozen cars to SSD, including some with Artin chassis, Ninco and SCX. Here is what I have found regarding Ferrite men. there is a listing at the SFI board of all of the capacitors that are usable for making your own ferrite men. Among them, is one identified as the 104. 104's are commonly used by nearly all of the slot car manufacturers to make their cars comply with EU regulations. The 104 used in SCX cars is especially nice because it has long legs. All you have to do to make your own ferrite man is to slip a double ferrite bead offer the legs and solder leads on each side of the bead. capacitors and double barrel ferrite beads can be gotten from electronic suppliers or EBay.

[MrFlippant]

If you can share a link to the right size beads on ebay or an electronics retailer, I would appreciate it. I've seen a few on ebay, but I'm always afraid of buying because they look either too big or too small.