To slot.it factory. Re-design of handcontroller. Options

[MrFlippant]

Talented or not, I don't think any product can be designed successfully without the designer really understanding what's needed. Although a room full of monkeys on typewriters would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, I don't think the ideal slot car controller would emerge from the mind of a person who has never raced them. There's a lot more to the design of a controller than whether it has the right number of buttons or triggers.

[b.yingling]

Talented or not...There's a lot more to the design of a controller than whether it has the right number of buttons or triggers.

Have to concur here. The assemblers in the Chinese factories who build all of our slot goodies are far more talented than I am at handling and assembling small parts. Yet still they sometimes deliver cars to me that fail to complete a lap w/o serious help. No understanding of or experience with the finished product is no more an aid to design than it is to assembly. Nor is ignorance required for a fresh approach.

[UshCha]

Clearly there are the basic limitatons on slot driving that would influence derigh of the "ultimate controler", if such a thing exists. Fighter pilots sit down, which helps. They use HOTAS (Hand s on Throttle and Stick). The stick (role and pitch) is on the Right side and has lots of buttons. The left just the throttle.
Interestingly the normal way to fly model helicopters is Mode 2 (roll and pich on the smae stick). However real experts are said to prefer mode 2 (pitch and yaw on the right). Personally there may be something in haveing an RC aircraft transmitter layout, say Throttle on the right and brakeing level on the left so you can dynamically drive brakeing (you would need the in car pro chip for scaley for this to be a truly analogue ajustment). Like the man says the interest is in thinking out of the box, realistic or not. RC boxes have switches but you have to take your finger off the stick to get at them. Could they be placed under a "none working" finger? We would wand a CPU in there to be the Pit crew telling us lap times, fuel levels at various lap times based on current lap times and how long to stop in the pits based on fuel consumption. It may be an advanced box could be built with mi
Giro mice or the throttle and dynamic breaking anyone? Probably not me.

[Profoxcg]

I work in the electronics industry and I can't recall anyone EVER saying the iPad was a stupid idea. RC controllers are that size and shape because they need 2 toggles, up and down and left and right then on planes and helicopter models other bits and pieces for whatever else. I'm not being offensive I'm just stating my opinion, it's an open forum. This person has stated their opinion I'm stating mine. It is my opinion that it's a ridiculous idea, what would be done with the rest of the spaces and buttons is beyond me.

My opinion: Your point of view is very ignorant and immature... the rest of the controller could be used for buttons such as track call, lane change, lights on/off, ect. Maybe the idea is not an XBOX controller but a controller that is ergonomic period. Maybe your intentions were other, but you came across like a total ...... [fill in the blank]

[RichG]

I think there is always room for inovation & new design in all things. If for no other reason the advances in electronics, size & function that make things possible now that were not when the original design was done.

So looking at controllers things have not changed much over the years and even with the advent of digital slots all we have gained is a couple of buttons. That said my gut feeling is that some sort of positive trigger mechanism is likely to be preferred over any sort of joystick or tilt mechanism?

However if I was doing a digital controller from scratch, it would of course have to be wireless, batteries included in the handle. Once you have used wireless you never want to go back. I think the next thing I would look at would be some alternative to the Lane change button. For some reason I still find lane changing can upset the car control. So one could consider a tilt / G sensor in the controller, tilting the controller to the side to change lanes might be intuative and work? In a similar vein perhaps variable brake level dynamically adjusted by tilting the controller forward or back might work?

Then finally looking at the overall shape, that has typically come about because of the need for a hot wire wound resistor to have some cooling. Now not necessary so the whole thing could be slimmed down, perhaps fitting in the palm of the hand. Perhaps Wii nunchuck sized with a trigger in place of the button on the front?

So plenty of scope for change, would it work better? Possible not. Would it be accepted? Yes if Lap Times were faster.


Rich

[Lasp]

Thanks a lot RichG for a progressiv and positiv thooths (tinking).
Of course will it be place for change, I will use my wireless controll even @ the analog tracks!

[fw14b]

Everyone are entitled to their own views and opinions.Criticising other peoples views and opinions is wellcome,this kind of talk is
rubishing them thus unacceptable and offending.I dont think this is what this forum is about.Or if i wanted to reply your style i'd write "i've read destructive criticism before but not as stupid" but i dont because it leads nowhere.

Gash is entitled to his opinion and is entitled to post that opinion on this forum.
For the record, I agree with Gash.
Perhaps we should all have a nice Recaro with pedals and a steering wheel.
This hobby is suffering because of X Boxes etc. the further I am away from them the better!

[Benjamin]

fw14b> Each to their own. Many people including myself are 'old school' and communicate to each other over the internet like we are face to face. Despite the bickering I found this an interesting topic.

Ben

[Gash]

I wasn't aware an opinion can be immature but there you go. Maybe I went about it wrong, apologies, however i think the response may have come from frustration at the amount of utter ....... (fill in the blank) I read on here from what I can only assume are total ........ (fill in the blank) like yourself

[UshCha]

Being a RC pilot, all be it a bad one, it would be imteresting to see how much worse I would be with an RC plane/Helicopter type throttle. I certainly think if you were starting from scratch you would proably have different controls in each hand for digital. Currently the "Bouncer" pose is what we use but I can't quite believe its perfect mix of controller and man.
I always though the thumb controller was ditched due to cooling issues like on old scale controllers, not because it was the wrong action.

Come on guys thinkg out of the box. If nobody dreamed, we would not have got scaley digital and SSDC and the world would be a poorer place. Its an interlectual challenge even if it never materialises as a reality. Its poinless being negative. SSDC's Black box uses an arduino. Thefore the brake could be activated by a glove. There are prod std glove type strain gages that inteface with the system and not stupidly expensive for the truly dedicated follower of fasion.

[GregK]

What is the point of doing too much to change the throttle when we might be far better off changing the way slot cars pick up their power and get rid of these awful braids at the same time??

[UshCha]

I suspect thats sort of done with D nanos. Trouble is you do need giros when cars are that small. You cold at least in theory make the cars follow a wire. Unlike the mechanical follower desighn being pattentes I suspect you would now do it with hall effect followers and power using Li-Poly battries like the D nano. At this sort of scale keeping an RC type model on a standard scaley track would be difficult. See the Dnano thread. Assuming it still has no steering the controller design could be the same. It would potentially be possible to use a wireless system like OXYGEN to run the car off batteries eliminating braids but not the guide. Again the controller design could be different even if just for the hell of it.

[MrFlippant]

Forget batteries. Who wants to change them? Who wants to put new ones in every car they want to race?
No, we have a track with a defined path for the cars, let's put it to use. So the rails tarnish and the braids get dirty and worn. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. ;-)
We need a cleaner way to get power to the cars without offloading the supply to the cars. How about magnetic induction?
Of course, I'm sure the expense will be through the roof at first, but once everyone switches to it, the price will come down.
Nevermind the added weight of the receiver unit in cars that people do everything they can to make lighter for better performance.
Meh. I think I'll just stick with INOX for a while longer. ;-)

[UshCha]

If we look at current electric transport most still use "braids" be they wheeled or not electric trains underground etc. Slot cars are not going to advance that. Possibly you could have a few "chargeing points" which inductively charged a battery. But in the end the question was controllers. Be it wire following, battery, inductive loop or just guide. Assuming that it is throttle only, all would need a controller to have the same functions as today. The question still is "are todays controllers the best possibe in design for the man machine interface?". Battery or battery less that is imaterial assuming they remain guided, throttle only systems.

[John Cahill]

I have three brief comments I'd like to make, and it might sting a bit. Please read though, because any future posts that go against the following
will be deleted.

1) This thread was hijacked from the very beginning (unintentionally). The very first response was to tell the OP that his thread didn't have merit.
That is simply not a constructive opinion and resulted in almost half of the conversation revolving pro-and-con around that remark.

2) An OP has a right to start any thread without worrying whether someone is going to subject him to public ridicule. Period. It is not an "opinion" to
say "that is ridiculous".

3) You never know which "silly" idea will lead someone else to think of something else that's brilliant.
In a truly creative environment, whether it's new electronic gadgetry or writing comedy, the only behavior that will get you
thrown out of the room immediately is a comment like "that's ridiculous."

I'm sorry if this steps on toes, but we're all big people here. Let's just let it go, and move on. Let's try to be constructive in our comments.

Also, one last thing...it's the very people who tend to shut down a creative discussion who turn out to be extremely good at being creative, once they
get the hang of it. So, this is not meant to be an attack on anyone....just an invitation to join the party!

with best regards,
John