First Sightings Of the Advanced Digital PowerBase, We will need to know more Options

[injectorman]

True.

[gorp]

does anyone seriously expect scaly to come close to pbpsh

anyone see front page of wsj 5-24
nice analog vs digital slottin

[Spa67]

does anyone seriously expect scaly to come close to pbpsh

Actually I do expect it...although I also expect to be disappointed ....

After all the free SSD testing and work that has been done by Rich G, Riko, et al. Scaly should, at the very least, be able to put some decent mosfets in this thing and radically improve the output phase.

I have said it before and I will say it again. You can't call it a 6 car power base when you can't run 6 stock cars (with magnets) without a massive voltage drop!!! If six simultaneously running cars don't have the same top speed as a lone runner the thing is JUNK!!!

As for the rest of the bells and whistles... The competitors have fuel burn simulations so I expect the new console to have the same. I don't expect all the cool functions of something like SSDC, but it should have at the least the ability to play with fuel strategy.

Controller calibration is a must too, as is PB controlled max speed. Scaly announced these features so I expect them.

Here's the bottom line. It will be four years since the introduction of SSD this X-MAS. A few massively talented volunteers have used a little $ and a lot of elbow grease to take a throughly flawed and under tested system and make it work properly! If a multi-million dollar company can not do the same in FOUR YEARS that is beyond pathetic!!!!

...and no but "we're a big company, we have share holders to report to, it will increase the cost per unit by x cents" crap. Either you build something that works above a minimum standard or your misleading the consumer. There are shades of gray to most things, not this. If 6 cars do not go the same speed as one the toy does not work.

So If it will cost an extra $5 or $10 per unit to make the thing work properly then do it and pass the cost to the consumer. We don't care! We spend tons of $$ on cars anyway! I know the S-H costs a ton more than that but trust me putting a couple of decent mosfets on the board or on a daughter device would be a heck of a lot cheaper and it'll get the job done!

With Hornby's millions it should not be close to PBPSH, it should blow it out of the water.

But, based on my experience with most other SSD innovations (Most recently those wonderful DPR chips ), I am not betting my $$$ on Scaly.

Please Scaly, prove me wrong....

[SinclairZX81]

@Spa67 I'm not sure how much Scalextric can improve the power situation. I think CE regulations prevent them from selling a toy that puts out the kind of amperage that S-H gives. As for proper SCX style fuel simulation, they already announced some lame "pit lane game" instead. It's the people not $$$ that determine how well a company executes, just look at Yahoo!

[James J.]

Spa67, Well said !
Nicely put !
My thoughts exactly (for the last few years) !

[gorp]

see at scaly home
C7042 is priced at 45 pounds
so you expect a lot still ?

[Spa67]

@Spa67 I'm not sure how much Scalextric can improve the power situation. I think CE regulations prevent them from selling a toy that puts out the kind of amperage that S-H gives. As for proper SCX style fuel simulation, they already announced some lame "pit lane game" instead. It's the people not $$$ that determine how well a company executes, just look at Yahoo!

Actually it's not the amperage, the cars just don't draw that much. The S-H can handle a lot more current than the standard supply, but the real benefit for most of us is that under reasonable loads (ie, six stock scaly cars w/stock mags) the voltage does not drop significantly. It's this lack of voltage drop that allows six cars to drive at the same speed as one. The larger mosfets of the S-H are just more efficient, they don't heat up to the point where they quickly increase the resistance and drop the total voltage. The 4A 15V wall wart should be just fine.

And just to clarify, nothing "puts out" amperage, not the S-H or your PSU. The amperage rating is a rating of how much current can be drawn through a device. It's like how big a water pipe is. Anyway the point is you don't need the capabilty to handle a massive amount of amps. I do not expect the device to run six cars that each pull 400g on a magnet marshal and are armed with the latest weapons from Scale Auto and NSR. I only expect it to work well with the other products the company produces. Scalextric can do this within the strict european regulations, it is only a question of will.

I do agree that it is the people that determine how a company executes, but it is the decisions on how much $$$ they chose to invest in other people that makes the difference. You get what you pay for.

[SinclairZX81]

And just to clarify, nothing "puts out" amperage, not the S-H or your PSU. The amperage rating is a rating of how much current can be drawn through a device. It's like how big a water pipe is.

Thanks for the clarification I always get confused with the amps/volts thing. Still not convinced that regulations on children's toys would allow the kind of power we want, but I'd love to be wrong.

I do agree that it is the people that determine how a company executes, but it is the decisions on how much $$$ they chose to invest in other people that makes the difference. You get what you pay for.

Well by people I mean the people making the decisions. It's usually not the "do-ers" (engineers, designers etc.) in a company that are at fault, it's the management, bean counters and the bloody VP's Then again, Hornby, like any company is looking to turn a profit, and its clear the slot car profits are in endless collectors sets.

[gorp]

please excuse electrical ignorance
but
4 amp pack would handle 6 cars
and changers ?

[RikoRocket]

Lets compare power: 6 car PB will only let through 3.5A at a reduced voltage, so at around 6V thats 21 Watts. If the 15V 4A supply would really do "what it says on the tin" it would give 120W..... But I don't think we are in the realms of the living here. If they really want sufficient power for 6 cars and multiple lanechangers then they would need to do the same as last time - have facility for two power supplies.

[Spa67]

I am going to respectfully disagree.

First 15V x 4A = 60W

The original pb has two inputs designed to each accept a 12V 2.5A transformer...
12V x 2.5A x 2 = 60W

I have found that most of these things out perform "what it says on the tin" I have measured 12V scaly transfromers producing up to 13.8V

I can not see any reason for 2 inputs. They were probably in the original design because Scaly did not have anything bigger than 12V 2.5A in there arsenal. Or, they were worried that they would not be able to market a more powerful transformer. I tried to look up the European toy safety standards, but you have to pay to get them.

1 jack or 9 jacks, it does not make a difference. It is just a question of how much power is coming in.

As for the drop to 6V at 3.5 A in the standard PB, that is all about the inefficency of the design.

There no safety standard that says that your toy must be electronically inefficient, and that is the main problem with the 1.5 PB. In fact the inefficency argueably makes the toy more dangerous, as the lost power is turned in to heat.

In all my time with SSD I have not seen my amp meter get above 3. That's with up to 6 cars standard magnet cars launching at once.


I don't know why so many people accept Scalextric's production of sub-par products. There are plenty of other companies that produce working toys that comply with the European regulations. This is not mission impossible.

Maybe it is due to the 4 years having to to hack into everything to make it work right.


Seems like many people don't care if this product is "up to the task" let me tell you why I think it is so important.

I am close friends with my SSD dealer, he wants to set up a track for club racing and demonstrations. However, he will not do it with third party solutions, as elegant as they may be (PBPSH), because he can not easily sell the same to his customers.

I want more people to race SSD with. If SSD can have a "club level" product then it benifits us all because it brings more people to the hobby.

While most analogue clubs prefer to run third party software and electronics, I have seen some hobby shops run great races with scalys RMS system and wall warts. No reason that this can not be done with digital if the will is there.

[RichG]

OK well here's my take on the power issue, and as ever its both simple and complicated.

On the simple side I suspect the regulations limit the power that can be supplied, rather than the power that the Powerbase can cope with. That plays into the enthusiasts hand as Hornby can meet the regulations for a PSU whilst having a more capable Powerbase. None of us have ever expected to use the standard PSU in the long run.

Against that we have the dreaded enemy cost. In general more capability = more cost, and more cost = less profit so things tend to be designed down to a spec and down to a cost. In addition to the cost enemy we have EMC to cope with. With PB-Pro + S-H we have been able to ignore regulations wheras Hornby cannot.

The Power / voltage is lost at various points along the way, some are bigger than others but they all add up and as you take more current even things that were once fine are not any more. Some of them are relatively easy for the enthusiast to put right and others are more difficult. With Analogue they all fell into the realatively easy camp, with Digital they do not, and that's where the problem lies.

So working back from the car.

1) The In-Car controller. Very much a limiting factor particularily with high RPM motors, however not the real issue here, and at least the deficiencies only affect a single car and can be compensated for by the driver so long as the chip does not blow up.

2) The track. No difference here than analogue except that all 6 cars can be sharing a single lane, so the demads are much greater, however fix is the same. Good wiring to the track, Power taps, copper taping the rails, keep it clean.

3) The big issue at stake here, the Powerbase, so breaking it down further at this point. Experience based on the S-H development.

i) The wiring from the mosfets to the track. Every little helps, replaced by 20 Amp wiring in S-H.

ii) This is where it get's more complicated, the EMC chokes in the outpt stage. These drop a supprisingly large voltage in the standard Powerbase. About 1 Volt at only 4 Amps, which is about the limit of the standard Powerbase. We can just throw them away, Hornby cannot, and will need to reoplace them with larger more expensive ones.

ii) The mosfets. The biggest culprit, partially because of the choice of mosfet, but more because of the way they are driven. Mosfets need to be turned hard on in order to not drop volts. In the Hornby design they are not driven hard enough and that combined with their own volt drop due to their on resistance accounts for a significant amount of the lost and varying voltage.

This accounts for a further 5 Volts lost at 4 Amps. In actual fact the original 1.2 to 1.4 Powerbases were better, and because the mosfets were smaller and switched on better, less volts were lost. About a volt less than the 1.5, however that is negated by the fact that they tend to blow up.

The 4 Car Powerbase starts with 15 Volts, but is worse off for it because this is passed through 3 diodes to drop the voltage, leaving us with about the same as the 6 car Powerbase but with an even larger varying voltage due to the increasing volt drop through the diodes as the current rises.

So perversley, in terms of voltage delivered to the track the 1.2 to 1.4 Powerbases are the best and the 4 Car Powerbase the worst.

iv) Finally we have the PSU, not a big issue for the enthusiast as these are easily replaced by something better. I suspect Hornby use 2 PSU's to save cost in the initially purchased set. My measurements show the 6 car PSU to be 12.3 Volts and for it to be able to supply no more than 2.5 amps or 5 Amps as a pair. At 5 Amps the voltage has dropped to 11.5 Volts and then it folds back, voltage dropping rapidly to protect itself.

So this voltage change also adds to the interaction between the cars, but as previously said is easily fixed, so not a big issue.

When assesing what current is needed, it's worth remembering that even a standard 18,000 RPM Scalextric motor will unconstrained briefly take 1.5 Amps when pulling away from rest. So 6 of these are 9 Amps, throw crossing a lane changer into the equation and you have 11 Amps. In practice with the standard Powerbase you do not ever see this as all that is described above prevents it.

So as I said it's both simple and complicated. Making provision for what we want is complicated and at every turn it adds cost. Even putting aside whatever the Toy regulations are, the EMC regulations have to be met. I hope what we have done with PB-Pro + S-H Power at least shows what is possible and what the benefits are. Whether the costs involved are considered justified in the C7042 Advanced Powerbase we will have to wait and see.



Rich

[travelin_man]

Is the loss of power an issue with the other digital brands (Ninco, Carerra, SCX) also? If so is it as great a problem? Can another power supply be used to handle additional lane changers.

[jwalk2c]

Hi travelin_man,
I would imagine that Carrera,Ninco, SCX ,Scalextric all have similar power/performance that is what you would expect for a home track that is marketed towards the masses and not towards enthusiast.
The most annoying problem for me has always been the power surge when one car would deslote. And as far back as I can remeber this has always been the case with all home sets that I ever had.
Having said that; I was perfectly happy with my standard 4 car Scalextic digital pb , 4 Scalextric cars, 75 ft of track and the standard 15v power supply, no power taps and 3 lane changers. We could race 4 cars and no one noticed any lack of power or for that matter power surges were no big deal.
What was inportant for me to have fun is for everything to work well out of the box. Scalextric track is very forgiving,cars are bullet proof almost. Just plug and go.
Then I replaced the 4 car PB with a RichG 6 car PBProSH and a Regulated Power Supply.
Now the cars run as if you are at a club slot car track. So much power at just 12V and very smooth.
And like somone else pointed out the amps meter stays below 2 amps , most of the time below 1.
Now if a car deslots there is no power surge.
I just hope all the dedicated people who have did all this work for us to have fun keep interested in this hobby and live long prosperous lifes .
JohnnyWalker

[PhilR]

In all my time with SSD I have not seen my amp meter get above 3. That's with up to 6 cars standard magnet cars launching at once.

Well I would have to disagree with that...I have watched my amp meter spike up to 6 amps on startup with just 3 std Scaley a1 gp cars..And it bounces up and down between 2 and 4 amps when just running around the track...Those 3 cars plus a couple of extras..say aussie v 8's..has my amp metewr very busy!! usually well above 3 amps at all times..
Phil